Rather than Resenting: Ch. 4

When Answers are Naught

Notes:

This is a long discussion, very introspective, and really sad and just not happy. This is not a happy chapter and I'm really sorry about that. For that matter, this isn't a super happy story 😅😣

Anyway, it's running parallel to the previous chapter in terms of when it occurs. Everything that has happened in this story has happened on the same day within less than three hours, but I promise we'll see the kids soon^^ (i.e. chapter 5)

*****

“Mama, why is this happening?” Sara whispered, holding Cerlon as close to her as she could without accidentally hurting him. He fussed a little despite her best efforts, but it was nothing like the way Evnia or Elquinn — rather, Elquinn, for the most part — had acted when they had been irritated or uncomfortable. His attempts were feeble at best, nonexistent at the worst, and it scared her. It had scared her all week.

From her spot on the edge of the bed, Nia looked at her, her eyes grieved. “I truthfully don’t know,” she said sadly. “There isn’t always an answer. I think this is one of those times.”

Sara sighed. It was never supposed to be anything like it was in that moment. She didn’t understand how she could give birth to a perfectly healthy set of twins with next to no complications, and then six years later first struggle through the pregnancy and then give birth to a child who barely had the strength to eat. She looked at Cerlon lovingly, wondering if she would have become more or less attached to him if he had been born on time, healthy, strong, normal, and guaranteed to live. Somehow, though, she felt that even as every thought and glance she directed towards him seared her heart, her love for him grew deeper and stronger. She loved it, she loved it so much, but she couldn’t stand it at the same time.

Struggling in a battle against tears, she squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to keep them at bay. “But why hasn’t He given an answer?” 

Her eyes still closed tightly, she heard Nia let out a shaky breath and felt her heart breaking. Nia had been hurt so many times by reasons that were entirely out of her control. It felt so dreadfully unfair that a woman who was willing to give so much, who was willing to love so many people, who was willing to comfort her in her sorrows that were nothing like those she herself had faced had to suffer again and again and again. What did people do to deserve something like that?

“I don’t know,” Nia answered truthfully after clearing her throat. Sara suspected she had been making an attempt to dislodge the tears gathered there but said nothing. Everyone was entitled to tears at a time like this and a part of her longed to beg her adoptive mother to simply pour out her heart to someone. Of course, it really wasn’t simple. Not for someone who had held every tragedy captive for so many years. The only time she remembered Nia crying had been the day after Leeli and Thorn had brought Kalmar back. There had been nothing before that and nothing since.

It didn’t seem right to Sara that she was unable to offer her any support, considering how many times Nia had done the same for her. They had talked in the past seven days, then she had wept, then she had been held, then they had prayed, then they had talked, then there had been silence. The cycle would start over again the next day. 

She had yet to break down that day and hoped it would remain that way. She wanted to believe she had finally accepted that whatever the Maker willed would happen, and there was nothing they could do otherwise. He had shown so many other times that His Will often hurt, often seared, often ached, but good always came from it. Eventually. 

Cerlon mewled pitifully and Sara kissed his baby-soft cheek — though it was not as soft nor untroubled as that of a healthy child — in an effort to hold back her tears.

After blinking rapidly and coaxing back all but one tear that rolled down her nose and slipped onto Cerlon’s face (she quickly and carefully wiped it away as gently as she could without disturbing him too much), she looked back at Nia. “What good can come out of your child’s death?” She asked, her voice breaking. The dreadful sinking feeling in her stomach came after the words were out, and a bitter taste filled her mouth. “Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, wanting to know why she had asked that question and how she had forgotten.

Tears actually brimmed in Nia’s eyes this time, and she raised her hand to dash them away quickly. She smiled a little and let out a half-laugh, one of those smiles of surprise and laughs of sorrow that came from grief. “I don’t want to give you false hope,” she said at first, her voice shuddering. “But I can’t lie to you either, Sara darling, I just can’t.”

Sara nodded, still frustrated with herself for bringing up memories that, while thirteen years prior, truly were filled with grief.

“You have to depend entirely on the Maker," Nia said softly. "No one else can comfort you, not in the way you want them to. They can utter kind words, they can offer reassurance that one day, some day, it will be alright. That you’ll smile again, that you’ll find joy in the small things. But it’s impossible to believe it in the moment of grief and anger, and the One you want to lash out at is the only One who can make your heart whole again.”

She wanted to ask Nia if she was giving Janner similar advice, largely because she was concerned that such words would convince him even more fully that he could keep silent and not speak with anyone about what was happening inside his heart. Really, though, it’s more likely that he hasn’t spoken with her at all. 

“You’re…only giving me this advice because I’m already talking…about everything, right?”

Nia smiled at her sadly. “In response to the actual question hidden inside your words, no, I haven’t misled Janner into thinking that not speaking is the best way to solve his problem.”

Sara nodded, thankful that what she had worried about briefly was not the case, but still concerned at the way the situation was in that moment and had been for quite a while. 

She had not been blind to everything roiling inside of him during her pregnancy. Of course it had been difficult for her being sick and tired constantly, being near-miserable at times. But a part of her almost felt as though it was worse watching a loved one suffer and be incapable of doing anything about it than any personal suffering. She had seen the worry in his eyes, she had seen the stress written on his face, she had been able to feel how emotionally drained and exhausted he was just by being in the same room as him.

Nia apparently saw her frustration and grief, because briefly jolting Sara out of her thoughts was a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder, then a squeeze, then a pass as Cerlon, swaddled snuggly, not so much to keep him from moving around, as he heart-wrenchingly did very little of that, but to keep him warm, passed from one pair of tired arms to another pair that were stronger and more steady. Nia looked at him closely, checking for any signs of discomfort that were diaper related but apparently found none.

Sara closed her eyes, not wanting to think about what that meant even though she already knew she would be. Cerlon should have been eating more, he should have been filling more diapers, he should have been gaining more weight. Newborns lost weight after birth, but by that point he should have been getting some of it back, and certainly no one could deny that they should have had to clean him more times a day than they did. 

It was a dreadful thing, though, to dwell on things she had tried and failed to change. A part of her felt as though she was failing those she loved more than anything in all of Aerwiar. She was failing Evnia and Elquinn by barely being able to be there for them, she was failing Cerlon by not helping him, she was failing Janner by not forcing him to talk about what was wrong, and most grievously, she was failing the Maker by not trusting that what was likely His Will was the right thing to happen.

She thought of Janner, then, and knew he was struggling with similar thoughts as well. Understandably so, but the problem was that he refused to open up to anyone. A part of her was frustrated and wanted to yell at him and ask him just why he hadn’t told anyone what he was going through. She didn’t need him to tell it to her, Artham or Kalmar or Nia or even Arundelle, though unlikely, would do. 

But why did she have the strangest feeling that he had yet to cry out to the Maker? Not that he had not prayed, of course. She distinctly remembered multiple nights in the past few months when she would wake up when it was still dark out and he would be by the open window praying that she would be alright physically and spiritually, that the baby would be alright, that nothing life-shattering would happen. But she had never heard him praying for himself, that he would be alright, that he would get through it. Since she had given birth, any prayers she had awakened to had been disjointed, grieved, and perhaps even angry. She had heard no, “Please, help me endure this,” only, “Why, why, why, why, and please just let him live.”

She wanted him to talk to her if he was unwilling to speak with anyone else, she wanted him to pour his heart out to her, she wanted him to allow himself to weep in her presence. If they could share their burden with each other, it would all be so much easier.

Interrupting her thoughts, though they had not necessarily been pleasant ones, so she minded not, Cerlon opened his eyes, whimpered weakly, and shut them again. In response, Sara adjusted her position into one in which he would be able to feed easier, worried all the while how long it would be. 

How long, Maker, how long? She cried out. How long until You decide?

How long would she have to bear watching her child suffer while standing by helplessly, unable to do anything but raise her hands and voice and beg for an answer?

*****

Notes:

Okay, the entire point of clarifying Nia's statement is to show that she's simply telling Sara the raw truth: that losing your child is probably one of the most painful things in the world and no one can really give you complete comfort when something like that happens. That is NOT to say that she's telling Sara to bottle everything up because she's not. She's only giving Sara this advice because Sara has already opened up to her multiple times.