Neither of them is capable of sleeping much that night. It's next to impossible to talk to about even when they both recognize that reasonably, they should.
But instead, the questions that wander through their heads dominate. They exist on the same page, focused on one central question: if not that, then what? There had to be some kind of cause for their inability to conceive a child together. This ectopic pregnancy was a point of divergence. So early on, Jackson couldn't think of it as their child. It was a malformation of their cells inside of her, not a child to be held and loved. April couldn't make the same division in her mind if it would have saved her life, instead, her heart was deeply embedded in the fact that there was a cluster inside of her, a little piece of the both of them. And it would be removed – it had to be, or the consequences could be fatal. That doesn't make the emotional burden any easier.
The alarm block blares in the morning and Jackson's motion to unwind from her frame and slam it off is harsher than usual. He returned to her frame to brush his lips over the shell of her ear and whisper a greeting before getting out of bed to start up the coffee pot for the both of them. By the time that he returned to their bedroom, she had disappeared into the bathroom.
April doesn't bother with her normal morning routine of getting ready. It didn't feel right to make herself presentable. She washed her face and slapped on moisturizer, running her brush through auburn waves, and left it at that. Leggings and a sweater are put on, unable to go through with anything more professional. Today, she wasn't a doctor. Instead, she was the patient. And she knew how this was going to affect her in the future. It wouldn't make things easier. Even with a laparoscopic procedure, there'd be scarring along her fallopian tubes. It only added to the list of challenges instead of resolving them.
Interrupting her train of thought was her husband, and she watched for a moment as he brushed her teeth and got dressed. She sighed as she washed her hands, watching him come up in the reflection of the mirror behind her and kiss the top of her head once more, giving her shoulders a small squeeze.
"Are you ready to go, babe?" Jackson questioned quietly, afraid to raise his voice.
"Yeah, we need to get going," her emphasis was placed on the latter half of the words because it was hard to lie. She wasn't ready. She couldn't possibly be.
"C'mon," his murmur was gentle, arm moving around her waist to walk out to the car. He'd already packed her bag with everything that she needed and put it in the backseat, not wanting her to have to lift a finger. Even if he couldn't make the emotional burden any easier for her, at least he could do something for the physical one.
Jackson was slow to guide her into the car, opening and shutting the passenger door for her. The quiet that came from April was eerie to deal with. She'd always been much more of a morning person than he ever had, and the role reversal was unsettling. NPR filled the quiet of the car on the drive to the hospital, somehow feeling shorter than the hundreds of times that they had made the trip before. Red lights past in an instance, poor driving no longer stirring any annoyance inside of them. They park, and they sit there for a long moment.
Certain times, there were just no words that could be said. The silence was painful, but speaking did not make a difference. Jackson reached over for one of April's hands, taking the smaller one between his and giving it a gentle squeeze. No matter how they wanted to put it off, they couldn't.
As much as they both wanted it to slow down and try to take a minute to process, they don't.
For a harsh, selfish moment, April was glad that she was going to be put under for the procedure. At least it was a few minutes, hours, where she wouldn't be burdened by the knowledge of what was going on inside of her body. And for an equally cruel moment, Jackson was jealous of her. Arguably, there was something different about their experiences: he was a bystander and she had to deal with it actively inside of her. Yet attempting to put what they were going through side by side was incomparable. No matter what could be said about it individually, there was one word that summarized it without any doubt. Pain.
He couldn't bring himself to wait down with the other families while it was being done, sitting in the attendings lounge. No one had been told exactly what was going on, but a glance at the O.R. board would have indicated that April was in there and why. That was more than enough explanation, any words that he could have offered would have fallen short in a description. It was better to just leave it at that.
When April had been moved to post-op and the worst of it was supposedly over, Jackson waited patiently for the anesthesia to wear off and her to come to. Both of his hands were wrapped around one of hers, bent forward so that his forehead rested on top of theirs. A stranger could have mistaken his pose for praying, even if that was far from the case. He had never been able to find faith or comfort in the idea of some kind of higher power, but he didn't need to. Instead, he found it in her. In them, their life, everything that they had together.
"Mm…" April made a quiet noise as she slowly came to, heavy eyelids opening. Without her contacts, everything was a little blurry. But the figure of an ever-loyal husband seated directly next to her was still easy for her to recognize. "Hi, baby," she murmured in a raw voice.
Jackson smiled sadly at her for a brief moment, his back cracking loudly as he straightened up to grab her a glass of water. He guided it to her lips carefully, making sure that it didn't spill as she drank.
"Hey," he finally responded, setting down the cup when she was finished. His hand moved to tuck her hair behind her ear. "Dr. Montgomery said that the surgery went well," he informed her.
April snorted. "That's ironic," she commented with a shake of her head.
"What do you mean?" Jackson questioned as he sat back down, his hand finding hers again.
"That it went well. We had to abort our baby so I wouldn't die, but it went well." Bitterness laced her words heavily, a darkness there that was rare to find inside of her. It was one that was rare to find inside of her, yet as her husband, he couldn't be surprised to see it there. Of course this would bring it out.
"You know what she means," he murmured to try and calm her.
Her eyes fly to his face with accusations. "Why aren't you on my side?"
"Babe, of course I'm on your side," Jackson's brow formed a deep furrow as he spoke. "You know what, I just don't want you getting worked up about this, okay? You need to spend the next few days relaxing and recovering. Not getting worked up about what she's saying," he explained, trying not to take offense at her assumption. "I'm on your side. I'm always on your side, April. You know that." His hand moved up to rub her arm gently, holding back the sigh that was desperate to leave his lips.
"I just want to go home," April looked away from him as she spoke. She didn't want to argue with him, even if her head couldn't help but get caught up on the details of what Dr. Montgomery had said. Maybe she wasn't dying because of it, but nothing about this was fine.
As much as he doesn't want to leave her side while she's this upset, Jackson forced a nod of his head, finally letting out the inevitable sigh. "I'll be right back, okay? I'm just going to go check up on the discharge papers." He rubbed the length of her arm once more before he stood up to go follow through on his word.
Wallowing at home would have been much easier than sitting here in the hospital, feeling like an open duck as she laid on the patient bed. Any of he coworkers could have come by at any time and see the condition that she was in, they could have come in with their questions and comments that would have done nothing short of infuriating her completely. Lashing out at people would only lead her to feel worse in the long run, she knew that about herself. The sooner that she could get alone to lay in bed, the better.
Dr. Montgomery makes another round to check in on here, glancing at the incision site and giving her some followup information that, well, she already knew. She barely responded to anything that was being said to her, hearing without any real comprehension.
Compared to the short drive that was coming in this morning, when the two of them finally go home at the end of the day, it feels impossibly long. The traffic is much lighter and when it came down to the minutes, that wasn't the truth. There wasn't the same rush hour to work with. And yet it feels impossibly slow all the same as if the rest of the world was rushing around them and the two of them are just left sitting there to suffer.
Jackson carried her from the car to the reclining chair in the living room, setting her up with blankets and pillows, making sure that she was as comfortable as he could make her. Both water and tea are put on the table he shifted closer to her, giving her access to the remotes and placing down two books for her: All the Bright Places, and the Bible. April does a small double take when she noticed the particular books that he had laid out for her.
"You're trying to keep me from wallowing," April observed, hazel hues flickering up to his face.
"A little, yeah. Do you want me to make you some soup? We've got that tomato basil from Whole Foods," he suggested, watching her carefully. When she nodded her head and leaned back in the recliner, he breathed out in relief that she didn't make a big deal about his selection and made his way to the kitchen to prepare it for her.
As heavy as her heart was, for a moment, April doesn't want the comfort that the Bible normally had to bring her. She was dealing with too many doubts, too many questions for him, and she knew that Bible inside and out. The answers that she needed weren't going to be found in there. Somehow, she'd have to find it elsewhere. She just didn't know when or how that was going to happen. Instead, she skims the cover and the first chapter of the other book that he'd sat down, mentally too detached to become invested in the words on the page.
Jackson set down the soup on the table with her, napkin and soup beside the bowl. He sat down on the couch only a few feet away from her, unable to stop himself from watching her. He was worried about her and it was so much more than just the laparoscopic surgery she'd gone through.
"How are you feeling? Any pain?" Even if it was relatively minor on a physical basis, he had to ask.
"No, I'm just tired," she answered with a shake of her head. Picking up the bowl of soup, she swallowed a few slow spoonfuls. "I think that I might take a nap." She mused.
"It's late, you might as well just go to bed," Jackson commented. His eyes don't waver from her for even a moment, cross-legged and staring.
April barely made her way through half the bowl of soup before the exhaustion began to take over in full. She skimmed through a few more pages of the book though still doesn't quite absorb the happenings of the book, and Jackson doesn't move from his spot on the couch of watching her. Until quiet snoring began to fill the air between them, her book open, resting against her stomach. A long moment of admiration passed, smiling fondly at her and for a few brief seconds, able to forget everything that they had been through that day.
He carried her to bed, setting her down gently and making sure that she'd be warm underneath the covers. Not wanting to disturb her, Jackson took to sleeping on the couch for the evening.
The next few days of recovery go by slowly and quietly. It's an easy thing to recover from and Jackson doesn't take more than the day of and the next off from work, returning back to surgery even if his thoughts remain on his wife at home. April had taken a couple more of, even if it's in part for mental recovery more than physical. She makes her way through the book and rereads a few others, to the point where some chapters she didn't take away any of, and others left her in tears. The last thing she needed was more emotional trauma, but at least in the text, it was healing. It came to a resolution, tied neatly together, in one form or another. She was just waiting for her own life to come and do the same.
Even if it felt like that was in the distant future.
But the time off, she'd come to her own resolutions about the future and what it did and didn't hold. All of the time to herself at home meant that she had a little too much time to think. Books and television could only offer so much of a distraction for her. It was just hard to have the conversation with Jackson. She knew what family meant to him.
Which was why she waited until the night before she had to go back to work. A tiny strategy, in case things went completely terrible. At least then, she'd be focused on work instead of nothing. That was a significantly better distraction than anything she could have found around the house.
April waited until the two of them were in bed that night, warm in silky pajamas beneath the sheet of her bed. She'd been in it for awhile now, waiting for him to finish up in the bathroom with shaving off the awful mustache that had come up in the past few days. Normally, she would have greeted him with a soft smile when he climbed into bed with her, no matter how tired she was. But with everything on her mind now, she couldn't muster it up.
"I've been thinking about us, the future," she started slowly, laying on her back so her gaze was on the ceiling.
"I know how much having a family of your own means to you. That it's why you've had such an active role in trying and doing everything that you can for me. And I know that you'd be a great father, Jackson. I don't have a doubt about that. But I don't think that I want to keep trying, baby. This is just… it's too much. To go so long, begging and praying to get pregnant, and then why I finally do… to be handed this? To have to abort the only child that ever took? The chances of ectopic pregnancy only increase after you've had one. And I don't want to go through that again. I don't want to keep trying."
The speech that April delivered resulted in absolute silence from Jackson. It was clear that she had already made up her mind on the matter. The rational part of him knew and understood that this was her body and that because of that, it was ultimately her decision, her choice, not his. And yet… the irrational part, the sensitive husband inside of him, is hurt. Tears glistened inside of green eyes, and it's good for a brief moment that she's not looking at him.
"You're sure?" It's the only thing that he could muster up at the moment, throat tightening. He doesn't want to argue with her despite every fiber in his body disagreeing with the ultimatum that she had produced. Jackson had been imaging a family with her for such a long time, a little perfect mixture of the two of them. Throwing that away now? After all of the months of trying, the frustrations? It seemed irrational.
And yet, there's still a tiny flicker of anger inside of him that comes with the blow. There had been so much blame that she had cast on him for why they hadn't been able to have a child of her own, after the misdiagnosis of her fallopian tubes being blocked. Even if she'd never lashed out at him verbally about it, it'd been clear that she thought it was his fault. And Jackson had thought that about himself for awhile too, even though it had never been intentional. The hooking, the chlamydia that came from it – that had all been on him, and only he could take responsibility for that. Yet now, it seemed as if the tables had finally turned. She was the reason that they wouldn't have a family. The guilt and shame that he had been wearing for months had finally uprooted itself from his gut, and yet the negative energy couldn't just disappear. It had to go somewhere, no matter how he wanted to try and keep it off of her.
"I'm sure," April confirmed with the slightest nod of her head, still refusing to glance over at him.
"Okay," the bed shifted as he spoke. "I"m going to go sleep on the couch," Jackson announced without so much as a second glance at her.
"Jackson–" April attempted to call out after him, sitting up on her elbows to watch his retreating backside. "Can we talk about this?" She's sure that he could hear her from down the hallway, but there's no response or reappearance. A little ironic, perhaps, that she was the one trying to talk, yet she had made it clear at the same time that there wasn't much to talk about.
The silence now was heavier than that of which filled the house the past few days. Lonelier, too.