Love Is... Simple

Love is… Simple

Jo March

AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.

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Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

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Phone: 0800.197.4150

©

2013 by Jo March. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/20/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8245-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8246-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8247-4 (e)

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Prologue

1.   It happened in a heartbeat

2.   Not wanted…

3.   My heart will go on

4.   My partner in crime

5.   The end

6.   The Middle East

7.   My present arrives

8.   I stand up

9.   My birthday

10.   Into the unknown

11.   I have love

12.   I look up

13.   I would die for you

14.   My light in the darkness

15.   I’m back

16.   Heaven

17.   Goodbye my love

18.   Hell

19.   Venice/Rome/Bologna

20.   Hell humbles

21.   Destiny takes over

22.   My prayers are answered

23.   The night before

24.   Beyond all recognition

25.   The morning after

26.   Time to let go

27.   Love is life

28.   The first time I saw him

29.   It was a beautiful moment

30.   Keep the faith

31.   The last time I saw Him

EPILOGUE

This book is dedicated to my Dad who taught me that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile.

Tears are words that need to be written. - Paulo Coelho

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My friend, my editor. Thank you for believing in me, for encouraging me to keep going and for always keeping the faith. You made this a wonderful experience for me, and I feel so very blessed to call you my friend.

The Charles Bukowski estate—verse from The Shower.

Celine Dion and Will Jennings—verse from the song My Heart Will Go On.

1

Prologue

You say you have only felt something close to this once before. I say the same. We sit on the edge of the lock looking down into the water.

You tell me to watch.

I say that it feels like it’s drawing you in; that you cannot control it. It is complete and utter freedom.

We both agree we love water. So what are we to do? What are we to do? We both ask the same question, at the same time, with no answer. What is about to happen is irreversible; it is more powerful than the strongest sea. We are about to get swept away in the fastest river with nothing to hold onto but each other.

Whatever happens, I ask you, don’t let go!

And you promise me to hold on. To hold on till the end.

2

It happened in a heartbeat

Ms Wyatt please report to Room 5.

Is there a Ms Wyatt here?

Ms Wyatt! I am jolted out of my thoughts as my eyes look up meeting the receptionist who is frowning furiously at the lack of response in the room… MS WYATT!

I stand up. Yes that’s me, she glances. Her look is as stern as the instruction that follows, Follow the sign - Room 5!

I follow the sign that leads to Room 5. The door. I open the door. I don’t want to enter but I have no choice—I have to know. I have left it hoping, praying, pretending, that it wasn’t happening. I still hope.

Good morning, Ms Wyatt, what can we do for you?

I look at him not wanting him to speak. I want him to stay there with that smile on his face, that warm reassuring smile that says everything is going to be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end.

I had a fall and hurt my back… I mutter as I hold onto my slightly swollen stomach. I watch as he writes on my notes. My doctor is the old fashioned kind with microscopic shorthand for writing: a new editor adding another paragraph to my life: the life in a manila file that has been recorded since my birth; the life that has had moments of despair; the life that has brought me into this room to ease my suffering in my time of need; my life on the page.

When was the date of your last period?

The fourteenth of February, I mumble. It is now May.

Three months. Have you had any abnormal bleeding?

No, not really, I pause. I have to tell him… I don’t want to tell him but it’s best to tell him. Well, just this morning… Nothing much really… Just a little bit…

The smile on his face disappears. What’s left isn’t so much sorrowful, or even a grimace, but an expression that is worse than both: the look of the unknown.

OK, slip your trousers off and hop up onto the bed.

I close the curtain behind me. I unfasten my trousers, I try to pull them over my boots but my boots are too wide. I pull them up to remove my boots and I am fastening my button. I pull them up and I am going, I am going home.

Are you ready?

Sorry! Just a minute I’m almost there.

I unfasten my button, take off my boots and trousers at double my normal speed, and lay back on the bed. He enters, bottle in hand, with that cold metal contraption and the lovely light.

I’m just going to give you a little examination. I need you to do a urine sample and take a blood sample. Just relax.

Just relax? Why do they always say just relax, when it is the most un-relaxing thing in the world? A strange man is shining a torch into the core of my being—please God let there be light.

I look up at the starck, bowl-shaped lamp on the ceiling. Why don’t they put nice lamps in hospitals? It would make this whole experience so much more pleasurable if the light was a nice colour.

I am just going to make a little examination of your tummy…

That word, little. I have heard that word, little, said like that a million times. It’s the kind of little when something big is coming. Something so big that they are trying to soften the blow with the word little supported by a comforting smile.

No, I protected it. I held my tummy; I put it before mine; I saved it. I was up in the gods, and the force was there. I know its heart will go on. It will still be beating.

He picks up the paddle—well it’s not exactly a paddle, more like a flat plate. He rubs something onto my tummy and rolls the paddle over it like an ice skater tracing a figure-of-eight.

He takes off his latex gloves and picks up the urine bottle. If you would like to get dressed and come and sit down… He exits.

I sit, I turn, I dangle. I am dangling off of the edge of the bed, like a child that has just had its first examination, my legs unable to touch the floor. I wait, I wiggle, I drop to my feet. I grab my trousers. I bend forwards; I look down; I am bleeding… I am bleeding more than this morning. I pull on my boots; I like these boots. I pull up my trousers; I open the curtain.

He is sitting, his back to me, writing; he is writing in my notes. I wish I knew what he was writing. I wish I could see before he speaks. My notes know more than I do.

He turns. Take a seat.

I won’t take it, that would be stealing!

He smiles supportively. Where did that come from? I have no idea. I sit. He looks up. He has that smile, that lovely smile that says it’s all going to be ok in the end. I smile back.

I’m sorry

Did I hear that right? I am aware of the vacant look that stares back at him.

I’m sorry

Yes, I heard it right. The vacant look is gone.

I’m sorry, Ms Wyatt, but unfortunately you are in the early stages of a miscarriage. It is nothing to fear… it will just be a little heavier than a normal period. It’s quite normal for it to start off with spotting and small bleeds. I can give you some information on people to contact to help you through this… There are lots of good support groups… He hands me a leaflet.

I smile. I smile again. Thank you I smile the biggest smile. He smiles back. I can feel them coming—I can feel them. They are there; there in the back of my head; they are building, they are building; they are pushing; they are bursting; they are through and they are flowing.

He hands me a white tissue.

I love him… I mumble through my jerky hyperventilation breath. No, please, please tell me it’s wrong. You can be wrong can’t you, it may stop.

He takes another tissue, and another, and another.

I cover my eyes: white is all I can see—white… And yet everything feels so dark.

It will all be OK, he soothes. It feels extreme right now but people get over these things it just takes time.

I cannot reply. Actually, no, I do reply, but in my head. It’s not fucking OK. It’s fucking wrong. Get over it? How can you get over it? It’s a life. I love him. I want his child; this is all I fucking want. It’s not going to be OK. I want to fucking die! In my head I reply, but the words miscarry.

There is nothing right now that can stop the flow of this river.

3

Not wanted…

The car is full to the brim, overflowing in fact. I drag one last suitcase up the drive, bumping into my neighbour on the way.

Oh, you off on a long holiday?

I look up, not really wanting to say that my suitcase is full of DVDs… that I am going away with a suitcase of DVDs to a cottage in the middle of nowhere—the most remote part of England—to try to get my head around what has just happened to me. I need to understand why this happened? I need to understand the anger that I am feeling. Anger that I have never felt before. I realise in this moment I have never felt hatred before. In 39 years I have never felt hate for anything. I know that is probably hard to believe but it’s true. I always find the good in things—as my dad used to say, forever the cock-eyed optimist! Right now I feel nothing but hate, and I feel it about myself.

Where are you going? My neighbour forcefully drags me back into the conversation.

Sorry! Yes, I’m off for a few weeks to write, I smile. He is impressed—impressed that I am an author going off to write some amazing story so that one day he can tell his friends that he knows me.

Oh, how exciting!

No, it’s nothing… just a story for myself. I’m not a proper writer… I have to tell the truth. I cannot lie. I can already see him in his mind telling everyone that it will be a bestseller.

Well, you never know… it might be a bestseller!

No, trust me, this one is just for me.

He looks at me strangely and makes his exit.

Well, have a lovely adventure.

I smile, waiting a second for him to leave then continuing to drag my suitcase… just in case it flips open and spills the DVDs in front of him.

The car is packed. I am ready to leave. I sit in the driver’s seat, take a deep breath and start the engine. The minute I pull away from the house, that’s when they start—the tears. And they continue for the three-hour journey. I drive, and drive, until finally I turn a corner and there it is: the cottage, the little cottage in the middle of nowhere. Fields, marshes, cows, horses,