“That’s not really fair, is it? You know I can’t resist you.”
“But I’m not me,” I complained. “I’m a crazy pregnant lady.”
“Sweetheart, if you don’t want me to make jokes at your expense, you shouldn’t make it so easy.”
Rather than continue to take his stance and square up to the plate, he began packing his equipment. I watched him as he shoved his bats into a bag and slung it over his shoulder, and then pulled the ball cap off his head as he wiped his temples with his forearm. When he had almost reached the point where I stood, he plopped the cap on his head backwards.
“You usually spend a lot more time practicing than this, don’t you?” I grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and pretended to be wringing it out.
“Yeah, but I’ve got somewhere else I need to be tonight,” he stated quickly.
“Which is where, exactly?” Folding my arms across my chest, I gave him a slight glare.
“Well, here’s the thing,” he said rather sheepishly. “There was this girl – this beautiful, amazing girl. The way she was watching me… I’ve got to get with that girl right now. She thinks I’m a stud.”
“This is bothering me way more than it should.”
“What do you say, beautiful?” He reached up and brushed his thumb across my cheek, his deep brown eyes shining. “You’re worried about people watching me, but you’re forgetting one important factor. I won’t see them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m always looking at you.”
-§-
“I think I’m pretty sold on Clay,” Cole told me as we walked into the large office building. I immediately made a beeline to the map on the wall, trying to locate the suite where the magic awaited: 211C, which was up the stairs and to the left.
“I’m not opposed to Clay,” I admitted as he linked his fingers through mine. “You still have to sell me on it, though, because I’m not absolutely decided.”
“A challenge!” he exclaimed as we reached the stairs and began the ascent. “I can be very convincing when I need to be.”
“You can be convincing just by looking at me, so I’m sure you won’t get too much argument.” As we neared the top of the steps, I turned to look back from where we had started. “You know, I question the logic of putting the ultrasound people up the stairs. Pregnant women shouldn’t have to do this.”
“You didn’t seem to have any problems with our jog this morning,” he stated, pulling my hand up and kissing my knuckles.
“Oh, I’m not talking about me,” I teased, giving him a cocky grin. “I’m talking about normal people.”
“Naturally, because you’re Superwoman.” He chuckled, and then wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “You’re shaking, are you cold?”
Am I shaking? I didn’t even notice.
“No, I guess I’m just excited. Is that pathetic?” Without a word he stopped our forward progress, lowered his head, and kissed me gently as he pulled me closer.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I don’t think it’s pathetic that you’re excited. I think it’s adorable. Besides, you actually look pregnant today.”
“Really?” It was the first time I had actually worn the jeans from Belly Scene, and I felt like I looked pregnant. It was strangely liberating. “I’m sure it goes without saying, but I love you, so much.”
He kissed me quickly once more and then we stepped up to Suite 211C, where Cole pulled open the glass door. It was a small waiting room with just a couple of chairs in the lobby – nothing like the plush comfortableness of Dr. McCavin’s clinic.
“The Parkers?” the lady behind the desk asked. I acknowledged that information and she informed us that her name was Lydia. As she directed us to follow her around the corner, I gave Cole a quick knowing smile. “I really don’t want you to get your hopes up about finding out the gender, because I will do my best, but I don’t normally take appointments at seventeen weeks.”
“Oh, we understand,” I stated with as much sincerity as I could muster. She didn’t need to try to talk me down – I was absolutely positive the baby would cooperate. One glance at Cole told me he was thinking the exact same thing.
The room she took us into didn’t look like a doctor’s exam room – it looked more like a small living room with a bed and an ultrasound machine set up in the center. A couch sat against the wall, and there was a television screen across from the bed.
“Just make yourself at home,” Lydia stated, motioning to the bed. Cole raised one eyebrow at me, and I simply shook my head at him. “I’m guessing this is your first baby.”
“Yes,” I said, lowering myself to a seated position on the bed. She readied some paperwork for us to sign, which I admit that I didn’t bother reading. At that point, nothing was going to stop me from that upcoming moment of revelation.
“Y’all are going to be one of the earliest ultrasounds I’ve done here,” Lydia mentioned, fiddling around with her machine.
“How do you get into this line of work, anyway?” Cole wanted to know.
“I went through some training,” she said uninterestedly.
“Like nursing school or something?” Cole continued.
“Specialized training.” It was a good thing she had her back turned, because Cole looked at me and his eyes went wide. “There’s nothing to worry about, we’re just going to get a few pictures today. Hopefully the little guy or gal will cooperate, and we can determine whether you’re having a prince or a princess. I’m sure you both have your preferences.”
“Yes, and they’re probably predictable,” I joked, looking at Cole.
“Well, let’s find out, shall we?” Lydia asked. “If you want to lie back against that pillow, Mrs. Parker, we’ll just pull your shirt up a bit. I’m going to tuck this towel around it so we don’t make a mess.”
The gel was cool against my skin, and as she squeezed the tube out and it blobbed against my abdomen, Cole stared at my face.
“You can sit on the edge of the bed if you want to be close, Dad,” Lydia stated. The instant she called Cole Dad, my eyes grew moist and I felt myself getting emotional.
“Dad, did you hear that?”
Cole sat beside me and took my hand, giving me a huge grin. “Yeah, I like the sound of it,” he said.
“Your wife looks like a perfect little mother, too, don’t you think?”
The thought crossed my mind that Lydia was probably angling for a tip or recommendation or something, but I quickly brushed it away because I just knew she was right. I had to look like a perfect little mother.
“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a steamy puddle of lemonade,” Cole teased.
“Cole!” Determined not to blush like an idiot in front of Lydia, I squeezed his hand and gave him a visual signal to be quiet. “How long do you think it will take?”
“It takes no time as long as we get cooperation,” Lydia informed me. “Just say a prayer that the little guy or gal moves into the correct position.”
The screen suddenly lit up with a frame of light gray against the black background, and as she rolled the transducer over my full bladder, I strained to make out the shapes that filled that space. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t make them out – I imagined that they were my intestines, or ovaries, or who knows what else lurks in that general area.
“If you decide that you think it’s a girl, then we’ll forgive your mistake,” Cole laughed. Lydia almost seemed concerned with that remark, and I thought perhaps our laid-back attitude had gone too far.
“Cole, she won’t know you’re teasing,” I told him, glancing up at his handsome face. He clasped my hand tighter as he rolled his eyes a bit.
“Sorry, I’ll be the perfect gentleman from now on.”
Lydia’s manner still hadn’t relaxed, so I took a deep breath.
“He’s only kidding, of course,” I assured her.
She didn’t bother responding, just kept staring at that screen.
“Lydi
a?”
She turned to me then, countenance pale and eyes watery.
“Mrs. Parker,” she choked out, barely more than a whisper, “I’m so sorry. Your baby’s not moving.”
Chapter Fifteen
So, Janet - the nurse at Dr. McCavin’s office – had informed me that they didn’t do sonograms before the halfway point in a pregnancy, but that was a bold-faced lie. What she should have said was that they preferred not to do sonograms earlier than twenty weeks; however, if Lydia, the ultrasound-on-demand lady across town, called and said that she couldn’t find any life in your abdomen, you would be on the ultrasound schedule in a hot minute.
A hot minute, as in, “Dr. McCavin wants to see you right this instant – go straight to the office without stopping.”
My nasty blurting reflex really wanted to tell Lydia she was stupid at that point. What would we honestly want to stop and do on our way there? Grab a bite to eat? Do a little shopping? Cole and I couldn’t even look at each other, we were so terrified.
Deep inside I hoped that Lydia was a quack and didn’t pay attention in her specialized training, and Dr. McCavin would nervously laugh and tell us that everything was fine. Why did you go to a place like that, anyway? You should have known better, really. Then, I began to wonder if Lydia had done something to me, and if I had signed those papers too quickly.
I suppose I knew in my heart that she hadn’t done anything, because we had barely been in there five minutes, but there was no logical explanation. I couldn’t look at my husband, and my heart was breaking, and I needed something to make sense, because I was healthy. Those months of throwing up, with everyone telling me what a good sign it was, could not have led to this. It wasn’t plausible and I couldn’t force myself to believe it.
No, it couldn’t be true. Lydia was mistaken, and that’s all there was to it.
-§-
Cole wrapped his arm around my shoulders as he led me away from the car in the parking lot of the obstetrics clinic. He had wondered aloud at my shaking back at Lydia’s building, but he didn’t say a word about it in that parking lot, although I could sense it myself. Something ugly was possessing my body – a sense of apprehension that I hadn’t experienced before, and tamping it down seemed impossible.
We soon discovered that, when you might be hearing bad news, they don’t ask you to sit in the waiting room at the obstetrics clinic. They take you straight back to the exam room the minute you breathe your name, because they can’t sit you in a room with all those normal pregnant women. Whether it was from the idea of fear being contagious, or protecting you from having someone ask about your baby, I’ll never know for sure. The only thing I knew at the moment was that they ushered me quietly away to shield me from everyone else, as though I had the plague, and my heart sank, because it meant they didn’t believe Lydia was a quack. Whatever else they might have been thinking in that moment, that’s the one thing that stuck out – they thought Lydia was right.
An ultrasound tech came around, and repeated the same basic steps Lydia had done just a short time before. Cole didn’t sit on the exam table next to me this time, though. He stood in the corner of the room with his fist held against his mouth as though he might be sick. The silence in the room was deafening – Cole and I still hadn’t really voiced anything out loud, for fear that it might make everything real. The ultrasound tech seemed to catch our vibe, and she explained what she was doing but really gave no other chatter. This time, I had no trouble seeing the form on that screen – my baby, right there, looking altogether perfect with the arms bent slightly up toward the face, curled comfortably in my abdomen.
“No heartbeat,” came the words right as I thought them in my mind.
No heartbeat.
Then, she wanted to deliver us to Dr. McCavin’s office. Not to an exam room where he could try to figure out what was happening with my baby, but to his office – the place where he alternately stalked perceived celebrities and gave people devastating news that would change their lives. The waterfall didn’t seem quite so peaceful this time around – instead, it sounded like a hollow shell of grief rolling across my ears. I hated it. I hated everything.
Still, Cole was quiet, staring absently out the window, and I was too terrified of stating anything aloud to choke out a word. Although we sat near each other on the love seat, we didn’t touch each other.
The doorknob made a clicking noise, and I knew without looking that Dr. McCavin had entered the room. He strode in front of us, sitting down on a green upholstered chair and holding my red file between his hands. All my previous ire toward him for taking that ridiculous selfie paled in comparison to the moment we were now sharing, and I looked up and met his eyes, which were pained and sympathetic.
“Mr. and Mrs. Parker,” he began, clearing his throat, “I am so terribly sorry. It’s horrible for me to even be the bearer of this news, so I can’t imagine how you feel right now. This is only the second time I’ve had a case like this in my practice.”
“A case like this?” Cole clarified, rising to stand next to the window. “What does that mean? What happened?”
“That’s just it,” Dr. McCavin said quietly, “I don’t know. There’s no indication that something went wrong. This is one of those things that, even though we wish we had some idea why it happened, there may simply be no explanation.”
“There has to be some way to find out,” Cole shook his head, still not bothering to glance in my direction.
“We can run tests when everything’s over, to see if we can determine anything from the baby, but…”
“No,” I blurted, imagining them taking my sweet baby apart limb from limb.
Dear God, no.
“…like I said, you might find out at the end of the procedures that all of this happened for no reason.”
“How can it be for no reason?” Cole asked a little more adamantly. “There has to be an explanation.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Parker. I wish there was something more I could do.” Dr. McCavin was peering at me with glassy eyes, and I dropped my gaze so I wouldn’t have to endure his sympathetic stare.
“So, what are we supposed to do now?” Cole looked at me from his vantage point by the window, finally, and our eyes met in a moment of sheer agony as I saw the pain I was experiencing reflecting back on his face. My defenses fell instantly, and I dropped my head in my hands as I felt the emotion wash over me. In just a matter of seconds, his arms were around me, attempting to protect me as he always did.
“We can schedule with the hospital to induce labor,” Dr. McCavin informed us, “or you can wait a little bit for things to happen on their own.”
“I can’t,” I whispered through my tears. “Please… I can’t force it to happen not knowing for sure. What if this is wrong? What if it’s all a mistake?”
“I understand your thinking, Camdyn, I really do,” Dr. McCavin stated gently. “I wish to God we were wrong here.”
“Please, Cole,” I pleaded again. “I can’t.”
“I know, baby,” he said, smoothing the back of my hair. “I know.”
“So we wait then? I might be inclined to make that choice too, if it was me. There’s no reason to think this will affect anything in the future, either way.”
How can you say that? It won’t affect anything in the future? This IS our future we’re talking about, completely ripped to shreds.
“Should you become pregnant again, there’s nothing to make me think there would be a problem with having a healthy baby.”
Except I don’t want some future healthy baby – I want this baby.
“Okay,” Cole stated in a voice that sounded lower than normal. “If there’s nothing we can do, I’d just like to take her home.”
“I understand,” Dr. McCavin said, holding out a business card. “This has my cell number on it, and you can call me anytime, day or night, if you have questions. Again, you have my deepest sympathies.”
“Thanks,” Cole muttered, drawing me u
p from the love seat and keeping his arm around me. We continued out the office door and down the hall as though we were in a tunnel, not seeing anyone and not conversing. We passed by the receptionist without making another appointment, because that felt unnecessary. Meeting a pregnant woman at the elevator, I avoided eye contact until she had stepped away and then walked inside. A moment later, we were stepping out into the warm sunshine to greet a world that was still turning as though nothing had happened.
The car door unlocked and I reached to grab the handle, but Cole beat me to it, stealthily opening my door. Before I slid into my seat, I dared to look up into his face, and I saw so much pain and hurt that my heart felt like it was breaking all over again.
“Oh, Cole, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “So, so sorry.” His face contorted slightly as a tear slid down his cheek and into the stubble near his chin.
“Don’t do that,” he insisted, grabbing me tightly and squeezing me to his chest. “We’ll be okay, Cam – we will. We’ll get through this somehow.”
He had never given me reason to doubt him before, but standing there in each other’s arms crying in Dr. McCavin’s parking lot, I simply couldn’t believe him.
Chapter Sixteen
When you’re experiencing any sort of grief, the ache of doing the most mundane things stings the sharpest.
Driving home from Memphis that day was one of the longest car rides of my life, including all those 12-hour road trips with my brother. My heart longed to give Cole some sort of consolation, but I had nothing to offer him but a barren wasteland of broken dreams. Every time he locked his eyes on me, I kept replaying the comment he made earlier.
You actually look pregnant today.
As soon as that thought would cross my mind, I would look down at my swollen stomach and feel the inexplicable guilt of those words wash over me, because of course I would manage to finally look pregnant on the day that we lost everything. That was such a very Camdyn thing to do, wasn’t it?
For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4) Page 20
