I am still sitting in Eleanor’s room. The walls are back in their original position. The cracked ceiling is whole again.

But she is gone.

Eleanor is gone.

She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.

My lap still feels warm where she used to lay and part of me still feels her presence, hovering around me, on the other side of the veil.

But she’s gone. I know she is.

The sense of absence grows; opening like a void within my chest. It’s a feeling that is new to me. Even with the loss of Veronica I never felt this sense of loss. Perhaps it was because the loss of Veronica was gradual; day by day as she grew sicker and weaker. The sense of her loss was spread out over time.

With Eleanor, she was just gone and I don’t know what to do with that feeling.

It’s a stranglehold on my heart and lungs.

Something that I had only felt once, almost six years ago.

Two weeks before Eleanor’s birth, Veronica’s midwife realized that what she thought was Eleanor’s head was really her butt and that she was in a frank breech position; folding up like a v, with her butt facing the birth canal. Veronica was devastated. Everything she had been planning for was driven from the desire to have a completely natural birthing experience—no epidurals, no pain medicine. The position of Eleanor would make those plans nearly impossible and a cesarean section was inevitable. So the midwife offered to rotate Eleanor back into a head down position, facing Veronica’s back. We agreed and the midwife left to find another nurse practitioner to assist.

While we waited, I called my office and told them that I’d be out for longer than expected.

I tried to stay off my phone—avoiding work emails and social media chatter—trying to be present for Veronica. She didn’t talk and I didn’t ask her to. Her eyes roamed around the room. Mine did too: following the pattern of the ceiling tiles, finding random objects in their patterns, counting the tiles. Until my eye settled on an imperfection in the corner; a piece that had broken off and had left a small, but gaping hole.

I let my mind drift, looking as deep into the hole, thinking about the old idea of looking into the abyss long enough that the abyss would look back. Yet, I looked into the abyss, but the abyss did not look back. I looked longer, past the point where the abyss should have looked back, and back to the beginning of everything and the first instance of the catastrophe of life and there was just blackness.

The midwife came back in with a nurse practitioner. The nurse had Veronica sit forward as she placed an electronic fetal monitor around her swollen belly. I stood back, watching them, unable to help. The midwife poked Veronica’s belly, feeling for Eleanor. Once she had one hand around the baby’s head and the other on her butt, she started to push in order to rotate. Veronica gasped in discomfort, gripping the edges of the bed. The midwife pushed harder. I could see the form of the baby begin to move. The midwife relaxed and Eleanor slipped back into her comfortable breech position. She tried again, being a little bit more forceful. Veronica’s eyes were squeezed shut; her forehead creased with pain and worry.

The fetal monitor made a sound and my eyes flew to it, seeing the spike in heart rate, the beeps closer together and more urgent. Everything stopped, the attention pulled back and given to the monitor. Everyone was silent and my chest clenched as we watched the heartbeat grow faster and faster.

I couldn’t breathe. I felt that if I breathed, something would happen. I didn’t know what might happen. I think a part of me felt that if I didn’t breathe, time would slow and slow enough for Eleanor to feel better, safer, and her heartbeat would slow back down to its normal rhythm.

I held Veronica’s hand, not talking and she didn’t ask me to as the midwife and nurses fluttered around, making sure that everything was fine.

And eventually it was and my chest released and Veronica and I shared a grateful smile.

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The midwife explained that Eleanor’s heartbeat had spiked because of the stress of the procedure; everything they were doing now was a precaution, but that everything should be fine.

And it was. Several weeks later, Eleanor was born.

But this feeling I am feeling now is familiar. If I held my breath would time slow? Would I hear Eleanor in the ether? Is she safe? Is she okay?

“Eleanor?” I called out in the darkened room. “Veronica?” a few minutes later.

It was only met by deafening silence.

I make a sound of pain even though I’m experiencing no real sense of pain. My chest hurts, but it is a feeling of fear and love and loss.

It’s a primal sense of fear; one of that originates in the sense of the unknown. I am in a cave, unable to know and understand what I am seeing and hearing in the surrounding night. There’s shadows on the wall and I don’t know what they are from.

I beat the floor, trying to shake and dislodge this idea of fear, so that I can once again be back in control of my mental state. As my breathing slows, I reach back out towards that void between the multiverse, trying to connect and see if Eleanor was there.

I can’t touch it, it’s no longer there.

Focusing my will, I reach out again. I want this. I want to see her. I want to make sure she is okay. But there’s only emptiness and nothingness.

It’s too quiet without her. There’s usually a heightened sense of emotion wherever Eleanor went; whether it was her infectious laugh or her tantrums over her perfectly packed, but too full lunchbox. But sitting there, alone in her room, I can feel the weight of loneliness descending. I try to use that sense of loneliness and apply it towards centering myself; centering myself in the darkness, trying to reach out again.

I can’t reach her.

I can’t reach Veronica.

There’s nothing there.

I’m alone.

It’s different this time. The loneliness before was driven by the loss of Veronica, but I was never truly alone. I had Eleanor and my parents. Now, it’s a stage of loneliness where I am more truly alone than ever before. I’m lonely in the present moment, but the fact that Eleanor was no longer here would drive me into isolation in the future. I can already feel the walls of my psyche vibrating with the inability to tolerate this sense of loneliness. My existence was always constrained by the existence of other people in my life. Eleanor and before her, Veronica, were my anchors.

What matters now?

I can see the path stretched before me.

Regardless of the excuses for missed days of school or ignoring phone calls from my parents, eventually Eleanor would be missed.

And then what?

I couldn’t process it. I knew what would happen next, but I couldn’t speak of it or let the thought of it cross my mind. This was too big to cover up and at some point, everything that I said or did would unravel and I would be exposed. It would be a fitting end for me: yelling and babbling about the multiverse and about Eleanor being united with her mother once again.

Downstairs it’s just as quiet. I know I need a distraction, something to calm the activity in my mind so I can think. Standing in front of my bookcase, I scan the titles but they all feel dull. I turn the television on, scanning through libraries of streamable movies and shows, but again, nothing feels right.

I step out onto the front porch. The night air is crisp; cool, but not cold. Looking up I can see the stars in the night sky. I breathe in deeply and begin to feel that familiar sense of order begin to return. I step inside briefly to grab a light jacket and some keys, and after locking the front door I start walking. Less than a mile away there’s an open area that takes me past the area's light pollution. I walk, head down, following the sidewalks. It’s late and there’s no one out. Even though it’s isolated, I don’t feel isolated. I can hear all different signs of life: the hum of street traffic, the distant barking of neighborhood dogs and the yipping of coyotes. There’s a few houses with lights still on and I can see shadowy movements of neighbors going about their nighttime routines or working by the light of their laptops and other screens.

Eventually, I reach the open space and take a gravel trail deeper, away from the surrounding lights, letting them grow further and further away. Cresting a hill, I hop off the path and head downwards, and the lights and the sounds that accompanied the neighborhood disappear.

Looking up, the stars and the planets are more visible. Squinting, I can almost make out the dusting of stars even further away that make up the Milky Way.

Things are becoming calm and orderly. There wasn’t a sense of peace, but there was a sense of what I needed to do. I didn’t know where Eleanor was, but I had to trust the intention of my will. She was out there; close by, but unreachable through the fabric of the cosmos.

“Eleanor,” I whisper to the stars, “I’m sorry I let you go. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there for you. I hope you know that I love you and that all I wanted for you was the best. I’m sorry that I couldn’t provide that. Tell mom I said hi.”

Bending down, I pick up a handful of dry dirt and let it run between my fingers, letting go of my guilt.

Letting go of Veronica.

Letting go of Eleanor.