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‘I’m going to throw up.’
Begging my mind to stop replaying those words, I couldn’t stop crying.
***
Looking down at her now, three days later, I made a decision that if she pulls through, I would do everything in my power to be a better person. She needs to know that she mattered…matters…to me.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…
Ed and Elaine walk into the room as I said the Our Father to myself silently, closing my eyes. Elaine looks white and Ed faces the back wall away from me. My heart drops as I realize that the doctor had pulled Elaine aside in private. What had he told her? Was Amanda going to die? Oh, Jesus, no.
Ed left the room and I looked at Elaine, still sitting at Amanda’s bedside.
“Elaine, please tell me…what’s going on? What did the doctor say?”
Elaine shook her head in silence and buried her face in her hands.
“Elaine…please.” My voice shook in fear.
“Cedric…nothing has changed with Amanda’s condition, but the doctor just gave us some news, that I am afraid I wasn’t expecting to hear.”
“What…what news?”
“Cedric…”
“Elaine…what happened?” I yelled.
Elaine was too shaken up to speak and started to cry, burying her face in her hands.
Ed reappeared, took one look at his wife and walked over to where I was sitting, pulling up a chair.
“Cedric…the doctor said that…routine tests they performed on Amanda revealed… that she was pregnant at the time of the accident.”
I stared at Ed in disbelief, trying to process it, looking over at Amanda sleeping and back at Ed in disbelief.
“Was…was…pregnant?” I asked.
Ed’s eyes burned into me and I couldn’t tell if he was in shock, upset or wanted to downright kill me.
“That’s right…was. The doctors think she lost the baby on impact.”
I nodded slowly, got up and walked out of the room.
The hospital hallway seemed to be swaying and the walls closing in. A blast of air hit me as I made my way out of the revolving doors in the front of the building. Running down the busy sidewalk, I couldn’t catch my breath.
I kneeled down on someone’s stoop about two blocks from the hospital, letting my heart rate slowly normalize. My head in my hands, I started to weep like a baby again. The unimaginable situation of the past few days had just gotten so much worse with that news. I had blamed myself for Amanda’s accident, kept what happened in my dorm room from her parents and now, the realization that I was also responsible for the death of my unborn child was too much to bear.
As I looked up, I noticed a church across the street. I walked across the busy road in a haze, nearly getting run down. The front door of the gray stone structure was open. ‘Welcome to St. Mary’s’ a sign said in the entryway. In the distance, down the long aisle, dozens of candles in red votives flickered.
I slowly made my way down toward them at the front of the church near the desolate altar. I reached in my pocket and grabbed a five-dollar bill stuffing it in the donation slot in front of the candles, then lit one of the candles with a long matchstick.
I made the sign of the cross.
“Dear Jesus, please forgive me for the pain and suffering my actions have caused.” Walking over to the front of the altar, I knelt down, closing my eyes tightly. Tears began to fall again and I covered my face, grateful that there was no one in the church as my sobs turned to wailing that echoed throughout the vast cathedral.
***
After another night of sleeping poorly in Amanda’s hospital room, my body was beginning to ache.
