Two Roads(25)

His accent is even thicker than the nurses, and I’m glad he’s pulled his mask away from his mouth to address me, or I’d have no clue what he’s saying.

As it is, I nod numbly, dazed. Devastated. As the nurse pricks my arm painfully—her fifth unsuccessful attempt to get an IV into my arm—the doctor casts a suspicious glance over my bare arms.

“Are you a drug user?”

Humiliation wracks me. Humiliation and despair. I nod. Beside me, Jase tenses. I don’t even have to look at him to feel the anger and sorrow pouring off him in waves.

The doctor asks me what I’ve been using, and as the word heroin falls from my mouth, I experience a rage deep inside of me, a rumble in my soul, a battle cry rising from within my veins. Dornan. You did this to me. I hope you come here, you motherfucker. I hope you come here so I can kill you.

“When was the last time…?” the doctor asks, massaging the veins on my arms. He taps the back of my hand and gestures to the nurse, who hands him the needle already slick with my blood. One pinch on the back of my hand, and it’s in.

“A month?” I guess quietly, trying to think back through the haze of grief that’s squeezing my heart. I can’t look at Jase. I’m shaking violently, and part of that is fear and shame. I can’t look at him. We are all speaking around the tragedy we’ve just discovered, speaking about things that don’t even matter. Maybe it’s because none of us can talk about what’s really happening. Your baby is dead. Your baby is gone.

All of a sudden things get really quiet, and I start to zone out. Painkillers. They’ve given me something for the pain. What a blessed fucking relief.

The pain at my back and deep in my womb starts to recede a little. The pressure is still there, lapping at me in steady waves, but the red, crushing pain is mostly tamped down. I feel woozy, and struggle to stop the room from spinning.

“Try and get some rest,” the nurse says, patting my hand again before she leaves the room with the doctor. Rest? How am I supposed to rest right now?

But whatever they give me is strong enough that I virtually pass out, dozing between those steady waves of pressure that lap at me. I’m still struggling to catch up, still so confused. Our baby is dead?

Jase doesn’t speak. His eyes are red and glassy, and I can see the rage that surrounds him like fire.

“Jase,” I say suddenly, snapping out of my haze.

“Yeah,” he says, back at my side like a rocket, obviously hearing the urgency in my voice.

“I think I need to push,” I whimper, already pushing down. The pressure around my back and lower torso has reached a crushing peak, and bits of pain start to creep through the artificial numbness created by the pain relief. I fist the sheets beneath me as I grit my teeth and bear down against the pain.

Jase gives me one look and sprints into the hallway, yelling for a doctor. The nurse from earlier enters the room just in time to grab our baby as I deliver her in one push. She’s so small, she comes out so easily. Too easily. It’s not fair.

She’s perfect. Tiny, but fully formed, a miniature button nose and little tufts of light brown hair. She’s beautiful. She’s ours.

The nurse wipes the baby’s face and wraps her in a white blanket before handing her to me, and it pains me how woefully small she is. Barely longer than a dollar bill, eyes closed, and completely unmoving.

I hold her to my chest and sob.

Jase gently places a hand on our daughter and I realize, of course, he wants to hold her, too. To see her, to know her. It kills me to let go of her, but I hand her up to him, her absence from me as harsh and as painful as the moment I realized she had passed away inside me. He sits on the bed beside me, cradling her in his hands, absolutely devastated.

He wanted this baby. He doesn’t say much, just looks down at her. Pulls her up in his arms and holds her close to his chest. It kills me, how much he wanted her. He wanted our baby so much. But she’s gone.

Will he even want me now? Or will I remain the empty, tarnished vessel – unlovable, dead on the inside, forever alone?

That’s what I deserve.

Jase and I sit together on the narrow bed for hours, both of us in grief-stricken shock, studying every perfect thing about the child we will never get to know. The little girl who should chase butterflies and eat cake and finger paint. Gone.

Eight hours later, and the nurse comes in and takes her away. Jase helps me into new clothes, and I sit numbly in a wheelchair as he pushes me to the car, clutching onto a 3x5 piece of card with a tiny set of footprints printed onto it. The only proof we have that she even existed.

And, it’s over.

I am empty once more.