A short story I found in a magazine. I cant read it without sobbing
'All Wounds
The boys are playing upstairs. Some game that involves toy soldiers, plastic dragons, and shouting. Mainly shouting.
The noise grates. I try to tell myself it's the noise, and not the happiness. I'm out of my chair, halfway to the stairs, about to tell them to keep it down, to tell them not to wake the baby. But she's dead. It hits me mid-stride. Hits up from below, striking through my diaphragm into my chest. My baby's dead, and if noise could wake her I'd scream until my lungs bled.
And so I stand, like so often, numb, surprised, again, a prickle in my eyes. I know she's dead. I watched a little coffin roll away through black curtains. We saw the smoke rise from the high chimney at the crematorium, black, as if the cardinals still couldn't agree. I know she's dead. My soft child. But my hands forget. My legs will take me to the places where she lay. My fingers look for her hair.
David's in the doorway, waiting for me to look up. I can sense him there. But the carpet holds my eyes. The words he needs, I can't speak them. My teeth are locked too tight. The muscle in my jaw is stone. Any tighter, and something will break. Shatter.
There's a thought circling in my head. Tight little circles at the back of my mind. Just out of reach. I should speak to David, look up at least, but I can't, I've got to catch that thought, it could be important. The strangest things seem important these days. I draw breath at last, and it shudders in like a sob. He comes to me, and I shove him away. No.
And that's it. There's a hole in my life. A fucking hole, and I'm bleeding through it. Melodrama cheapens it, words won't frame it.
You were looking for a story maybe? Now you're feeling cheated? Robbed?
Time heals all wounds.'