Every year since Eli and I got married, he has had ONE RULE: NO 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATIONS. No flags, no fireworks, not even a star-spangled napkin. “NOT IN THIS HOUSE!” he’d say every year, the words a low growl, shutting the blinds with a decisive thud. I’d watch our neighbors from the dimness, their laughter carrying over the fence, the smell of barbecue smoke bittersweet. It’s just one day, I told myself. Just one day to let it go for him. He’d never explained why, not really. Just that he hated the noise, the fuss, the “pointless revelry.” I believed him. Or at least, I wanted to. I always did what he asked. I loved him. But each year, as the evening sky exploded with color and thunder, Eli would retreat further into himself. His eyes, usually so warm, would turn distant, haunted. He’d pick at his food, barely speaking, until the last boom faded into the night. It was more than a dislike for fireworks; it was a profound, aching sadness that settled over him, thick and suffocating. A sadness I never understood.
This year was different. This year, our little boy was five. He was at that age of endless questions, curious about everything. We were sitting at dinner, the sun just dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in fiery oranges and purples – a stark contrast to the closed blinds. Our son looked up from his plate, a piece of broccoli clutched in his hand. He tilted his head. “Mommy,” he began, his voice small but clear, “why don’t I have a big brother or sister? All my friends do.”
I froze. The broccoli slipped from his fingers. Eli, who had been pushing food around his plate, went absolutely still. His fork clattered against the ceramic. His breath hitched. My heart hammered against my ribs. He never talked about his past, not really. Not about prior relationships, not about his younger years beyond vague anecdotes. Just a few lost friends from college, a difficult family. But never a past love, never a deeper connection.
Eli cleared his throat, a rough, unnatural sound. He looked at our son, his gaze full of a pain I’d never seen him allow himself to show. It was a bottomless well of anguish, mirroring exactly the look he wore every 4th of July. And then it clicked. The silence. The closed blinds. The utter, complete shutdown. The way he sometimes looked at our son with an almost fearful tenderness. OH. MY. GOD.
It wasn’t that he hated the 4th of July. He hated what it represented. He hated the day itself. I looked at the little boy at our table, then at Eli’s stricken face, and I suddenly knew. With a sickening lurch in my stomach, the world tipped on its axis. Every single thing he’d ever said, every evasive answer, every year of his forced solemnity, came rushing into focus. HE HAD A DAUGHTER. SHE DIED ON THE 4TH OF JULY. I gasped, a silent, choked sound. The terror in Eli’s eyes confirmed it. The celebration, the noise, the fireworks… it wasn’t just a dislike. It was the anniversary of the day he lost his child. And I, his wife, had never known she even existed.
