He gently pulled her into a side room. She was pregnant? With his child? Was this why she’d passed out? ‘When did you find out?’
‘About ten minutes ago.’
‘And that’s why you’re so...?’ He waved a hand in her general direction and she nodded.
‘Yes. I think so.’
He ran his hands through his hair. Ellie. Pregnant with his baby! Once upon a time this would have been a dream situation! But now...? Now he couldn’t think straight. They had a new patient and the possibility of a very fragile baby coming into the world. He needed to sort that out first. He knew they would have to discuss this later.
Softly, he said, ‘We need to get back to work.’
‘We need to talk—’
‘Later.’ He reached up to wipe away a tear that had trickled down her cheek.
‘When?’
‘Tonight? You could come round to mine. After Rachel’s gone to bed? About eight?’
She nodded.
‘We’ll be okay. We can deal with this. All right?’
He let out a heavy breath and walked back in the direction of A&E, aware that Ellie was following closely behind.
* * *
Ellie knocked on his front door lightly, not wanting to be too loud and wake up Rachel. As much as she liked Rachel, she didn’t need the little girl to be around for this conversation.
The day had passed in a weird kind of bubble. As if the rest of the world was still carrying on as normal, but she and Logan were pushing forward through the day with this huge news hanging around their necks and only they knew.
She had to tell him everything, right? Why should it be just her burden to carry? Besides, she was terrified to go through this alone. Again.
No. She needed to tell him. Needed to know if he would support her. If this time it would be different between them.
Logan opened his door and smiled at her. ‘Come in.’
‘Is Rachel asleep?’
‘She should be by now.’
‘Good. That’s good.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Just water, thanks.’
‘Okay. Take a seat. I’ll just be a minute.’
She sank down onto his sofa. She was about to derail his life completely and he had no idea. He thought her pregnancy was the big news—well, it wasn’t. She shivered.
Eventually he came back in with two glasses of water. He set them down on the table in front of them and went to sit on the couch opposite.
‘There’s something I haven’t told you, Logan.’
He stared at her, frowning. ‘What else is there?’
‘I... I haven’t been strictly honest with you. About my past. But you need to know about it. You need to know how things stand.’
‘How what things stand? What’s going on, Ellie?’
She could hear the fear in his voice and she hated it—because she didn’t need fear. She needed strength from him. He’d let her down once and so had Daniel, by walking away when it got too much. Would Logan walk away from her again? Ellie was terrified that he would.
‘I got married years ago...to a man called Daniel.’
‘You were married? What happened?’
‘The business we had together was thriving. Everything was going brilliantly—until I got pregnant.’
Logan blinked and stared, his mouth slightly open with shock.
‘It seemed a normal pregnancy at first. I didn’t get very big, but I put that down to the fact that it was my first and I’ve always been kind of slight, so...’
She reached for the water and took a sip, aware that he was waiting for the rest of the story. She knew she had to be brave. Even though it was make or break.
‘I had a scan and they discovered that the baby—a boy—had bilateral renal agenesis.’ She looked at him to gauge the impact of her words.
He closed his eyes as if in pain. ‘Ellie...’
‘We were told it was fatal. That he wouldn’t live after birth and that I should have a termination of the pregnancy.’
He reached for her hand and she looked at their fingers entwined, grateful for his touch.
‘What did you do?’ he asked.
‘We were both very upset. Our perfect world was shattered. Our baby had no kidneys! That was why I was small—he wasn’t producing urine, and there was almost no amniotic fluid. Daniel wanted me to go ahead with the termination right away. He didn’t see the point in letting the pregnancy continue only for our son to die after birth. He didn’t see the point in putting us through that.’
‘So you ended it?’ His voice was gentle.
She felt her eyes well up, almost as if she were going through it for the first time. ‘No.’
Logan frowned.
‘I couldn’t let him go like that! Like his existence meant nothing! Like he was nobody. Without a burial or anything. I needed to know that Samuel had meant something.’
‘Samuel? That was his name?’
She nodded, feeling the tears trickle down her cheeks as she reached into her pocket to pull out Samuel’s ultrasound picture and pass it to Logan. She watched as he focused on the picture, his eyes softening.
‘Yes. Daniel and I argued. A lot. He disagreed with my decision, but I hoped that I could change his mind when I told him why.’
‘What was your decision?’
‘To carry Samuel to term so that legally he would be a person and then allow the doctors to use him as a donor. They told me that if he reached a good weight then they could use his corneas and heart valves. I knew I could carry on then—if my baby boy had a purpose and he could save someone else’s life.’
‘God, Ellie...’
‘I got to hold him for a few moments after he was born. He looked perfect. Just asleep, that’s all. And then they took him.’
Logan reached for her hand again and squeezed her fingers tight.
‘I never wanted to get pregnant again because of the risk of having another baby with renal agenesis.’
‘Did you and Daniel get any genetic testing?’
‘Daniel wanted nothing to do with us. He didn’t come with me to the hospital when I went into labour and I came home alone. He blamed me for being selfish and I blamed him for abandoning me. The marriage didn’t last long after that.’
‘That’s why you decided on medicine?’
‘Partly. To be part of a transplant team. To see the end result of what that kind of work does. I need to see it, Logan! I need to have hope...to know that my choice was the right one. I need to prove it to myself.’
‘Only now you’re pregnant. And that complicates everything.’
She nodded. ‘And you need to know the risks. I can do this alone, Logan. I’ve done it once before and I could do it again if I had to. But I would like to think that you will be supporting me, as it’s your baby too.’
He looked down at the ground, clearly overwhelmed by all that she’d said. ‘I need time to let this sink in, but of course I’ll be there for you. Whatever happens. You won’t have to go through it alone.’
‘Really? I will carry this baby and I will find out if it’s okay. If it’s not, well... You needed to know. From the very start.’
He breathed out. ‘Okay.’
She got up to leave. ‘I’ll go now. I think I’ve ruined your evening enough.’
‘Ellie.’ He stopped her from going, his hand on her arm, and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘You could never ruin anything. It’s a shock, yes, but we can get through this—you and me. All right?’
She blinked back tears. Nodded.
* * *
He couldn’t think straight after she’d gone. His mind was going round and round in circles, arguing one way and then the other. Bilateral renal agenesis was fatal. A baby couldn’t survive outside the womb without
kidneys. Ellie had kept her baby alive through the magic that was the umbilical cord and placenta. They had worked effectively to sustain Samuel.
But Ellie had lost her baby!
He hadn’t been able to tell Ellie that it wasn’t just the renal agenesis he was worried about. Rachel had autism. Okay, she was high functioning, and he’d been told she would have been autistic whether her mother had been in a dramatic accident or not—but did that mean he carried faulty genes? Ellie had enough on her plate to worry her senseless. Not reminding her of Rachel’s diagnosis had simply seemed the right thing to do.
He’d always imagined that it would just be him and Rachel from now on. He hadn’t wanted to be part of another relationship. But he didn’t want to lose Ellie. Not again. Not now that she was back in his life.
But even if this baby was healthy, what would they do? Parent separately? Would he become one of those part-time fathers who only saw his child on alternate weekends? How would that work with Rachel? She liked routine. How would she understand all that was going on? A half-sibling who appeared only once in a blue moon?
Rachel. His heart ached for her and the confusion this would cause. He could already anticipate his exhaustion from her endless questions and the conversations that would go round and round and round as she analysed it all, trying to work it out. What had happened and where she stood in all this.
Would she understand what being a half-sister meant? He could talk to Rachel about the complexities of the human body, but when it came to talking about love and relationships, abstract ideas without form or shape, would she understand those?
He couldn’t help but think about Ellie and all that she had gone through. How she had kept this huge thing to herself. All those times he’d asked her if she was all right in The Nest, working with the babies, and all those times she had lied to him and told him she was fine.
How could she be fine?
She had lost her son! He had died! No wonder she had gone a little crazy over baby Ava, had been so angry at the parents for not taking the time to see their baby. He could understand her reaction now, because in her eyes she would have loved any extra time with her baby.
He tried to imagine her going through such a thing alone. Abandoned. Her husband unable to deal with the thought of his son being used for organ donation. Had Daniel not understood the courage that his wife had had to make such a decision? What sort of man walked away from his wife when she was going through such a thing?
Logan felt a surge of anger, imagining what he might say or do if he ever met Daniel. His fists clenched and his stomach twisted and he had to take a deep breath to calm down.
Ellie had been so brave. And now he’d told her he would be there for her. But how? Hadn’t he just derailed the future she saw for herself yet again? He wasn’t sure what he and Ellie were to each other any more. He wanted to be there for her...but what about if he lost her? What if they lost this baby?
Could he go through the pain of that kind of loss again?
CHAPTER EIGHT
ELLIE WENT HOME and immediately found herself in Samuel’s half-finished room. How long she stood in the doorway she didn’t know, but when she realised she needed to do something, rather than just stand there and stare, she realised that her cheeks were wet with tears.
Tears for Samuel. For her marriage. For what had happened with Logan and now this new pregnancy.
A new concern.
A new fear.
She’d told him she was brave enough to do this alone, but was she? She’d barely made it through before. Walking out of the hospital with empty arms and a partially deflated belly had been like leaving a piece of her heart behind.
She’d known she’d never be the same again. And then, just days later, just when she’d thought she couldn’t cry any more, her milk had come in—for a baby who wasn’t around to drink it.
She’d debated expressing it and donating it, but had quickly realised that if she started doing so she wouldn’t know when to stop. So she had just endured the pain and the ache and then, treacherously, mastitis had kicked in—as if her body thought she hadn’t been punished enough.
And every day she had sat in an empty home, wondering how she was going to get through the future all alone.
But the thing that had sustained her, that had kept her going, had been knowing that Samuel’s heart valves had saved a life. That his eyes had allowed another baby to see. It had been the only lifebelt of hope that she’d been able to cling to.
And now another baby grew in her womb. It was tiny, but it was clinging to life, and whilst it did she would do all that she could to help it. She could do nothing else. As terrified as she was, she knew that she had to fight for this child too. It was what a mother did—and in her heart of hearts she was a mother! Even if she had no child to hold.
Logan had reassured her somewhat. He’d been kind. Sympathetic. And he had said he would be able to get her through this. He hadn’t run from it the way Daniel had. Logan had opened his arms and allowed her to feel safe within them. She felt hope in her heart that he wouldn’t let her down like before. Life had changed for him, too.
‘I can do this,’ she said to the empty room, her gaze falling upon the unconstructed cot. She wondered if she would ever get to build it. If she would ever get to finish painting the walls. If she would ever get to see her baby wearing the Babygros she had bought years ago.
Would it be wrong to put a new baby in Samuel’s clothes? She didn’t think so. Lots of children got hand-me-downs, didn’t they? From their older siblings? It would just be the same thing.
‘Maybe I’m thinking too far ahead. I still don’t know if you’ll be all right,’ she said aloud.
Her hand lay protectively against her stomach and she exhaled a heavy breath, wondering if her belly would grow. She guessed that would be a sign, wouldn’t it? She hadn’t got very big with Samuel due to the lack of amniotic fluid.
There was a full-length mirror on her wardrobe door. Ellie went to her bedroom and stood in front of it, turning to the side, smoothing her hand over the swell of her abdomen. Was it larger than normal? It looked as if it might be. But what guarantee was that? She knew that if you’d carried a baby before you often got bigger quicker, so...
The one thing her stomach did tell her, though, was that she was hungry, so she headed downstairs to the kitchen to grab something to eat.
As she prepped a salad to have with some cold potatoes she had in the fridge, her phone rang.
‘Hello?’
‘Ellie?’
‘Logan!’
It felt good to hear his voice. She was smiling without realising it. But then a darker thought emerged. What was he ringing for? To tell her that he’d changed his mind? That she was on her own again? Her stomach griped painfully.
‘I just wanted to check you got home okay,’ he said.
‘Oh. Right. Yes, I did. Thank you.’
‘Great.’
A pause. ‘I guess I dropped a bombshell, didn’t I?’ she asked.
He laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about it.’
‘You’re concerned. You have a right to be.’
‘I’m concerned about Rachel in all of this.’
She nodded. Of course. He was a father. ‘We could talk to her. Explain to her what’s happening so she understands. She likes human biology, right? She should be okay.’
‘I hope so.’
She knew it would be complicated, but they had months to work this out. Months to explore their feelings.
What were her feelings towards him? They were tangled. Complicated. She’d loved him before and that love had never quite gone away. Now they were back working together. Had slept together. Conceived a child. And yet he was still her boss. Still her mentor. But he had a pull, a hold on her heart that she couldn’t fight.
‘I’m not Daniel,’ Logan said suddenly. ‘I’m not walking away from you.’
The reassurance was exactly what she needed. Her knees almost buckled. She hadn’t realised how tense she’d become, and now she released her grip on the knife she had in her other hand and laid it down gently upon the work surface.
‘Thank you.’ Her voice was like the squeak of a tiny mouse as tears leapt unbidden to her eyes. Tears of relief. Tears of happiness. For now, anyway. They still had many mountains to climb. Many rocky paths to traverse.
‘But I want to keep this quiet for a while. In case of... Well, you know what I’m talking about.’
He meant the first trimester. They might not even make it through that first hurdle. ‘Of course.’
‘And we’ll need to arrange your thirteen-week scan. That should give us some idea of what’s going on.’
‘Okay.’
She liked it that he was taking control suddenly. Liked it that he had somehow made up his mind as to which side of the fence he was falling. She clutched the phone, wishing he was there with her right now. Just to hold her in his arms and make her feel safe. Protected.
Loved.
CHAPTER NINE
ELLIE WOKE TO waves of nausea and staggered sleepily towards the bathroom, hoping she wasn’t about to throw up all over her bedroom floor. Thankfully she made it, and washed her face afterwards, swilling her mouth out with water and blinking tiredly at her reflection.
I look awful. Where’s that glow everyone talks about?
Downstairs, dressed and ready for work, she stared at the contents of her fridge and her cupboards for inspiration. She needed to eat, but what would stay down? There was a packet of plain biscuits, half empty, so she grabbed a couple of those and tentatively ate them. It seemed to help, so then she had a glass of juice and headed on out to work.
She felt apprehensive. Working with Logan would no longer be student and mentor but two adults who had made a baby, and she, at least, was struggling with her feelings.
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