If Only I Had Told Her

by Laura Nowlin

I don’t know what Finny would want.

“Can you write it down for me? I’ll decide later.”

There was a bit of Finny still in me when he died,

and it wasn’t until after he was gone, sometime as I was weeping and screaming, some moment when my soul was crying out for his, that Finny’s child started to form within me.

This baby isn’t what’s left over from our love story. This baby is our...

I’m going to need to take extra pictures of your baby’s heart, and she’s moving around. I think that candy you were eating is hitting her now—”

but I can tell you that she is probably going to be fine. And yes, it’s a girl. And she’s absolutely perfect, except for one little thing that will probably be just fine. Okay, Autumn?”

we cry a bit and smile together some, because Finny and I are having a daughter, and she’s probably going to be fine.

Finny would have loved this view.

Finny isn’t here to see it. I breathe through the ache.

I have to get used to the sight of things that Finny would wish he could see, because I’ll hopefully, probably, be seeing our daughter for the rest of my life.

There is a small hole in ...

but it’s closed enough that it’s not a problem. And sometimes it is a problem.

babies go to sleep and don’t wake up.

toddlers need surgery to save their...

I’m taking a break from editing my novel, not because I need to cry, but because I need to think.

I explain to her,

little beloved.”

I doubt it’s going to come to me in a dream.

he responded most to being named Phineas and called Finny by family.

but she’s adamant that he chose his name.

She and I have both agreed that we’ll be there in case he breaks her heart too.

I was surprised by my confidence when I told him that everything was probably going to be just fine.

“She already has so many people watching out for her,”

He seemed excited to have an excuse to escape what sounded like a madhouse.

I’m looking forward to telling him that the baby is a girl.

“I hope telling you this isn’t too weird, but I think you should know before I come to Thanksgiving tomorrow in case it’s a problem for you. Something is happening with Sylvie and me.”

I know it’s a really weird situation, but I wanted you to know…in case it was a problem?”

It was my fault Finny and I weren’t together, not hers.

“Because I also wondered if it was wrong in some way?”

That the baby was important to him too.

So I’ve written back to Jamie and Sasha. I told them that they can stop writing and texting to ask for my forgiveness. They have it.

Even though they have my forgiveness, I explained that I need them to not contact me again.

I need our relationships to be a thing of the past, part of our childhoods, where we made mistakes and survived.

I’m surrounding myself with people who carry pieces of Finny with them, like I do.

But for today, I can feel how Finny is still with me.