Where Promises Die: A Second Chance Romance

by R. C. Stephens

  Chapter One

  Five years later

  January 15, 2008

  Rogers Park, Chicago

  Halo

  It’s happening… This. Is. Real.

  Shit! I lean over the side of my bed and brace myself. Slow breaths, Halo. You can do this. Everything will be okay. I take a slow breath, but the pain is too intense.

  I’m losing it. What should I do? It’s too soon. This baby wasn’t meant to come for another three weeks. Jenny and Dave aren’t back from Florida yet. Who the hell should I call?

  Fuck! Here comes another one. Holy hell, it feels like my insides are being squeezed to death. This can’t be good. My contractions are five minutes apart. Little beads of sweat trickle down my forehead and my heart accelerates.

  I never anticipated being alone for something like this. For this I was supposed to have a partner by my side.

  Thomas had stuck by my side. He’d put his own dreams on hold. I knew with everything in me that he would always be by my side.

  The contraction subsides. I rise from the bed, huffing out slow breaths as I wobble over to the window facing the backyard. I place my hand on the cool glass, which feels nice on my heated skin. The sky is a midnight blue and the stars are sparse. I watch the clouds slowly moving and concentrate on breathing slowly through my nose and exhaling out of my mouth.

  I’m on the verge of panic. Being alone means I don’t have the luxury of melting down. “Even darkness must pass,” I whisper the wise words of Tolkien, keeping my eyes glued on the large backyard covered in at least two feet of snow, anything to distract my mind from the fear that threatens to swallow me whole. Thomas and I had shared a love of books. We quoted Tolkien’s words all the time.

  I look back to the clock on the night table. It’s three a.m. Even though Thomas has been gone for just over seven months, I still sleep on my side of the bed. It’s messed up, but when someone like Thomas makes a promise to come back to you no matter what, you believe it, you breathe it and it enters your soul. People like Thomas are loyal. They don’t make promises and then break them. They sure as fuck don’t walk out on their pregnant wives. When he left on previous deployments I always missed him when he was gone and waited for his return. This time was different. I waited for him to make contact. It never came. Then the divorce papers were delivered and I understood…

  Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I usually don’t swear, but I can’t stop cussing. This pain is maddening. I’m going to lose it in a minute. Maybe it’s good Thomas isn’t here for this because all I can think about right now is gripping his balls and twisting so he can understand my pain.

  Flakes of snow begin to fall from the sky. Usually I love watching the snow fall. It relaxes me on a good day. Right now it’s only adding to my anxiety. I’m worried about driving myself to the hospital with the snowy roads. My car is more of a death trap than a vehicle. I turn away from the window and walk over to the closet. I grab an orange beach bag off the floor and I begin to fill it with pajamas and a change of clothes. I thought I had more time to prepare.

  My best friend Jenny was overdue for all three of her children. I thought going beyond the baby’s due date was the norm. I was hoping Thomas would sense my broken heart and walk through our front door when I needed him most.

  I tried reaching him through all the routine channels. I even called some of the wives of his fellow SEALs on his team. I figured they would be sympathetic to my situation and they definitely were. They asked their husbands about Thomas. Avery, the wife of one of Thomas’s fellow SEALs, said that Thomas had seemed pretty messed up but that he was definitely on active duty. I then asked her to send the message for him to call home since she was in contact with her husband. That call never came. A couple months later I learned his team had gone dark and they were expected to stay that way for a while.

  I step into the bathroom and with shaky hands throw my toothbrush and some toothpaste in the bag too. I planned to take off school a week early and buy diapers, get sleepers and fix the truck. With being a teacher I didn’t want to leave the classroom while in the middle of a unit. I wanted to wrap things up. With the baby coming three weeks early my plans have been quashed and I am now unprepared. Unfortunately for me none of my plans ever seem to work out.

  Ow! Shit! Here comes another one. The bag slips out of my fingers and my hands go to my swollen belly to brace for the impending contraction. My face scrunches up. I can’t do those damn slow breaths I was taught to do, because these damn contractions are owning my ass.

  I think that was four minutes. I hunch forward as the contraction rips its way through me. I close my eyes and pray. I pray that Thomas will walk through the door this second, or that Jenny will for some unforeseen reason end her vacation in Florida early.

  “Charlie what should I do?” I ask, looking into the brown eyes of my Golden Retriever. She stares back at me and I can tell she understands what’s happening. I’m sure she’d try to help if she could speak. I don’t know how I would have gotten through these last months without her. She has cuddled me and let me cry on her more times than I care to remember.

  “What do you say, Charlie? Ambulance or a taxi?” Charlie tilts her head to the side and lets out a cute little moan followed by a louder bark. “Taxi it is then.” I pat her head. An ambulance will make me even more anxious than I already am. I’m about to lose my shit in another minute.

  I walk over to the phone on the nightstand and call the cab company. A man with an East Indian accent picks up and tells me he could have the cab here in five minutes. I bet that’s even faster than the ambulance. My heart is racing a mile a minute and my hands are clammy. I hang up the phone and try to focus. I’m not sure I will make it through this on my own. I always had it in my head that somehow he would come home for this. I really believed that when he left it wasn’t final. I was his Halo. He promised me that I was his fucking Halo…

  I quickly throw on a pair of sweat pants and a sweatshirt. My hair is tied up in a messy bun at the top of my head. I pick up the beach bag and throw in a hairbrush. I know I’m running out of time before another contraction hits and I need to make it down the stairs… Nothing in my life goes as planned why should giving birth be any different?

  As I reach the bottom of the stairs another contraction hits. I topple over, trying to breathe like I was taught in my prenatal classes. Charlie is rubbing her body along my leg. My only thought is that the prenatal teacher was batshit crazy. There is no way I can breathe through this pain. It’s probably more like I will stop breathing. I’m dying…

  No. I will keep my shit together because I need to be strong. This baby inside me is going to need a strong mother. I’ve been trying to convince myself of this for the past seven months but I feel like I am fooling myself. I met Thomas when I was fifteen. Since then, he’s been my whole world. Now that he isn’t here, I’m a broken mess, scared of raising this baby on my own.

  The contraction finally passes. Feeling spent and thirsty, I waddle to the kitchen for a glass of water. I gulp down one glass, then another. While I’m at the sink, I fill Charlie’s water dish. I take care of her food too, reminding myself to let the neighbor know that she’ll need to look in on her.

  I head for the door, knowing the cab will be here soon. I pass the living room and I spot a photo of Thomas and me on the mantel. I walk over to it, feeling hot fury burning in my chest.

  “Damn you, Thomas Wells,” I hiss at his picture. “You promised me you were the sticking-around type and this doesn’t fucking constitute sticking around…” I pick up the frame and lay it face down. I’ve put most of our pictures in a box in the attic. Right after he left, I was in so much pain, felt so alone. Staring at his photographs made it hurt more.

  This was the only picture I left around the house. It was taken after we got married. We both look so young and hopeful. The prick knew how to get me pregnant, he just couldn’t manage to hang around. My gaze shifts to my water polo trophies on the shelf by the fireplace.
Even looking at the trophies right now makes me angry and I feel like chucking them across the room. My parents thought a team sport would be good for me when we moved out here. It’s how I met Thomas. Anger stings its way up my throat. I realize how resentful I am. I know I need to get myself together because I can’t show the baby that I resent its father. I know better than that.

  I make my way to the door and put on my boots and winter coat. Charlie takes a seat beside me, looking up at me with soppy brown eyes. “Don’t worry, girl. I’ll be just fine. I’ll be back with a baby in hand.” I pat her on the head. Two minutes later a bright light shines into the house followed by a loud car horn. The cab.

  I leave the house and lock the door with my little beach bag and purse on my shoulder. As I approach the cab, the cabbie looks at me a little wide-eyed. It’s now three-thirty in the morning and a very pregnant woman is climbing into his cab.

  “Where to ma’am?” he asks as if he already knows—he just wants me to choose a hospital.

  “St. Joseph’s Hospital…” Another contraction strikes and I hold on to my belly screaming. My head falls back when he accelerates abruptly.

  “Holy shit! Ma’am, I’m driving. Just don’t have that baby in my cab.” I can’t even answer him. This contraction is even stronger. I just hope I make it to the hospital on time. Having a baby in the back of a cab with no drugs is simply not happening.

  The driver is driving like a maniac down the slippery roads. I hope he doesn’t kill us trying to get there. The contraction subsides. Phew! I use my breathing time to shoot my neighbor Maggie a quick text asking if she can stop by and take care of Charlie. The cab stops abruptly and I jerk forward, feeling a strong need to pee. He pulls up to the front of St. Joseph’s and I reach for my purse to pay him.

  He looks like he’s sweating. “It’s okay ma’am. Don’t pay me, just go…please just go,” he practically begs me.

  I’m too panicked to pay him much attention. I take my purse and bag and leave his cab. If these contractions are regular, another one should hit in about a minute. As I walk toward the hospital entrance, warm liquid slowly trickles down both my legs. Shit! I’ve either just peed myself or my water broke. I really have no clue. All I know is that I am uncomfortable and wet. The air is brisk and cool as I make my way through the sliding doors of the hospital and up to the information desk.

  “Labor and delivery, please,” I ask with a hint of a smile since it’s the best I can manage under the circumstances.

  “Sure ma’am, that’s the tenth floor. Should I call for assistance?” the young African American man behind the desk asks with a kind smile.

  “Huh. Aghhh!” I topple forward as I brace myself for another contraction. “I need an epidural,” I scream. This is getting intense. The man leaves his desk and comes around to my side. He jogs over to the entrance and grabs me a wheelchair, huffing a bit.

  “Have a seat, ma’am. I’ll get you to the tenth floor.” I take a seat, trying to breathe through this pain. It’s too damn much. My insides are crushing me. Finally, I sense some relief when the squeezing sensation eases into a dull pain.

  The physical pain turns into sadness as I’m rolled down the hallway. My father moved our family away from California when he got a job in this hospital. I was so angry at my parents for taking me away from my friends and my life in LA. I was happy there.

  My father was a doctor and my mother a university professor. They had me later in life because they had trouble conceiving. When they finally had me, I became their life. When I was born, my mom took one look at me and was convinced I had a halo around me and hence my original name. After trying to have a baby for over a decade, she doted on me every moment of her time.

  It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing until they became worried about my friends and their influence on me. To “save me” we moved halfway across the country. I remember coming to the hospital to visit my father. Getting wheeled down these familiar halls causes those painful memories to rip a hole through my heart.

  “Agh,” I cry out again as the man wheels me toward the nurse’s desk. We finally come to a stop. “Thank you, sir,” I bite out through the pain.

  “Good luck.” He waves, looking at me sympathetically. He should be sympathetic. I’m about to split in fucking two!

  “How far apart are your contractions?” A nurse with brown, short hair and wearing glasses low on her nose peers over her desk at me.

  “My contractions are four minutes apart and I have a warm liquid oozing its way down my legs,” I snarl. I think my voice must sound like Darth Vader.

  “Are we waiting for a partner?” she asks. Jenny was supposed to be my birthing partner. She’s soaking up the sun right now. I look down to the band on my finger. Why am I still wearing it? Gah! I should have taken off the ring, especially now that we divorced, but I felt like if I took off the ring I would lose all hope that he would come back to me. It’s ridiculous and pathetic. Now I feel like whipping the wedding ring at the damn wall.

  “I’m on my own,” I reply, feeling the words sting my throat. I let out a breath, my body weak and tired from the contractions.

  “Okay, well, I need you to fill out the insurance paper work first. I will have one of the nurses come by and get you,” she answers with a frown. She passes me a clipboard with a shit-ton of papers. I’m really happy I have good insurance from work. Being a teacher and working for the city means I have at least that. I can afford to have this baby. Even though I know it’s going to be hard with being a single mom. I don’t want to return to work immediately. Ideally I want time with my baby. I begin to fill out the redundant questions when my belly begins to clench again. I squeeze the pen in my hand so hard the plastic snaps and ink spurts over my hand.

  “Oh dear,” the nurse behind the desk mutters as she watches me. My head is thrown back, and I must look bright red because I’m not breathing through this pain. “Do you have an insurance card? I’ll finish this up for you.” She walks around the desk with a cloth in her hand and wipes the splattered ink off my hand. She cleans it but it doesn’t come off.

  “Ye…es… It’s in my wallet in my purse,” I murmur. She takes my purse and she must find what she needs because a few moments later she says, “All done. Let’s get a doctor to look at you.”

  She wheels me through two large, white doors. We pass many delivery rooms and as my ears register the sounds of voices—some male, some female—coming from the rooms, I can’t help but think of Thomas. I desperately wish he were here to witness the birth of our child.

  “Please lie on the bed. We’ll hook you up to the monitors and have one of the residents come in to see how far along you are.” A pleasant young nurse with blond hair smiles.

  I ask about getting something for my pain as she helps me out of my clothes and into a gown. After I’m settled on the bed, she reassures me that they can get something for me as soon as they assess my condition.

  It’s a relief when—after they hook me up to the monitors—I hear my baby’s heartbeat. That little heartbeat warms my own heart and I exhale a long breath. There is light at the end of this tunnel.

  I hope I can do okay by my baby. I think about my own parents—they made their mistakes but they still did the best they could. I feel so far away from the teenager who was once given everything that it’s hard to reconcile who I am now with who I was just a few years ago.

  I barely register meeting the doctor and when the anesthesiologist comes to administer the epidural, I just try to hold on through the pain. They assign me a delivery nurse—her name is Judy and I love her smile—and she’s so kind I want to weep.

  “How are you doing, Halo?” Judy asks and I practically want to hug her. I don’t remember the last time someone asked me how I was doing.

  I don’t have too many close friends except for Jenny and Dave. They don’t judge, they only support me. I have a larger group of friends and coworkers who I eat lunch with on school days, but those friends were more for the g
ood times, not the bad. There was no way I was going to cry them a river.

  Thomas and I were given the option of living close to a military base so that I would have the support of the other military wives. I had always considered that option and then panic would begin to rise in me. The house in Rogers Park was all I had left of my parents. I felt like if I moved away I would lose the connection I felt there. As it was, I had felt guilty about fighting with them. I felt that if they somehow knew I stayed in the house they would be happy. And somewhere along the way Chicago became home. Thomas and I had built special memories here. I didn’t want to leave those behind either.

  “Well, Judy, I could be better. I’m kind of freaking out wondering how this baby is going to come out of me,” I admit, raising my left brow.

  Judy throws her head back, laughing. “You don’t need to worry. Your body was built for this. Why don’t you try to sleep? It can take a few hours for things to progress since the epidural slows things down. You need your strength for pushing later on. I will be sitting here watching your machines.” Her voice is soft and reassuring.

  “Thanks, Judy.” I smile. There is something about her demeanor that relaxes me. I feel I can trust her. I close my eyes and drift off.

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