Read Online Chai Tea Sunday by Heather A. Clark - Free Book Online

and was certain that Eric was coming to check on me. To take me into his arms and tell me everything was going to be okay. I strained to listen and heard him enter the office. He shut the door and it sounded like his muffled voice was on a conference call.
    Anger snapped through me as I sat straight up, mascara clumping my eyelashes together and leaving stains on the white pillow case I had been hugging. I got off the bed too quickly, causing pain to snake through the site of my incision, and I burst through the door to our office.
    â€œSeriously, Eric?
Seriously
?! You’re doing work?
Today
? Ten
minutes
after we said goodbye to Ella? Are you seriously that cold?”
    â€œTim? I’m going to have to call you back.” Eric clicked his BlackBerry off and turned to face me, his eyes pierced and angered, yet lined in devastation and sorrow. “Nic, you knew I was on a work call. You can’t come in here like that, yelling at me. . . .”
    I cut him off. “We just had the
memorial service
. For our
daughter
. How could you? How could you even think about work?”
    â€œThe Stevens case is going to trial tomorrow and I had to talk to Tim about some last-minute details. I can’t help it if the world isn’t stopping for us.”
    â€œLet someone else at your firm deal with your fucking case. I don’t give a shit about it, and neither should you, Eric.”
    â€œNicky, please, you need to calm down. Our family is right downstairs. . . .”
    I knew he was right, but I didn’t care. I was beyond furious. He had pushed me too far, and newly formed anger coursed through my veins like pulsing blood. I no longer cared — about anything or anyone.
    I stared him straight in the eye, and heard the silence of our families sitting downstairs, uncomfortable to be with each other and unsure of what to do or say. “Maybe we should go?” I overheard Amelia say quietly. Then, a moment later, the soft click of our front door being pulled shut.
    â€œAre you happy? Now our family is gone and they think we’re crazy.”
    â€œYou
are
crazy, Eric! You don’t even want to deal with what’s going on. You just want to pick up where you left off and pretend that nothing happened. We had a
daughter
. She
died
.”
    â€œYou think I don’t know that, Nicky? You think I
don’t know that
?”
    â€œWell, you sure as hell aren’t acting like it.”
    Eric threw his BlackBerry across the room, leaving a chipped divot where it bounced off the painted wall. “Fuck,” he grunted, his frustration reaching a new height. He crossed the room and picked up his BlackBerry to inspect it. Made sure it was still working. “I’m getting out of here for a while, Nicky. I can’t deal with you, or this, right now. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
    â€œFine. Whatever, Eric.” My husband squeezed past me and exited the room. He didn’t bother to look back to see that my legs had buckled under the weight of my grief and that I was curled up, sobbing, in a ball on the floor.

7
    Somewhere over the next few weeks, our marriage also died. We tried to fix it, of course, but we were at a complete loss on how to make our marriage work after experiencing such unequivocal tragedy.
    The social worker assigned to us by Mount Sinai referred us to a local therapist who specialized in working with parents who experienced the death of an infant. But it seemed that even
she
couldn’t do anything, or even suggest something, to help us repair our relationship.
    She recommended that we also join a local grievance group that helped parents who had lost a baby. I had hoped there was truth in the old adage that misery loves company. It doesn’t. At least not for Eric, who wanted to shut the world out and never speak of Ella again.
    â€œWould anyone else like to say anything? Tell us how they are feeling?” Shannon, the group leader, asked towards