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Twenty-Three
Aoife
A few days later
“I’m afraid,Mrs. O’Grady, the pregnancy isn’t viable.”
I stared at my doctor, willing her to say this was a joke, but it wasn’t.
I was already scheduled in for early screening because of the scars on my abdomen, but when the pain had returned during Aela and Declan’s ceremony, I’d headed to the doctor’s office the morning we returned from Boston, and they’d taken more tests.
Perhaps, in my heart of hearts, I’d known the truth, but I’d hoped I was wrong.
I stared down at my stomach where the bulge wasn’t even that prominent yet, and I rasped, “You have to be wrong.”
“I’m sorry but the tests confirm it. You know you’re a high-risk candidate for pregnancy, Mrs. O’Grady.” She shook her head. “To be frank, you’re fortunate we caught this here and now.
“These kinds of birth defects tend to be caught at the twelve-week scan. We can terminate now to alleviate the undue stress on your body.”
I jerked my head to the side. “I’m not going to do that.”
The doctor frowned. “Aoife, the child won’t survive past a few days without intensive, invasive surgeries that might not even work.
“Jake was a high-risk pregnancy, but he developed normally. This will be for nothing. You’ll suffer for nothing. Miscarriage is likely. Why wouldn’t you prefer to control when and how this happens?”
“I don’t understand how this is possible. Why would the baby’s legs fuse together?”
The doctor’s expression turned sorrowful. “It’s very uncommon, and the ultimate cause is unknown. What wedoknow is that babies born with sirenomelia have a host of other spinal and brain development issues.” She sighed when she took in my expression. “You shouldn’t be here alone, Aoife. Is your husband not attending with you today?”
Why did doctors always want to talk to the husband?
Mary Ellen, a friend of mine, had tried to get her tubes tied, but her prick of a doctor had made her get permission from her husband before he agreed to go ahead with the procedure.
Her husband.
Who should have had no say on her body and the right to do whatever she wanted with it.
Didn’t matter that another child after the two sets of twins she’d already had might kill her. She still needed permission from her jackass husband who spent more time dipping his wick in other women than in her.
No, this wasmydecision. Not Finn’s.
I needed to do some research. I needed to understand without this white noise whistling away in my ears, making it harder to understand what she was saying.
I got to my feet without replying to her and drifted out of the office as if I were in a daze.
She called out my name but I whispered, “I need to process this.”
Needed to process the impossible.
But I’d seen for myself.
Where two small legs should have been, there was…
It was…
A tail.
Like a mermaid.
