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Was that why she’d cried all the time? He’d thought her depressed. Had she really been suffering from extreme pregnancy hormone mood changes?
His short spark of anger dissipated. “I meant, how did our baby die?”
She paced across the room, paused, her back to him. “I started bleeding and it wouldn’t stop. The obstetrician at the emergency room said my hormones were really out of line, that it had only been a matter of time before I miscarried as my body was rejecting the pregnancy. There was nothing they could do.”
“How far along were you?”
“Five months.”
Lucas’s feet went out from under him and he sank onto the sofa. Five months. His wife had been five months pregnant and he hadn’t known.
Five months. How was that even possible?
Sure, he’d stopped having sex with her for fear she’d get pregnant, but shouldn’t he have noticed something different? Or had he been so busy trying not to look at her that he’d failed to see the obvious?
“I didn’t know.”
“I never thought you did. Although I could see the difference in my belly, I hadn’t gained any weight overall. When dressed, it was easy to hide.”
Why hadn’t she gained weight? Perhaps the stress of a strained marriage? Perhaps all the tears she’d cried?
“I’m sorry, Emily.” There he went apologizing again. “I should have been there.”
She didn’t correct him. Nor should she. He should have been by her side in that emergency room.
“Were you alone when it happened?”
“I went to my parents after I moved out of our apartment.” She shook her head. “I’d felt bad all week but thought it was from what was going on between you and me. When I started gushing blood, my mother called the ambulance. She stayed with me.”
“She probably hates me.”
“You’re not her favorite person.”
“I imagine not.” He tried to let it sink in. Had Emily not miscarried, he’d be a father. He’d have a five-year-old kid. Would she have told him if she hadn’t miscarried?
“I had to threaten my mother that I’d never speak to her again to keep her from going to give you a piece of her mind.”
“I wish she had.” Because then he would have known.
Then what? What would he have done differently? Would he have gone to Emily and comforted her?
“The last thing I wanted was more drama.”
Which explained why she’d just accepted his ridiculous divorce papers that he’d expected her to show up at their apartment and throw back in his face. Despite her depression, he’d expected her to fight for their marriage, to fight for him. When she hadn’t and he’d realized she wasn’t going to, he’d felt a devastation unlike any he’d ever known. Pride had helped him replace hurt with anger.
As with much of their marriage, he’d reacted on hot emotion when he’d filed for divorce, but, as stupid as he’d been, he’d never expected their marriage to end. He’d thought receiving the divorce papers would send Emily home, would snap her out of whatever was bothering her, would cause her to admit she had a problem and needed help. Instead, she’d signed the papers, rid her life of him and never looked back. She’d not wanted anything else from him. She’d just wanted to forget he’d ever been a part of her life and she’d moved on as if he’d never existed in her world.
He’d been the one with a problem, the one who’d needed help.
She’d given birth to a five-month-old baby.
“Did we have a son or a daughter?”
She hesitated and for a moment he wondered if she was going to tell him anything more, but then she sighed and looked so gutted his insides twisted.
“A daughter.”
He’d had a daughter. A daughter whom he’d never gotten to see or hold or even fantasize about.
