Sudden Death

I folded our warm white tow­els while Tatiana, only twelve months old then, napped in her bed­room. Erik and I had been mar­ried just over two years and, already, I was four months preg­nant with our sec­ond daugh­ter, Keira. Erik and I both felt the same intense love for Tatiana and were excited to have another baby right away. But there was no excite­ment in the house that day. The house was quiet, except for the annoyed thoughts I could hear myself think­ing about Erik. Sick of his crap. We had not been speak­ing to each other for hours. I stacked the tow­els neatly into the closet, pass­ing Erik in the hall. I did not look at his brown eyes or admire his thick black hair. Instead, I grabbed a new set of sheets and I walked away...

I walked in slow-motion towards Erik’s closed, mahogany casket. The old stone chapel was filled with famil­iar faces. There were faces from Sky­walker Ranch and other Lucas par­ties, faces I had pho­tographed in my stu­dio, faces from my bridal shower, my wed­ding, and Tatiana’s birth. I kept my head down. As the preg­nant widow, all eyes were on me, but I did not want to be seen. Direct eye con­tact would break me open in a way that I would not be ready to be bro­ken open for years. Dressed in an ankle-length mater­nity skirt, long-sleeve black shirt, and the com­fort­able three-inch heels that had taken me hours to find just the day before, I sat in the front pew. My brother, Troy, and his wife, Jen, sat next to me. Only ten feet ...

Three years had passed since the last time I had seen Erik. This would be inter­est­ing, I thought, as I fin­ished draw­ing the black eye­liner on my upper lids. I slid into a just-tight-enough pair of black pants and declared the match­ing vio­let sweater set win­ner of the “I want to look good, but not too good” con­test. My bed was made for the first time in weeks, its invit­ing pur­ple and red che­nille cov­ers set­ting a serene and sen­sual mood. It was time to present myself as the suc­cess­ful baby pho­tog­ra­pher. Time to show that I was a together 26 year-old woman, some­one who learned from her mis­takes, some­one will­ing to take respon­si­bil­ity for her actions. Time to apol­o­gize for all of the crap...

I stretched out on the green vel­vet couch, my legs rest­ing in Carlyn’s lap. My statue of Quan Yin, the God­dess of Com­pas­sion, hov­ered above us, on the fire­place man­tle. Quan Yin was peace­ful and wise—exactly what I strived to be—her stone arms out in front of her, her hands open wide. The light from the can­dles illu­mi­nated Carlyn’s long, curly brown hair. Her green eyes con­nected with mine. We were present, no lies between us, no false pretense. Car­lyn spoke softly. “I keep see­ing his face … Erik’s face.” I stared at her, blankly, and said nothing. “Over your shoul­der, his eyes look­ing at me. Do you see him like that?” “No,” I told her. “I haven’t seen him or felt him since just a cou­ple of...

At the hos­pi­tal, just thirty min­utes later, I stood over his body in total disbelief. Erik was stretched out on a steel table in the Emer­gency Room. Eyes closed, arms at his sides, he was motion­less. There was no sub­tle rise in the white hos­pi­tal sheet where the air once filled his chest. This can’t be real. The body in front of me was what had been car­ry­ing my Erik, but my Erik was gone. It was as if I had been able to feel his mas­sive spirit pass through me—a dis­ori­ent­ing con­sump­tion of my senses—in our kitchen, dur­ing my call to 911. All the while my brother had tried to revive him, all the while I had repeated to Tatiana that “Dada was going to be OK,” I had known it wasn’t going to be OK. Some­how,...