I never understood what true unconditional love was until he was born. He opened my heart to love, and after he had died, it slammed shut again. Grace had brought me back to life; she made me see that life wasn’t worth living without love in it.
“Logan?” She shook my arm. “Mom wants to talk to you.” She handed me the phone.
“Hello?” I mentally shook myself away from the past and rejoined the present.
“I’m so happy for you both,” Love gushed. “And I wanted to thank you for taking such good care of my girl through all of this.”
“Thanks. We’re over the moon with this. Grace is strong; she walked through fire for this. If I could have shouldered some of the pain for her, I would have.” I got up and walked out to the patio.
“It was hard for me not to jump on a plane every day and come out there.” She sighed.
“I know, but Grace would have hated that. She barely tolerated me some days.”
“She’s so much like her dad that way. But it was all worth it, right? You’ve got your baby, and that’s all that matters.”
“I’ll feel a lot better once we get past this trimester.” I paced along the balcony.
“I know, honey, we all will. You’ll take good care of her and keep her stress-free, right?”
“As much as she’ll let me.” I smiled. My Kitten was more of a tiger. She was so fierce and independent.
“Okay, I love you. I’ll be out in a few weeks, okay?”
“Love you, too. Send me the date and I’ll get the jet out to you guys.”
“You spoil us.” She laughed.
“What good is money if you can’t use it to spoil the ones you love?” I turned and found Grace standing by the door watching me.
After hanging up, I opened the door to let her out.
“She’s worried?” She cocked her head to the side.
“No, she’s thankful.” I pulled her against me and kissed her. “We both are.”
“I am, too. I feel so relieved, knowing that I don’t have to do the shots anymore. That all of it is done for now.” For the first time in months, her shoulders weren’t slumped down from the weight of the world.
“I can’t wait to see what the future hold for us, Kitten.” I kissed her.
“Me, too,” she sighed. “I’m going to call Faith, so I suggest you call Smith if you want to be the one to tell him.”
I handed her phone back before pulling my own out of my pocket and dialing Smith’s number.
“Hey, I was just going to call you. I think I’ve solved our Italy problem.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, we can talk about that in a minute. I called to tell you that Grace is pregnant.” I smiled as I said the words.
“Really? Man, that’s awesome. How far along are you guys?” He sounded so happy.
“Six weeks, so still really early. Grace is calling Faith right now so be prepared for some serious squealing over there.” I looked out over the city as I spoke.
“I’ll be glad to hear something other than wedding plans. You had the right idea by eloping.”
Sometimes I had wondered if I cheated Grace out of her dream wedding by pushing for the small ceremony. “You may have the right idea by letting her plan what she wants, though. I’m running the risk of Grace waking up one morning and wishing she had gotten married with everyone there.”
“Nah, I think you’re good on that front. I’m marrying the wedding crazy sister in the family. Anyways, tell me more about the baby. Have you gotten the sonogram yet?”
“Yeah, just today we did. I remember how it was seeing Jackson for the first time when Fiona was like twelve weeks along. This was intense.”
“I know what you mean. It becomes so real when you see that heart beat doesn’t it?” He sounded wistful.
“It really does.”
We spent the rest of the phone call discussing a mixture of work and babies. Grace and I ordered in for dinner and she made me look at baby stuff online for the rest of the night. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better evening.
FIVE WEEKS OF BLISS. I walked around in a haze of love and dreams for five straight weeks. The morning of my eleventh week, I woke up to cramps and knew immediately that something was wrong. I ran to the bathroom and found blood in my underwear.
“Logan!” I screamed from the bathroom. “Logan!” I was terrified.
“Grace, what’s wrong?” He burst through the door.
“I’m bleeding,” I sobbed, clutching my aching midsection. “Please call Dr. Welsh.” This couldn’t be happening. I refused to believe that I could be losing this baby. Not after everything we went through to conceive.
He looked hesitant to leave me, but I pleaded with him to go call. I sat alone on the toilet, feeling the blood drip from me and knowing that I was losing the baby.
“Can you get up?” he asked gently.
“Do I have to?” I felt tears sliding down my cheeks.
“We need to go to the hospital, honey.” His face was ashen. I could only imagine what Dr. Welsh had said to him.
He helped me down to the car and we sped off to the emergency room. I felt hollow inside.
Logan raced me through the doors in his arms and barked out orders for them to put me in a room. He was not a man to be ignored, and I was thankful for that.
I was given a gown and someone came in to do an ultrasound. As I lay on the table staring at the screen, I prayed that we would see something moving.
“Hmm. Let me just move this around a little.” The ultrasound tech refused to make eye contact with me.
“What do you see?” Logan asked.
“Um, I shouldn’t say anything until the Dr. comes in.” She sounded nervous.
“Just say it. I know the baby’s gone. I just need to hear you say it,” I whispered through my tears.
She looked at me, her eyes so sad. Before she could answer, Dr. Welsh flew through the door, her expression worried.
“Let me see what we have here.” Her tone was all business. She studied the screen as she moved the probe around for a better view. After a few minutes, she stepped back and came to stand up by my head. “I’m so sorry, Grace. I couldn’t find a heartbeat.”
My whole world ended with those nine words. My baby was gone.
“Why did this happen?” Logan asked, his voice thick with emotion.
“There’s no real reason why it happened, sometimes it just happens. I wish I had the answers for you.” She put a hand on his shoulder.
I watched as a single tear slipped down his cheek, and I broke apart inside, shattering into a billion pieces. My tears were a never-ending ocean; I wished I could drown in them. I couldn’t make myself listen to the things Dr. Welsh was telling Logan, I was lost and no one could save me.
They wheeled me down a long hallway to a small room with a bed in the center.
“Grace, we need to perform a D&C right now. We could wait, but it would just be worse for you.” Dr. Welsh put a hand on my arm. “Do you understand?”
I looked up, meeting her gaze numbly. I could only nod. I didn’t think there was anything about this day that could get any worse. I was wrong.
Logan was up by my head, clutching my hand in his as they started the procedure. I cried the whole time as they finished dilating my cervix and using the vacuum to suck out what was left of my baby. I’ll never forget that sound; for the rest of my life, I will remember it. I sobbed and made Logan cover my ears with his hands, but I could still hear it.
It felt like it went on forever, but in reality, it was relatively quick. Logan helped me get dressed because I didn’t have the strength to stand up on my own. I didn’t remember the drive home. It was like one minute we were at the hospital, and the next, Logan was carrying me into our room and laying me down on the bed.
“Grace. Talk to me, baby.” He sat down on the bed next to me looking totally wrecked.
“I can’t right now, Logan.” I turned away from him. He probably hated me for losing our baby
; I hated myself for it. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t keep it safe?
“Please don’t shut me out again. I’m hurting, too, and I need my wife.” I could hear the tears in his voice, and it ruined me.
I turned over and looked at him and saw on his face a mirror of how I was feeling. We had both lost something we could never get back.
“I can’t lose you, too,” he whispered, sliding into bed next to me not touching but close enough that I could feel the heat of his body.
“Don’t hate me,” I whispered back.
“I could never hate you. This wasn’t your fault; it was just an awful thing.” He sounded so sad, so broken.
“You know, before all of this, I never really knew what it was to be sad. Sure, I had bad relationships, and you and I had our nonsense, but it could never compare to this. My life was a happy one, relatively speaking.” My voice was shaky. “I don’t know that I can do this again. I want a baby so bad, but this pain, what it’s done to us, is it worth it?”
“There is nothing in life that can compare to the loss of a child, no matter how long you loved them, you still loved them. We don’t have to make any decisions now about the future, Kitten. We both need to feel this and grieve over what we lost.” His hand found mine on the bed between us.
“Everyone keeps telling me that I’m meant to be a mom, but what if I’m not? What if I’ll never know what it feels like to have a baby kick inside of me, or hear that first cry? Does it make me less of a woman if I don’t bring new life into the world?” I sobbed, letting out all of the awfulness I had been keeping inside of me for so long. “Will you hate me if I can’t give you a baby that’s yours and mine? Will this break us?” I needed him to tell me it wouldn’t break us; that nothing could break us because we were too strong; that he loved me too much.
He was silent for a moment, and it slashed at me like a white-hot blade. It scared me that he had to think about his response. I wanted to run, but I was rooted to the bed.
“If we never have a baby, it’s okay. You’re enough for me; you’ve always been enough for me. I’ve been terrified this whole time that I’m not enough for you, Grace. We’ve pushed for this so hard, and it’s torn at me, baby. There are bits and pieces of my heart that are gone. Am I enough for you, baby? Are we enough to make you happy forever?”
I could feel his pain as keenly as my own. We had both been through war together the past year, and I hoped we would come out the other side somewhat whole.
“You’re enough for me,” I whispered through my tears. “You’ve always been enough, it was never about that. I just wanted to add to us, to make us a family.” I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest.
“We’ve been a family since we said I do. A baby wouldn’t change that.”
“Where do we go from here, Logan? I feel so lost.” My hair fell over my face like a curtain as I leaned my chin on my knees.
“I don’t know where we go from here. We’ll decide that tomorrow or next week. Please just let me take care of you today.” He gently gathered me into his arms and we cried together for a while. I sobbed against his chest, crying for the baby I had loved so much. His tears joined my own on my cheeks. We were both broken.
After a bit, I unwound myself from his embrace and rolled over on the bed in a little ball. The tears wouldn’t stop. All that I could feel was my own pain, both physical and emotional.
Logan got up a little while later and went to answer his phone in the other room. I could hear him talking softly.
“No, things are not okay here,” he whispered harshly. “Grace lost the baby this morning.”
I could see him from where I lay on the bed. He was half bent over with tears wetting his cheeks.
“I don’t know how to help her, or how to help myself right now, Smith.” He sank down to the floor.
“No, please tell her not to come. Love, too. Grace can’t deal with that right now.”
I fell asleep listening to the sound of his hoarse whisper as he talked to Smith. I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke up to someone running a hand across my arm. I rolled over to find Hope sitting on the bed next to me.
“Hey, honey,” she whispered and slipped under the covers next to me. “Tell me what you need.” She touched her forehead to mine.
“What do I need? I need to not have lost this baby.” The tears started again.
“I know, baby.” She stroked my hair. “I never told you this, but right after John and I got married, I lost a child. I was only eight weeks along, but it wrecked me for a while.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because I couldn’t do the sad looks and people telling me how things happen for a reason.” She sighed. This was exactly why Hope and I got along; we were so similar. “So, I will not tell you that this happened for a reason, or that you should get over it. I know that it will take you time to get through this. Just know you aren’t alone and that you’re loved.”
“Did Logan call you?” I sniffled.
“No, Smith. He knew you would need me.”
I choked out a sob. The family that I had been pushing away for the better part of a year was waiting in the wings to love me. I didn’t deserve them.
GRACE WAS A ZOMBIE. SHE wasn’t present in life anymore. She just cried all day. I felt like was losing her and I couldn’t stop it from happening. I took a few weeks off work to be with her and for my own sanity.
Most people only thought about Grace with this, but I had lost something, too. I had loved that baby so much and dreamed about what he or she would look like. It wasn’t just Grace who felt this pain.
Grace was in the room sleeping, something she did a lot more these days. I was lucky to get a few hours with her anymore. I was staring out the window at nothing in particular, lost in my thoughts. I heard a key in the lock and turned to find Smith standing in the entryway.
“I know you said not to come, but you’ve sounded really bad on the phone. And this is what family does; we come when you tell us not to.”
I nodded and motioned for him to sit in the chair across from me.
“So, tell me how you’re really doing?” He put his hands on his knees and leaned forward after he sat down.
“Not great. I’m losing her. I can feel her slipping away more and more every day. I can’t live without her, man. She’s my heart, the breath in my lungs.”
“I don’t know what to say, man. This is heavy.”
“Yeah.” I never knew what to say to people in situations like this. He was trying. Hell, we all were. Trying and failing. Just living was getting hard.
“You’re not going to lose her. You guys are stronger than that. This is a tough time, but it’s what you signed up for when you promised to love each other forever. So, tell me what you’re afraid of.”
“I’m afraid she’s going to leave me because I’m not enough for her,” I said softly.
“Fuck that. Get that thought out of your head right now. I’m serious. She’d never leave you, just like you would never leave her. You guys are stuck with each other.” He pointed a finger at me.
“How do we move on from this? I’m stuck here, and she never talks to me anymore. I don’t know how to help her.” My voice was rising, I felt so helpless.
“You make her see that you’re still here.” He said softly.
“Yeah? Well, how do I do that? I feel like she doesn’t even see me anymore.”
“I don’t have all the answers, Logan. But you can’t stop trying.”
I wouldn’t stop trying, I would never give up on her. I just wish I knew how to make her see me again.
“I see you,” a small voice said from behind us. I turned and found Grace standing in the hallway in her pajamas. “Nice to see you, Smith,” she said in a wooden voice. “Is my sister with you?”
He shook his head. “She stayed in Chicago. I’m staying for a day or so. I’ll leave you two to talk.” He put a hand on my shoulder and went to give Grace a quick kiss befor
e leaving.
“Do you really think I don’t see you?” she asked, still standing in the hall.
“You don’t see me, Kitten. I feel like you’re slipping away from me, and I can’t stop you,” I said in frustration.
“I’m sorry; this has just been a lot for me to deal with.” She looked away.
“Don’t you think I know that, Grace? I’m fucking in this just the same as you are. I lost the baby, too. I loved that baby. Don’t tell me it’s been a lot because I know it has been. Stop pretending like you’re the only one in pain.” I hadn’t realized that I was angry until this very moment.
“You’re mad,” she said, inching closer to where I was.
“Apparently, I am. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live with a zombie.” I raked a hand through my hair.
“So, what, you’re leaving?” Her eyes got big; it was like she was daring me to prove her point.
“Of course, I’m not leaving. Have I ever in all of this said that I would leave you?” I softened my tone. “There just needs to be a change. We can’t go on like this for much longer. We never talk, and I can’t remember the last time you even let me kiss you. I need you, Kitten. I’m drowning over here.” I held out a hand, praying that she would take it.
“Help me. I don’t know who I am anymore, Logan,” she whispered. “This year, I lost myself to this. To the desperation. I can’t do that again.” She walked toward me.
“Oh, Kitten, I know exactly who you are.” I met her halfway and took her in my arms. “You’re my wife, my best friend.”
“I’m done trying. Is that okay?” she murmured into my chest.
“It’s more than okay. We need a chance to be us again, and if you never want to try again, I’m fine with that, too. I’ve followed your lead on this, and I’ll continue doing that. I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep killing yourself. We can adopt or not have any kids at all. I just need you with me.”
“We’re enough, Logan. I don’t need anyone else but you. I can’t think about babies anymore, I’m drained. I’ve never known heartache until this.” Her eyes were so sad; it broke my heart to look at her.
Never Let Me Go: The Complete Set Page 30
