Twenty-one years later

We got in, Ann flopped exhausted onto the couch and I made us a cuppa. When I took it through, Ann was staring fixedly at the fireplace.
"Penny for them" I said gently.
"Where on earth are we going to start?" She answered wearily.
"Let's start with the good times" I suggested. "I'll go and get Laura's box."
"Do you know where it is?" Ann asked.
Inwardly, I had a sudden flare of temper. 'Course I know where it is - where I bloody well left it yesterday', I thought to myself!
"It's under the bed in the spare bedroom" Ann shouted up to me.
But when I got there, the box had been moved to the other side of the bed!! I was flabbergasted; for all these years I'd been so careful to always return the box to exactly the same position as I'd found it. Ann had obviously been looking in there too!! Why didn't she tell me, why couldn't we look together, why couldn't we share the only thing that joined us yet kept us apart.
"Can't you find it?" Ann shouted up.
There was something in her voice that sounded different and seconds later I could hear her coming up the stairs. She walked into the bedroom, took the box out of my hands and put it behind us on the bed. Then she took hold of my hand and kissed it before she sat down beside me.
"I don't think we need the box to come between us any more Pete. I know that since forever we've both been pouring all our unspoken grief into that box instead of talking to each other, but now I think it's time to move on!!!!"

I was just about to say something when she stopped me.

"Just let me talk Pete" she said so quietly that I could only just hear her.
"I know I'm the one that insisted on the silence since we gave up trying for a baby, but it came to me in a blinding flash when we were hugging in the graveyard: we've just got to let Laura go; it's killing the you and me in 'us'.
I was absolutely stunned, as if I'd suddenly beamed down into another dimension.
"Say something Pete" prodded Ann after the silence had grown into an elephant.
I turned and looked right into her eyes, trying to probe her soul.
"You knew?" I asked in a voice that sounded incredulous, even to me.
"Course I knew" she said lovingly whilst patting my hand as you would a hurt child. "Course I knew. I knew every time, no matter how much care you took to try and replace things in the box exactly as you found them. I really loved you for that. And me like a silly Moo carried on the charade. I just feel as if I've been wallowing for ever, while life passed us by. And I think I want to talk before we let Laura go and get on with today. Will you help me do that Pete?"
Tears were streaming down my face as I nodded my head slightly, gave Ann a weak smile and started to get up. Suddenly I was overpowered by a desperate need to hold and be held by Ann: I swung her round and we became as one.

When we got back downstairs, I think we were both aware that things between us had changed massively. We were about to share all the hurt and pain that individually, we'd so effectively managed to grow inside ourselves like a malignant cancer until there were so many 'no go' areas in our relationship, that it felt as if we were each surrounded by a minefield. How many times had I dreaded this moment that I'd always been sure would eventually come! Yet here was me, in the time it took to go down stairs, considering the thought that maybe two new people were about to be born!

I think the word 'outpouring' about covers it. I think that instead of the expected 'grief,' the over-riding emotion was some sort of guilt!!

We never did find out for sure why Laura died other than that she was ten weeks premature. Apparently, Ann had always thought it was her fault to the extent that, unbeknownst to me, she had twice come close to committing suicide. Her Mum had actually caught her about to do it on the second occasion. My 'couldn't stand the woman' reverted to 'she's OK' in an instant on hearing that!

"I know I shut you out for months after we lost her and although the consultant said that we should try again as soon as we felt ready, I just couldn't stand you coming near me physically."

I must have looked shocked to hear voiced, something that had previously been only a deeply imprinted memory. She obviously felt me tense up and started (I guess) to try to soften what she'd just said. I started to withdraw my hand from hers, she got the wrong idea, and clasped it even tighter. I gently loosened her grip with my other hand and placed it over hers and said,
"No, don't stop; let's get all the gore out of the wound instead of constantly sticking more and more Elastoplast on it. It's got to heal sometime and I can't think of a better birthday present for our little girl. Go on.... please Ann. She interrogated my eyes before continuing.

"When we eventually decided to go and discuss IVF and saved enough money for our contribution, I remember the consultant uttering the devastating news - that it had a very low success rate. Then when you went for your sperm count test and we found that it was low, it seemed like the end of the world. You went on the medication to improve things from your end, and month after month we did everything we could around my ovulation time to increase our chances. Every month the pregnancy test kit showed the same result. Nothing. It was soul destroying. I hated myself. I blamed you. It was never making love; we were mechanically trying to make a baby. And.....and ..we ...failed ........ No; no, wait Pete, don't say anything... I began to hate my unproductive bloody production plant, I hated your useless Willie ..I've spent nine years in a pit, and I'm ... I'm .. fucking fed up with it!"

It was many minutes of painful sobbing, streaming eyes and running noses before she managed a loving tentative smile and said "Pete, you're a wonderful man. How you've put up with me all these years I'll never know .... Can we go back and start again, or has too much happened, or have I said too much?"

"Just about right Pumpkin" I said with a smile conveying ten years worth of relief and a future full of happiness. "I think a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake are called for, waddyah reckon?"