I lie in my husband’s arms in a bed I haven’t slept on in over four months. I’m cradled in the crook of his arm, rubbing my hand over his flat abdomen to feel the ridges of his six-pack. My husband has a way of making me feel loved beyond measure, and with him wrapped around me, I feel safe. I never realized until now how much I missed him and what a colossal mistake it would have been to end my life. I now feel a river releasing from my eyes. He tips my head back, and while he kisses my forehead, he asks, “What is this about, Ems?”

“I could have lost all of this.” I stop for a second, now fully understanding what I put him through. “Fuck, Ty! I could have lost you. I don’t want that.”

“You are here now, and we are going to get you the help you need.”

I scoot away in our bed, out of his warm embrace, feeling slapped and betrayed by those words because after making love like we did, he still wants to send me away? I realize what I could’ve lost, and I want to work on it here, at home, with him. “No, I realize my wrongs. I don’t need help.” He tries to pull me back, but I hop off the bed.

“What the fuck was this, Ty?” I ask, pointing at the bed, at him still naked, and all our clothes strewn through the room.

“This,” he says a little more sternly than I want to hear, “was me making love to my wife and showing her”—he points at me— “that I love her.” With him now near me, I wave him off. “But this doesn’t change the fact you need help.”

“No, I’ll get help here. I’ll even go every day. I just want to be home with you at night.”

His eyes look pained as though I stuck a dagger into him. “And, Ems, what about Aspen? You never mention her.”

Oh, yeah, my child I can’t will myself to love, look at, or even pick up. “Um …”

“Exactly, Ems. If you never wanted a baby, I could accept this, but you wanted her, hell, more than I did, if that was ever possible, and now that she’s here, you make it seem as if she’s expendable. But she’s not. She’s our daughter, and I want both my wife and child under the same roof. I want my wife to love her as I love her.”

“I can’t, Ty,” I simply say.

“And, Emma, this is where I know you too well because the Emma who was pregnant with her wanted her more than your need to breathe.” When my husband says these words to me, I understand he’s still going to send me away. His hand extends to me, silently asking me to return to him. My posture and the fact I’m not budging tell him there is no way in hell I’m doing that.

“Ems, come on, honey. Come back here.” He pats the side of the bed where I had just been nestled next to him. “Please, sweetheart. I want to love on you some more.” His deep brown eyes are begging me. I know him well and have seen this look of earnest. “Please, Ems, before we have to say our goodbyes.”

That is when what I almost threw away hits me. But anger still rages in me. All these decisions are being made for me, and sure, I get it. I scared the fuck out of everyone. No one is asking me what I need or what I want. “Goodbyes? When the hell is this?” As he starts looking away and not meeting my gaze, I know it is soon, too soon. I don’t want to say goodbye to my husband yet, but I can’t get away from him fast enough either.

“Ems, I wasn’t planning on this.” He’s now sitting naked on his side of our bed, on top of the crumpled covers, and pointing at me. “But, honey, we are here now. Fuck, I have missed you.”

“Tyler, how fucking long do I have in this house before I’m sent away?” I scream, and before he can answer, the doorbell alerts us that someone is here. When he looks at me straight in the face, I understand now our time together has come to an end. Standing up, Ty slides on some shorts and comes toward me, closing the gap between us.

A lonely tear slides down my face, and the doorbell rings again. “Better go get that,” I say.

“They will wait, Ems,” he replies, wiping a lonely tear before it reaches my lips.

“Ty, please, I promise, I’ll try, even with the baby.”

“Ems, do you hear yourself? You can’t even call her by the name we chose. For heaven’s sake, we made her in love.”

My anger now rages from deep within me as I say, “No, she was made in a test tube.”

He backs up, choking on my words. “See, the Emma I love would never say that. Regardless of how she came into existence, our love made the baby we dreamed about for years. When you couldn’t carry a baby, you told me you were a shell of a woman. Do you remember saying that?”

And the next words out of my mouth come so quick, I can’t take them back. “And because of that baby, she made me the shell of a person I am today. It’s all because of her.”

He looks at me, searching my soul. Then it’s as though he sees through me when he says, “And that is why you need help. The Emma who cried month after month when she’d start her period would never say those words.” When the doorbell rings for the third time, I think he has left me to answer it, but he leans back on the doorjamb and says, “I have packed for you already.” Then he’s gone, leaving me alone in a room that is as empty to me now as it was after I had the baby.