“We need to talk,” he said, and walked in when she stepped aside.
“Do you want a Coke?” she asked, as she shut the front door.
Mack was so rattled, he said everything wrong.
“No, I do not want a Coke. I want to know if you’re still pregnant.”
When she paled and then began to cry, his heart sank.
“You’re not, are you?” he yelled.
She flinched as the tears fell harder. “No, I’m not, I had a—”
He slapped the wall beside her head.
“Don’t say it! Don’t fucking say it, Lissa. I thought I knew you. I thought I loved you. I don’t ever want to see your face again!” he yelled as he left the house, slamming the door as he went.
* * *
Mack woke up with a start and realized he was crying. He groaned and threw back the covers, and even though it was at least two hours before dawn, he got up.
For him, sleep was over.
* * *
Lissa’s sleep was fretful. She dreamed about dead rats and bloody feet and people knocking on her door. From there, the dream morphed into the day she’d lost the baby.
* * *
The windshield wipers were fighting a useless battle against the downpour. This trip to Summerton was to be Lissa’s first appointment with an obstetrician, and she was wishing that she had stayed home and gone another day.
From the moment she’d found out she was pregnant, it had turned something on inside her that she hadn’t even known was there. In a way, she felt like an explorer. Everything from this moment on would be uncharted territory for her, but she would be the one in control. Before, her life had been dominated by being Mr. and Mrs. Sherman’s daughter and, for the past four years, being everything Mack Jackson needed her to be. She loved her parents and she loved Mack, but she’d almost lost herself in the process. Finding out about the baby had changed everything. Her plans for the future were changing along with her body. Although her parents didn’t know it, college was on hold. Already her breasts were a bit swollen and tender, and she imagined the tiny being growing inside her, wondered whether it would be a boy or a girl, wondered if it would have her blond hair or be dark like Mack.
A shaft of lightning struck somewhere off to her right, momentarily making her lose concentration. As she did, the rear end of the car fishtailed and began sliding sideways. She was bordering on panic when she remembered her father’s words: steer into a skid. Once she did that, the car was back in the proper lane and her panic subsided.
The rain was still coming down when she finally drove into Summerton, and with no small amount of relief. The sooner this appointment was behind her, the better, because she needed to be home before her parents got off work. Her stomach was in knots as she took a turn, and then she groaned when she realized she’d turned a block too early. By the time she backtracked, located the medical building and found a place to park, she was shaking.
Secrets made her feel guilty, and this wasn’t the way she’d been raised. She and Mack had talked, and as soon as a doctor officially verified her pregnancy they were going to tell their parents. She glanced in the rearview mirror, made a face at her reflection and grabbed her umbrella. The rain was still coming down as she headed toward the building on the run.
She was halfway across the parking lot when she slipped. She felt herself falling, and then her feet went out from under her as she went down, landing hard enough that she was momentarily dazed. When she came to, she was flat on her back and faceup in the downpour, in so much pain she was afraid to move.
Out of nowhere, two men in hard hats appeared, staring down at her in dual dismay.
“Miss! Are you all right? We saw you fall. Where do you hurt? Can you move?”
Lissa groaned. “Oh, my God...I hurt everywhere. Give me a minute. I think I can get up.”
“Maybe we should call an ambulance,” one of them offered.
“No, no ambulance!” Lissa cried, and began trying to move.
The two men helped her up, then steadied her until she got her bearings. She was drenched but upright. Her ears were ringing, but she could move. It was going to be okay.
“Thanks, guys, I’ve got this,” she said.
“Here’s your umbrella,” one man said.
She took it gladly, grateful to get the rain out of her face, and held it over her head as she walked into the building. The shelter was welcome as she paused in the lobby to check the roster, looking for the location of the doctor’s office.
By the time she got on the elevator she was miserable. Her clothes were sticking to her skin, her shoes were full of water and every muscle in her body was beginning to throb. When she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored walls of the elevator she groaned. What a mess! The moment the elevator stopped, she got off and began looking for a bathroom to clean herself up.
She found one nearby, and when she walked in and saw the hand dryer on the wall she headed for it. After setting her purse and umbrella down, she hit the start button and bent over so that the hot air could dry her hair. She couldn’t do much about her wet clothes but she did take her shoes off and dry the insides with paper towels, then thrust them under the dryer, as well.
When she’d done all she could do, she hurried down the hall to the doctor’s office to check in. As she sat down to fill out the new patient forms, her aches and pains increased. Sore muscles began to tighten, and wet clothes exacerbated the misery. To add to her discomfort, she recognized one of the women in the waiting room as the mother of one of her classmates, and she was giving Lissa a very cool, very judgmental stare.
“Why, hello, Melissa. You’re a ways from home,” the woman said.
“Hello, Mrs. Shayne. Yes, ma’am, I guess we both are. Terrible weather, isn’t it?”
Beverly Shayne nodded politely and, to Lissa’s relief, returned her attention to the magazine she was reading.
Seeing someone she knew made Lissa even more nervous. Would Bev Shayne go back to Mystic telling everyone where she’d seen Lissa Sherman? Then she reminded herself that women of all ages went to gynecologists, and she was a woman—a young one, but a woman nonetheless. On the surface this would not be of any consequence.
But the longer she sat, the worse she felt. When her belly began to cramp she was in so much pain she couldn’t determine where she hurt the most. By the time they called her back, the pain was so bad she was shaking.
The nurse eyed Lissa as she led her to the examining room, looking past the wet clothes and damp curls to the muscle jerking at the side of her jaw. Lissa moaned as she crawled up onto the table then rolled over onto her side and curled up in a ball, which increased the nurse’s concern.
“Melissa Sherman?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Yes, ma’am. I fell in the parking lot, and the longer I sat, the more I began to hurt.”
The nurse moved to the table and took Lissa’s pulse, then made a note before reaching for the blood pressure cuff.
“So you are here for a prenatal exam?”
Lissa moaned. “Yes.”
“Where do you hurt the most?” the nurse asked.
“It was just my back and hips, but I think my belly hurts worse now.”
“Your stomach? How so?”
“Oh, my God,” Lissa said, and then gritted her teeth as a spasm rolled across her belly. “That’s the worst cramp I ever had in my life.”
“Lissa, I need you to take off all your clothes and put this gown on. Can you stand up to do that?”
Lissa nodded, and then took the gown and slid off the table.
“I’ll be right back,” the nurse said.
Undressing was more difficult than Lissa had expected because the wet clothes stuck to her skin, and by the time she got her jeans down she was shaking. The wet denim was in a puddle around her feet, but she didn’t see the blood running down the inside of her leg until she bent down to pick them up.
“No!” she cried, and grabbed at the blood with both hands, as if she could stop what was happening. Her heart began to hammer as the room started to spin. She looked up as the door opened, then held out her hands. “Help me.”
* * *
Betsy Jakes was sitting cross-legged in the bed with her journal in her lap, her glasses persistently sliding down her nose no matter how many times she pushed them up. She was desperate to get everything on paper before she forgot the dream. There was a horrible knot in her stomach, and her head was spinning. She felt like she was losing her mind. She paused, looking back at what she’d just written.
Someone died. I think we saw it happen. I don’t think it was an accident. I keep seeing it in my dreams but I cannot see a face.
Then she added, “I have to remember or they’ll kill me, too.”
Suddenly there was a knock at her door. She slapped the journal shut and shoved it in a drawer in her bedside table.
“Yes? Come in,” she called.
Trina opened the door and peeked in.
“Mama, are you all right? I got up to go to the bathroom and saw the light under your door.”
Betsy made herself smile.
“Oh, sure, I’m fine. I just got up to take some pain meds. I woke up with a headache, and now it’s keeping me awake.” Then Betsy reached over and turned off the lamp, and crawled back beneath the covers.
“Okay,” Trina said, but she didn’t buy the story. Something was going on with her mother, something frightening.