“This is the last time I am going to make this offer to you. Come back, and we can pretend like all this didn’t happen. Forget this place, forget your little boyfriend and we can start all over, like new. Fire your lawyer, and I’ll fire mine. I’ll even pay the guy for you. You’ll move back home, and you can even bring those kids if it makes you feel better.”
“Thanks, but no thanks, Michael. I’m staying.”
That was the wrong thing to say. His face turned red and his features twisted in anger.
“You know what, your little boyfriend, that night at that bar when he decided to start something… guys don’t get like that over girls they’ve just met.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“You sure that second baby was mine? Or was it his?”
My jaw fell open. I couldn’t believe it. That was a shot. He always said things like that to hurt me when he was mad. It was his pattern. It was part of how he made me stay. We were over now though. He wasn’t trying to make me stay; he was just trying to break me even more—get as much damage in as he could before he left me. I tried to square my shoulders and stand up straighter.
“I can tell you the truth, but I can’t make you believe me. There was nobody else. Not him, not anybody.” The years I had stood by him and trusted him. The years that I had tried to salvage our relationship after we lost the first baby. All that time I took his horrible words, and looks and distance, the fucking abuse and he wouldn’t even believe me when I said I had loved him and had been faithful until I had had cause to no longer be. I had barely processed that before he dealt his finishing move.
“Have you told him you killed both my kids? I hope he knows if he wants any they can’t come out of you.”
He hadn’t wanted to do anything with that statement but hurt me. He knew, he knew that that was the one thing that hurt me the most and he had hit me where he knew it would wound me. The love I once felt for him just disappeared. It died, right then. How could he say something like that to me? I walked to the door and held it open. I wasn’t going to take it.
“Maybe it’s just your seed that my body rejected, Michael,” I said. “The next time you come here it better be with signed papers.”
Michael sauntered up to me and fingered the ends of my hair. He hated it short. He had asked me specifically to stop cutting it when we got together. It was a hollow victory that he disliked it, but it was likely the only win I was getting out of the situation.
“He can have you. I’m done. Keep the fucking Prius.”
I slammed the door after him and sank to the floor.
I closed my eyes and just like that, I broke. I hadn’t cried, like really cried since leaving home but if Michael was really trying to get to me with what he had said, he had done it. The relief of this truly being the end of my marriage was eclipsed by the fact that even though I knew it wasn’t my fault, I had always thought it was.
I always thought, whether I realized it or not, that the miscarriages were on me. I had been pregnant twice and still had no baby. It had to be something inside me that was fucked up, physiologically and that was why I couldn’t do it. Michael’s accusations just made the feelings worse. I felt worthless. I felt like the one concrete thing I could give him, a child, someone who had his name, wasn’t even mine to give him. He had had my love, trust and loyalty but what were those when the thing he really wanted, I couldn’t even give him?
My cramps felt worse, making this the worst that I had felt in a long time. Being married to Michael had been a long, empty sorrow but this? This was a hot and intense sorrow. I wasn’t sad because I was losing Michael. I had lost him years ago. I was crying for my babies, both of them that I never gave birth to. I was crying for every one of those six years that I would never get back because I had wasted them on a man who didn’t love me or respect me half as much as I did him.
I tried to stand up, and the pain in my abdomen got even stronger. It was sharp like I was being stabbed from the inside. I straightened all the way up, and I felt a spasm. The pain intensified. It felt like my pelvis was imploding. I hurt, just like the first time, before the blood came. I bent over double and held my stomach.
Not again. Not again.
It wasn’t even possible. I wasn’t pregnant again. It had been weeks since I’d lost the baby. I felt something warm running down my legs. I touched my inner thigh and looked at my hand. It was red with blood. What was happening? Was this it? Was I actually dying this time?
I grabbed my phone and typed a message out to Thad before calling 911. I had enough wits to do that. I had to. I could lose it later.
What I had to do now, was not die.
13
Thaddeus
“Why are we at the hospital?” Nikki asked as we parked.
How did I tell them that their aunt was here without them freaking out? She hadn’t said what was wrong and since she was able to send the message, she likely wasn’t, you know, dead or whatever. I still thought it was Michael. That knuckle dragging shitbag had done something to her. It had to be him.
Why else would she need to be here?
I thought about how to both tell them that I didn’t know but that everything was maybe, probably fine and believe it myself as I said it. I had passed SQT, and I couldn’t think of a way to delicately tell a couple of kids that their aunt was in the hospital, most likely because her husband had done something he would regret, real quick if I got my hands on him.
The woman who had told me that my mom was dead, and my dad had been arrested had spoken in this really nice, soothing sort of voice but she hadn’t touched me or hugged me the way Veronica always was with the kids.
“Guys, your Aunt Ron told me we had to come here because this is where she is,” I attempted.
“Why? Is she sick?”
“Yeah, she’s probably just a little sick,” I said. Food poisoning wasn’t fatal, but people got into the hospital for it. Maybe she had had an allergic reaction to something. Fuck, what if they thought she was sick and when they saw her, she was black and blue because her ex had actually done something to her? I didn’t want to lie to them, but my options were limited, and so was time.
“You don’t know?” asked Christopher.
And that was when Nikki started crying. Christopher looked dejectedly out the window. Sinking. I was sinking, and I was going down fast. They knew now, and they were upset. How the hell did you do damage control for something like this? I tried to sound optimistic.
“How about we go inside and see how she is?”
“Is she going to die?” Nikki asked.
Well, fuck. That wasn’t even something I had begun to worry about, but I was now.
“No... she sent me a text message; she’s fine.”
It was no use. Nikki kept crying. Chris was biting his lip, staring out the window. His hands were in fists. He looked like he was pulled tight and tense like a guitar string.
“Let’s go check on her,” I tried again.
“No.”
That was Christopher. He looked at me. He was trying so hard not to be scared. He was trying so hard not to cry. If he gnawed on his lip any harder, he would start bleeding. I exited the car and opened the door of the back cabin, on Nikki’s side. She immediately clung to me, surprisingly hard since she was so weedy. I looked down at the top of her head. I didn’t know what the fuck to do.
I couldn’t panic. I didn’t have that luxury and I couldn’t leave them in the car. Did I hug her back? I didn’t want to. I couldn’t ask her if she wanted me to. I sighed. Ideas. I was running out of them, and now there were two scared kids I had to comfort.
“Chris? Help me out, would you?” I asked him. His face was hard and still, just, not a face you needed to have when you were still a kid. I understood how he felt, not about his aunt but why he didn’t want to cry.
“I know you guys are scared, but we have to go and see your aunt.”
“What if she’s dead?” asked Chris.
“She isn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I need you guys to trust me. Your Aunt Ron’s okay, but she’s probably scared, just like you guys. She wants to know that you are okay too.”
Chris sat in silence while Nikki’s tears soaked through my shirt.
“Can you promise she’s okay?” Chris asked.
The real answer was no. I couldn’t promise anything. I had gotten the text message, but she hadn’t given any real information about how she was. Of all the things that could be the reason why she needed a hospital I always came back to the one thing I hoped it wasn’t.
What was it if it wasn’t that Michael had done something to her? I was as clueless as they were.
“Yeah. I can promise,” I said. I hoped it wasn’t a lie. “Let’s go see her. Come on, you too Nikki.” Chris slid out of the car and stood by me. I helped Nikki out. She sniffed and grabbed my hand, holding it with both of hers. Whatever would get her into the hospital? I locked the car, and we made our way to the building. Somewhere between the two locations, Chris took my other hand.
I couldn’t imagine how weird we looked. First, there was no way anyone would mistake the kids for mine, second, look at me. I didn’t have a lot of friends who were dads but the ones who were didn’t look like me. A kid on each arm; I never thought I would see the day. We walked up to the desk.
“I need to know about Veronica Kingsley? She should have come in through emergency about an hour or two ago,” I said to the woman behind the desk.
“Veronica Kingsley? We have a Veronica Mansfield, are you her husband?” she asked.
“Can we see her?”
She looked down at the kids and then back at me.
“Go down that way, room 446.”
We got to the door, and I didn’t know whether I should have knocked before pushing it open. It was a single room. There was a television on the wall and a bed in the far corner. Veronica was laying on it. Her head was turned facing the door, and she smiled seeing the kids. They charged for her, clambering up the bed and hugging her. Nikki started crying again.
There were hugs and kisses and frantic questions about whether everyone was okay. I immediately felt out of place. I could leave, right? Should I have left? I didn’t want to. I wanted to ask her what the fuck had happened but standing there I felt like I was intruding on a private family moment. He finally looked over at me, and I felt like I should stand up straighter.
“I didn’t think they’d let you come see me, let alone bring them,” she said. Was she really about to just have a chat with me like she wasn’t in a hospital bed at that very moment?
“Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t leave them. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Lie. Obvious lie. She was evading explanation on purpose. She wasn’t in a hospital bed because she wanted to take a nap.
“You really aren’t going to tell me?” I asked her.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Do I have to ask a doctor? What happened? Was it Michael?”
“Nothing like that,” she sighed. She looked down at the kids who were sprawled on the bed. Was it something she couldn’t say in front of them? Now I really had to hear it.
“There’s probably a kids section out there where they can wait if you need them to,” I said.
“No. No. It’s fine. A little while ago, I... well, Michael and I had a miscarriage. It was early in the pregnancy, it happens to so many people, so I didn’t go to the hospital or anything at the time. Today at the house, when Michael left, I was in pain, and I started bleeding. It turns out; it wasn’t ‘complete,’” she said.
I had never heard anything more confusing in my life. Like, it was, but totally wasn’t sexual at the same time. She was basically telling me about her sex life with Michael and then the death of their unborn child. Should the kids have been there, hearing all this?
“What’s a miscarriage?” asked Chris.
“It’s when something happens to a baby, and it can’t be born,” she told him gently.
“What? Like you still had...” how did you talk about miscarriage without using the term ‘dead baby’? “You still had, some of the... the stuff in there?”
“The placenta hadn’t passed. Since it has been a while since the actual miscarriage, they had to do a D&C to make sure I wasn’t at risk of infection.”
I wasn’t squeamish. I knew what people looked like on the inside. Blood, guts, severed limbs; that was nothing. What she was saying wasn’t so much gross as it was completely beyond me. She had had a D& what? Her placenta had not passed?
“You don’t, right? Have an infection?” I asked, uselessly.
“No. In fact, I should be able to go home tonight.” The kids had basically made a sandwich out of her on the bed. Both of them had their heads resting on her, and they were completely quiet like they’d fallen asleep. She was absently stroking Christopher’s hair. “Thank you for bringing them.”
I looked at her. Was it a bad time? Yes, it was a terrible time, but it was as good a time as I could ask for. She was stuck in one spot. Even if she didn’t forgive me, she had to hear me out, by force.
“Veronica, I’m sorry about what I said to you earlier,” I said. She leaned back into her pillows and looked at me.
“It’s fine. You were right,” she said.
“I wasn’t. I had no right to say that to you,” I said, moving closer. “How soon before you can leave?”
“Not long. The doctors just need to give me an okay and then we can leave. I… could you drop us off?” she asked.
I looked at her. I knew I was a lot of things, most of them bad but I could not believe that she thought I would come all the way to the hospital and truly not take her and the kids back to the house. Fuck. I was fucking offended. Was her opinion of me that fucking low?
“You thought I’d leave you guys here?” I asked pointedly.
“No… I would just understand if you didn’t necessarily want to be around me right now.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but I was cut off. The door swung open and who was it but fucking Michael. He looked from me to the bed and then me again.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Only family is allowed to visit.”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said to him. That made him mad. He walked up and grabbed a handful of my shirt like he was really going to do something.
“Please, Michael. This is a hospital, have some fucking respect,” I told him.
“Why are you here, Michael?” Veronica asked. Chris had raised his head and was watching Michael like he’d never seen the guy in his life.
“I’m the person they call when shit like this happens to you. What happened?”
“I’m sorry they bothered you,” she said. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“You aren’t even gonna tell me what they did?” he asked. He moved forward, towards the bed but I stood in front of him.
“To be perfectly honest Michael, I don’t know why you came, even if they did call you. You said it yourself. You were done. Leave. Please.”
“You heard her; leave,” I added. He looked at me. If he was going to harass anybody, it might as well be me. I could swing back as hard if not harder.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on between you two, but I think you should know, buddy. She can’t give you anything.”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him from the room with me. Whatever he had to say, Veronica and the kids could be spared. I shut the door behind me.
“I’m telling you, man. Two times I got her pregnant, and both times she killed my fucking kid. She’s defective.”
“If you shut up and walk now, I won’t knock your teeth out,” I said to him.
“She can give you good pussy, but that’s it. She was fucking around on me, with you. What makes you think she won’t do the same to you?”
I cocked my arm back to swing at him, but he ra
ised his hands and backed off.
“All I’ll say is I was there, and it ain’t that great. Good luck, buddy.”
I watched him walk away until I couldn’t see him anymore. I signaled for one of the nurses to go in the room and see whether she was good to leave. I asked about the bill, but she had insurance. I could have gone back into the room, but I wanted out by the truck instead. It was about half an hour until I saw them troop out of the building.
“How did you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
She was sitting in the back seat with the kids.
“Come see me? They only allow family members. Did you say you were my brother?”
“Not exactly... they asked if I was your husband and I didn’t deny it, so they believed me.”
She had nothing to say to that. We spent the rest of the ride in silence.
I stayed downstairs. She had to come back down to lock the door after I had left. Maybe she wanted to find me gone by the time she got back. Maybe doing that would have been a favor to her after the night she had had, but I wasn’t going to just leave. She had just had her unpassed placenta removed, or extracted, or something from her. I didn’t know what I could possibly offer by way of support, but the least I could do was wait to see that she was actually fine. As I waited, I made the mistake of googling what a D&C was; the procedure that Veronica had just had done.
Worst mistake of my life.
The ‘C’ in D&C stood for ‘curettage.’ Why did they let women just leave the hospital after they had had that done? They did that thing to her that you did with Thanksgiving turkeys and stuffing but in reverse. I didn’t have a uterus and the other shit down there, so I couldn’t empathize but fuck. How was she walking around and talking after that? I heard her coming back down the stairs. She had changed. She was in a thin t-shirt and shorts.
Thaddeus (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 2) Page 10
