Afterward, I returned to work too quickly.
Lauren folded the tiny onesie her mother had bought and placed it in a box.
I told myself she needed space.
The truth was, I needed distance from a sadness I could not fix.
At the bottom of the storage box was that onesie.
White, with a small embroidered moon on the front.
I picked it up with both hands.
A sound came out of me then, low and unfamiliar.
Not quite a sob. Not yet.
The unit seemed to shrink around me. I pressed the fabric to my mouth and remembered Lauren standing in the doorway of the half-painted room, one hand resting against her stomach, smiling shyly as she said, “Do you think yellow is too cheerful?”
I had said, “No. Cheerful is good.”
We had planned a life in that color.
Then lost it.
And instead of grieving together, we had become polite. Careful. Functional. We had stepped around the empty room until eventually we closed the door.
The accident had not created all the distance between us.
It had revealed it.
I stayed in the storage unit for nearly an hour, reading only what Lauren had marked, touching objects I had once packed away without understanding that memory does not disappear simply because it is boxed.
When I finally stood, my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I answered quickly. “Hello?”
“Mr. Hale?” a woman asked. “This is Marissa Venn from Calder & Lowe. I represent your wife, Lauren Hale.”
My throat tightened. “Yes.”
“I’m calling to confirm you received her written request.”
“I did.”
“Good. Mrs. Hale has agreed to a brief mediated conversation tomorrow afternoon at two. It will be virtual. I’ll send details to your email.”
“Can I ask how she is?”
There was a pause. “She is safe and receiving care.”
“Is she with her mother?”
“I’m not authorized to disclose her location.”
“Please,” I said before I could stop myself. “I just need to know if she’s all right.”
The attorney’s voice remained professional, but not unkind. “Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale anticipated you might ask that. She asked me to tell you this: ‘I am not alone.’”
I closed my eyes.
I am not alone.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“There is another matter,” Marissa said. “Mrs. Hale requested that you bring any documents related to the May insurance disbursement to tomorrow’s meeting.”
