Granted you and I both have some issues.” Tears start to fall. “After the miscarriage, it just seems as though we dealt with everything individually, not as a couple. We never shared how we felt. I need to tell you how the loss of our little boy made me feel. And, you need to tell me the same.”
Tina’s eyes welled with the tears that she never shed with Bette when they lost the baby.
“Tina, I am so sorry we lost our baby. I am not sure I ever said that to you. I ...am ...so ...sorry. Words cannot describe the total sense of helplessness I felt. I felt like you withdrew and I couldn’t reach you. I couldn’t share your pain and you didn’t share mine.”
“But you couldn’t share my guilt!” Tina was crying hard. Her sobs interrupted her words.
“Guilt? What guilt?”
“That my body rejected our baby. My body, not yours. I know you had to hate me then and I’m sure you still do!” Tina’s sobs shook her body.
“TINA, look at me.” Tina looks up to meet Bette’s soulful, tear filled eyes. “I never blamed you. I would never blame you for something like that. Is that what this has all been about? Guilt?”
“Pain and guilt. I can’t seem to get past it. Day to day, most days I do ok but, when I see you it all comes rushing back. When we are together we don’t have our son. I look at your empty arms and know how much you wanted this baby and I LOST OUR BABY.”
Bette leaned close and wrapped her strong arms around Tina. She knew that she could not hug her pain away but, she could hold Tina hoping that her arms could absorb some of it. “Tina, if I ever gave you the impression that I blamed you, please forgive me. I never felt that. I never thought that. I cannot imagine what would make you think that.”
“Bette, I guess you never really expressed it. It’s more about what you didn’t express. You just seemed so stoic, so impenetrable. I was falling apart and I was falling apart alone I thought. I thought you hated me.”
“Tina, I could never, I would never hate you!
