I wore a pad to work after the baby was gone

Dear Delyara, I was eleven weeks pregnant. Only my husband knew. Yesterday, in the office bathroom, I looked down and saw blood. I stayed in the stall until someone knocked and asked whether I was okay. I said I had eaten something bad. At the hospital, they used the word “miscarriage” three times. The doctor was kind. My husband cried in the parking garage. I didn’t cry until this morning, when I opened the bathroom cabinet and saw the unopened box of prenatal vitamins. I went to work anyway. There was a presentation I had prepared for two weeks, and I didn’t know how to email my manager and say, “The child nobody knew existed has died, and I need the day off.” So I stood in front of twelve people wearing a pad under my gray work pants while my body quietly let go of a future. Someone complimented my presentation afterward. I thanked her. Tonight, my husband moved the vitamins into a drawer so I wouldn’t have to see them. I asked him to put them back. I don’t know why. Maybe because hiding them felt too much like pretending there had never been anyone to lose.