The lake house had fallen quiet, as if it sensed she was alone.
Earn hadn't realized how vast it would feel without someone to share it with, though she didn't want anyone around right now.
Mornings no longer held the peaceful stillness she had once cherished, not after that day when pain began, and she lost the life growing inside her.
Even the nursery, once her favorite place, now felt heavy with absence.
The small giraffe plushie she had clutched during their first positive pregnancy test sat untouched in the corner, gathering dust. Emptiness pressed against her, pulling her back to memories of blood, silence in the hospital room, and the way Fahlada had held her so tightly, both of them in tears.
Their friends also came to offer comfort and sympathy, and even her mother never left her side. Everyone said the right things: "You're strong," "You'll get through this," "We're here for you."
But Earn couldn't hear any of it.
Eventually, she asked them all to leave, feeling overwhelmed by their words and needing space to process the loss on her own.
A week after that painful day, Fahlada went back to work, convinced that staying busy was the only way to cope. She didn't speak of what had happened again and hadn't cried since coming home. Each day, she saw patients, signed prescriptions, and tied her hair into a neat ponytail, carrying herself as if everything inside her remained in order.
Earn understood. Her wife was a doctor. Life didn't pause just because theirs had broken. She tried to respect Fahlada's need for routine, believing that patience and space might allow them both to heal. So she stayed home, drifting through the days like a ghost.
The scent of ginger tea, the low hum of the washing machine, the silence that hung during lunch when she sat alone, all of it became unbearable at times, leaving her to spend most days in bed.
Nevertheless, they kept to their usual rhythm. Fahlada still came home every night and talked about her day, and Earn would do the same. Sometimes Fahlada was late, but never as late as before.
No matter how busy things got, they always made time for dinner together.
Fahlada would share stories about her rounds, the new interns, and her patients, carefully avoiding anything that might remind Earn of the miscarriage, hoping to spare her further pain.
Earn, in turn, tried to match her energy, smiling and saying things like, "That sounds exhausting," or "You're amazing," just as she used to—desperate to preserve whatever sense of normalcy she could.
Now and then, Fahlada would ask softly, "We're okay, right?" as she tried to comfort Earn in her own way, staying close and keeping that promise of 'we'll get through this together.'
Yet Fahlada could feel Earn growing distant, not out of anger, but out of fear.
Earn didn't want Fahlada to worry, so she nodded. She always nodded with a smile, even when the kisses in the morning and at night had become little more than routine, too.
How could she honestly express what she truly felt?
That she wasn't okay.
That maybe Fahlada was blaming her for losing their child… Because deep down, she blamed herself too. And now she wasn't sure if she was still enough for the woman who once held her so tightly in the dark.
Thoughts like that ran wild in her head, but she tried to stay resilient, reminding herself that 'Fahlada wasn't that kind of person'.
"I miss our baby," Earn whispered one night, curled beneath the covers with her back to her wife. Her fingers traced slow circles over her belly, while her eyes fixed on the window where the stuffed giraffe sat; she couldn't bear to leave it in the nursery.
Fahlada was silent for a long time before finally whispering, "I know."
Then she turned toward Earn, her hand finding hers beneath the covers.
But that was it…nothing more.
'What else was there to say?'
Earn closed her eyes, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Fahlada was still grieving in a way that was too far for her to reach.
As days blurred into weeks and then months, the distance between them quietly deepened.
Fahlada buried herself deeper in her work, taking on more shifts, mentoring interns, and volunteering for the hospital's expansion committee. Everyone praised her fortitude, her strength.
"You're so inspiring," they'd say.
She didn't hang out with her friends either. Before, she would drown her sorrows in alcohol, but this time, it was different.
She was always busy… and angry.
One time, Fahlada snapped at an intern. "You can't just ignore the patient's chart!" Her voice was sharper than anyone had ever heard, cutting through the room. The intern froze, eyes wide, then forced a nervous smile. "Yes, Dr. Thananusak," she whispered as Fahlada's tirade continued. Luckily, the intern didn't fight back and took it as a hard but necessary lesson.
By the time Fahlada finally stepped into the hospital lounge, her anger had cooled slightly, though it still lingered in her tense shoulders. Tan raised an eyebrow. "Fahlada, you're scaring the interns. You okay?"
Fahlada rubbed her temple, forcing a tight smile. "Yes. Now let's go back to work." She turned and left without another word.
As the shift ended, she didn't say much on the way out. Not because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't find the right words. It wasn't until she was alone in the car, the engine humming softly beneath her, that everything she'd been holding back began to surface. Her phone lit up with a concerned message from Bow. She stared at it for a few seconds, then let the screen go dark without replying.
She stayed parked, hands resting on the wheel, afraid that moving might break something inside her. Her thoughts were loud and restless, pressing against her chest like a weight she couldn't shake. The silence was unbearable, so she turned on the radio and blasted music she didn't even like, just noise to drown out the chaos in her head.
She glanced at the rearview mirror, forced a smile, and whispered, "You got this." It didn't feel convincing, but it was all she had.
__
At home, Earn watched her wife wither.
The Fahlada she knew, the one who used to light up a room with just a glance, who could make even the heaviest days feel lighter, now seemed smaller, constrained. Smiles felt rehearsed, as if she had to practice them before giving them away. Hugs still grew brief, almost hesitant. Even their conversations were clipped, careful, as though each word was being measured.
After days of watching Earn struggle to stay strong, Fahlada stopped trying to push her way into her wife's grief. Asking "Are you okay?" when she already knew the answer only seemed to make things harder. The words felt hollow, like lines from a script that had lost all meaning.
She didn't know what else to say, except that she was there, that she loved her. But Earn already knew that. And now, those words felt less like comfort and more like a painful reminder of what they had lost.
The child they had never met. Yet felt everywhere.
Beneath the sorrow, guilt twisted through her.
Fahlada realized that what haunted her most wasn't just the loss of their child, but the quiet, shameful relief that Earn had survived. That she could still hold her wife, still feel her warmth. It was a bitter truth she could not untangle: gratitude wrapped in grief, inseparable from the pain.
And that truth terrified her.
What kind of person felt relief in the shadow of such a loss?
What did that say about her love for Earn, her grief for the child, and herself?
She wanted to believe it did not make her cruel, only human. She would have given anything to bring their baby back. And yet, if fate had demanded a choice, she already knew the one she would have made.
That thought lingered every time she looked at her wife.
No matter how deeply she tried to bury it, she saw it reflected in Earn's eyes, a sadness that never seemed to lift. And every time, it shattered her all over again. Because no matter how much she wanted to fix it, there was nothing she could do.
She felt helpless.
But she was not alone in that helplessness. They were both lost, both hurting, both trying to breathe beneath the same heavy clouds. And maybe that was enough for now, not to fix it, not to move on, but to survive it together.
Fahlada still believed they would make it through. Not because one of them was stronger, but because they still had each other. And in the broken spaces between them, there was still love.
They just had to hold on to that.