Mom's the Word

by Marilynn Griffith

  There’d been a rush of people at the table, thirty or more, and everyone had questions. By now they had things down to a science. When things calmed down, the reverend walked through the store and passed out flyers directing people to Fallon’s signing. Ryan stacked the books, held them open and slid in a bookmark after Fallon signed them. And Fallon, well, she was just herself. No putting on there.

  She waved to Dyanne’s father, who was on his feet with a stack of flyers in his hand. Fallon shook her head. “No, baby. We need to get Dee Dee back to the room to lie down. She don’t look right to me, you know? All around her eyes and everything.”

  Dyanne watched her father’s eyes narrow with concern. He’d told her not to come on the trip, and now she wondered if he hadn’t been right. Everything had been fine at first, better than fine when they heard the great news about Karol’s book. Ryan had burst into the hotel room waving Fallon’s cell phone over his head.

  “The book! The book! Wallace Shelton wants to publish the book!”

  This would have sent most people into a frenzy, but for a book publicist, a well-known author and a preacher who’d published quite a few books in his time, there wasn’t much of an initial reaction.

  That quickly changed.

  “What are you talking about?” Dyanne had been deep in a blissful sleep, the kind she hadn’t experienced in quite a while. Ryan had seemed like a figment of her imagination until he bumped into her bed.

  Still not quite able to articulate the news, Ryan had turned in circles until he saw his mother’s book on the nightstand. He snatched it up and held it over his head. “Mama’s book! Mr. Chaise is going to publish it. He wants another book from her, too. A two-book deal!”

  The party was on then. Dyanne was up on her feet and heading for the phone in Ryan’s hand. She had to get the administrative details. Fallon and the reverend were dancing in a circle to an impromptu rendition of “Ease on Down the Road” from The Wiz.

  As Karol explained the details of Mr. Chaise’s call, Dyanne calmed her fears and referred her to several good literary agents. She had to cut the call short, though, and run to the bathroom to throw up. Everyone else in the room stopped singing.

  That was two days ago and it’d been pretty quiet in their little group ever since.

  Dyanne’s father put down the flyers and pulled out his phone, dialing wildly but keeping his eyes on his daughter. She knew who he was calling—her husband. And for once, she was angry about either of them trying to take care of her.

  “I’ve called Neal. He’s going to go ahead and get an earlier flight. I hate to ask this, but are you bleeding? He says if you’re bleeding I’m to take you to the hospital. Right now.”

  Keep it together. You’re working. You can’t break down here.

  “No, Dad. I’m not bleeding. I am going to get a cab back to the hotel, though—”

  “I’ll take you!” Both Fallon and Dyanne’s father said at the same time.

  The reverend shook his head. “No. You need to stay here. There’s still another hour in the signing and some of these people are coming from a long way to see you. I’d love to leave Ryan to help, but I can take him with me, that way you don’t have to keep an eye on him….”

  They went back and forth about who would do what while Dyanne watched the room swim around her. She almost wished that she’d been able to recount the telltale symptoms that her father and Neal were looking for. Instead, Dyanne felt what she’d been feeling since before the “event” was even over—pregnant. It wasn’t her body that worried her so much now, despite the morning sickness, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms that were playing a trick on her somehow, but rather Dyanne’s mind that worried her.

  She didn’t want to go to another examination room only to be told the opposite of what her body was saying. When Dyanne thought she couldn’t be pregnant, there was a doctor to bluntly tell her the error of her ways of thinking. When she thought that things were going great and envisioned herself as a beached whale on some Floridian shore, a doctor had given another pronouncement: you’re not pregnant anymore. Whatever the next doctor might have to say, Dyanne was sure that she didn’t want to hear it. She was also sure that she had to get out of this bookstore and out of this mall now…Right now.

  “Oh, goodness, Kelvin. Where is she going? Look at her swaying like that. Come on, Ryan. We’re all going. I’ll run and tell the manager that I’ll have to reschedule. I don’t think there are many books left anyway.”

  Dyanne would have normally insisted that Fallon stay until the last second of the signing and until every book was signed. This time, she couldn’t do anything but hold on to her father and put one foot in front of the other.

  As they headed for the entrance, the manager flagged down and thanked them for such a great signing.

  “We sold out,” he said. “Best signing we’ve had in years. Please come back anytime.”

  Dyanne managed a smile and nod before staggering out of the store and into a flood of strangers. There were people moving from every direction, most of them families with young children. In each little face it seemed that Dyanne saw the little girl from her dream. Anya Christine. And yet none of them were her. They couldn’t be. Dyanne’s baby was dead. And if she didn’t get a grip on that fact, she wondered if she might not lose her mind. In a glimpse, she finally felt the full weight of what her mother had gone through again and again.

  The air outside was hot but nowhere near as thick and humid as in Florida. Dyanne stopped on the way to the parking lot and held on to a pillar to catch her breath.

  Her father’s forehead knit together. “I think we might need to go to the hospital, Dee. Just to be safe. How long has it been since you had your hormone levels checked?”

  Dyanne tried to think. “Two weeks? I missed that last appointment when we left but we’ll be home Friday.”

  “No. We’ll find a lab here. I’ll call your doctor. We need to make sure that the hormones are dropping and that everything is clear. If anything is left then there can be an infection. It could be bad.”

  As they piled into the car, Fallon held a hand to Dyanne’s forehead. “No fever but the chile looks as ripe as a melon. If I didn’t know what I know, I’d say she was still—”

  “Shhh…” Ryan finally said. He’d been quiet through most anything, reading between lines. “Just let her go to sleep.”

  Dyanne closed her eyes and curled up in the last row of Fallon’s hybrid SUV. She didn’t want to go to the hospital, but at this point anywhere they could take her would be better than how she felt now. She closed her eyes and offered up a short, but effective prayer.

  “Lord, help me.”

  When Dyanne woke up, Neal was there. She blinked a few times to be sure, but it was actually him.

  “Either I slept a very long time or you got on a very fast plane. I think Dad overreacted. I just got a little green. I guess it’s to be expected.”

  Neal rested his hand on her shoulder when she tried to sit up. “Not really. You shouldn’t be throwing up or near passing out. Yes, your dad told me everything. I had the doctor in Tallahassee fax a lab request up here. We’ll go out as soon as you feel up to it and have the test done at a walk-in lab.”

  Technology. There was no way to get away from this. “I don’t think that’s necessary.” What she thought wasn’t something Dyanne wanted to say out loud. She didn’t have to. Neal said it for her.

  “So what, you think you’re going crazy? That it’s all in your head?”

  She was all out of defenses. “Yes. That’s exactly what I think.”

  The room, which Dyanne now realized had contained her father, Fallon and Ryan, emptied out quickly, leaving the two of them alone.

  “You aren’t going crazy, Dee. You just lost a baby. Things happen. We’ll get it sorted out.”

  Dyanne tried not to panic. She tried and failed. “I’m so tired, Neal. So tired of everything. Who knew that this would be so hard?”

  Her hus
band, always there to support her, lowered his voice. “I’m tired, too. Trust me. We’ve got to figure this all out. All I care about now is you.”

  What did that mean? She thought back to the concerns the doctor had when she decided against the surgery he’d suggested. One of the doctor’s biggest fears had been infection. He’d said that a surgery then could prevent a surgery after, one that might ensure that Dyane never have children. And this, Neal’s hands on hers, his lips on her cheek, was her husband saying that when it came down to it, she was all that he wanted.

  If only she felt the same.

  “They’re publishing Karol’s book.”

  Neal smiled. “Yeah. I heard. You did well with that one.”

  “Me? I didn’t—”

  “Sure you didn’t. Come on. Let’s get over to the lab. They’re going to fax results to Dr. Ross in New York, also. He’s coming in tomorrow morning.”

  “He’s coming in? For me? How—Neal I think you’re totally overreacting. Like I said, it’s probably all in my head….” Dyanne said as she got up and ran toward the bathroom.

  A few minutes later, Dyanne leaned against the sink washing her hands. In the next room, she heard something she’d never heard before.

  The sound of her husband’s grief, heaving from his chest.

  To-Do

  Nothing. There is nothing I can do.

  Pray. Maybe God can do something.

  —Dyanne

  Chapter Twenty

  Having her blood drawn didn’t hurt. The waiting did.

  Neal was back in his protector role and all Dyanne could do was watch. “Please. Can you tell us something about the test?”

  “We’ve faxed the results to your doctors. I’m sure they’ll be in touch with you soon.”

  To their surprise, both doctors called not long after the appointment. Both seemed concerned.

  “Take her to the hospital, just to be sure. Her numbers are way up. It could be retained tissue. It could be something else.”

  Neal was tired of something else. “Like what?”

  The doctor paused, probably thinking of his malpractice premiums. “There’s no way for me to be sure. I can’t make a diagnosis without seeing her. There are a number of possibilities. Ectopic pregnancy among them—”

  “What?” Dyanne didn’t know which word hit her hardest: ectopic or pregnancy. “There is no pregnancy. You looked at everything. My hormones went down—”

  “I’m sorry this happened while you’re away. Go to the hospital. Perhaps I can recommend someone where you are once a diagnosis has been made.”

  While Neal drove, Dyanne looked up “ectopic” on her BlackBerry, which had finally come back from being repaired just in time for the trip. A friend in college had had one of those tubal pregnancies, but Dyanne couldn’t remember exactly what they’d done to treat it. What she really couldn’t deal with was the possibility that there was still a pregnancy at all.

  The other doctor, Dr. Lee from New York, had been Dyanne’s gynecologist for all the years she’d been married. He was an old-school doctor, the type that younger physicians rolled their eyes at when he lectured them. The type that the hospital called for to deliver the babies that no one had been taught to deal with. He knew things that weren’t in books, things that could only be learned by living. He’d also been telling Dyanne for five years that she ought to go ahead and have a baby. His accent, a motley brogue from around the world, fell heavy on her ears after every annual appointment.

  “You work too hard, Dyanne. You’re getting angular, bony around the neck. Don’t let this city get to you. It’ll make you all pointy and sad if you let it. Make the time. Move to the island. A girl like you likes to win and won’t let up until she does. You would have made a great doctor, you know. But since you aren’t one, have a baby. The world has too many books as it is.”

  Dr. Lee’s words and the frequency with which he’d said them, came back to Dyanne now as the man’s voice echoed out of Neal’s closed phone.

  “Got yourself a babe there did you, Dyanne? I’m so proud of you. The both of you.”

  A sob choked in Dyanne’s throat but she choked it back down. She loved that old man, but sometimes he could be cruel, so cruel. The look on Neal’s face said that he thought so, too.

  “We had a baby, Doc. Lost it. We don’t know what’s going on now. Dee’s got some tissue or something in her tubes. I don’t know.”

  “Hmm…I don’t know. That’s not what the labs say to me. Is she bleeding?”

  Dyanne spoke up. “No.”

  “When you get to the emergency room have them do a scan, both inside and out. I’m a bit off my game these days and older than even I think I am, but I’d wager that you two have a surprise waiting for you at the hospital. I’ll ring the driver and we’ll start heading your way.”

  “Please don’t. I don’t know why Neal called you. I know you’re heading toward retirement now. I had planned to come up for a check, just for my own peace of mind, but there’s no reason—”

  “You, dear, are reason enough. Those gifts you get me every Christmas give an old man something to look forward to. The fruit of the month just arrived—organic cherries. They’re like candy. I’ll bring some. Now drive safe and don’t worry.”

  For some reason, Dyanne really wasn’t worried. If there was one thing that all of this was teaching her, it was that she was not in control. Neither were doctors, husbands or book publishers.

  A text appeared on her phone.

  KSimon: Praying 4 u !!!

  Dyanne. Thorn: Thnx

  She’d also learned that friends didn’t always come from the places you expected. And that home is where the heart is. And right now, her heart was back in Tallahassee in Fallon and Judah’s herb garden waiting for some summer rain.

  Rain on me, God. Give me something. You said to trust You, so I will. I just need You to come with me. To show me what You want me to see.

  When they arrived at the hospital, Dyanne’s father, Fallon and Ryan were already at the emergency room. Neal had probably called them somewhere in all of this, but Dyanne had missed it. Either way, she was very glad that he had.

  “Daddy.” She buried her face in her father’s shirt before being called back to a triage room. Neal seemed upbeat and cocky again and assured everyone—meaning Fallon—that everything would work out.

  “Doesn’t it always?” he asked.

  Dyanne couldn’t argue with that. It was just what it took for things to work out that worried her. She didn’t really want to be the vessel God used to make things okay.

  And why don’t you?

  Hmm…good question. Fear. There was no other way around it. Dyanne was deathly afraid. Of what she wasn’t quite sure, since she’d already tried to get pregnant, gotten pregnant when she wasn’t trying and lost a baby all within a few weeks. She wondered if it wasn’t the fear of not being able to have any children. That would have been reasonable, but she’d almost eliminated that possibility herself before coming on this trip. If she was honest, she’d probably have had the surgery already if she’d stayed at home instead of coming with Fallon.

  So if she wasn’t scared of losing the baby or not having any more, there was just one more thing to deal with: Dyanne was afraid of God.

  I just don’t always know what You’re going to do. I know Daddy says I’ll understand it when I get to heaven, but I guess I want to understand it now.

  After getting her vital signs and asking several questions, the nurse sent Dyanne back out to the waiting room. When she walked out, Ryan grabbed her hand first. He hadn’t said much in all of this, but now his eyes were filled with purpose and determination.

  “‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things unseen.’” He let out a breath and released Dyanne’s hand. “I was supposed to tell you that. I think I was supposed to tell me that, too.”

  Before she could respond, the nurse called Dyanne back one last time and gave her the shock of her l
ife.

  “All done. You can sit up now,” the nurse said, patting Dyanne on the shoulder.

  The ultrasound that Dr. Lee had recommended had sounded harmless, but it had turned out to be quite the adventure. Neal laced his fingers in hers as the nurse stepped into the hall.

  “It looks like your doctor has arrived,” she said. “I’ll let him go over the scans with you. Good luck!”

  Good luck? Sometimes people said the dumbest things. Dyanne made a mental note not to use that phrase in these types of situations. She’d take one of Fallon’s “God knows” over that any day.

  Dr. Lee walked in with his usual pep. Only his eyes, set back deeper in his face since they’d seen him last, and his hair, a much brighter white than Dyanne remembered, gave away his age.

  “Ah. The newlyweds. Come, come. Let’s see what we have. Cherries?” He patted his pocket.

  Neal looked as if he wanted to throw up. He had a thing about not eating in hospitals. Fruit from an old guy’s pockets was probably out of bounds, too. Dyanne shrugged and opened her hands. It was too late to escape the contaminants of the hospital, she figured.

  Dr. Lee chuckled. “Good girl.” He looked the screen over and nodded. A technician entered the room and helped him zoom in on what he was looking at so that the two of them could see.

  Neal saw it first. He dropped Dyanne’s hand.

  Dyanne covered her mouth.

  On the screen and inside Dyanne was a heart.

  A beating heart.

  “But how?” Dyanne’s fingers trembled as she asked the question. Neal held her shoulders gently as he stared, mouth open, at the monitor.

  The doctor popped a cherry into his mouth. “A twin, I believe. I had a case like this back in 1972. She’d had no X-ray and went home to carry on naturally. A month later, she was back in my office asking when she’d be thin again. It took a while for me to give her an answer. Later that year, she had a healthy boy. He still keeps in touch.”