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“Chad! Chad!” Jennie’s voice sounded miles away and it wasn’t coming from her body beside him. Something was wrong. Her voice came at him through a thick fog, as if she were trying to draw him back to her from somewhere far away.
He opened his eyes with a start, heart pounding against his ribs. Jennie stood at the foot of his cot, as though she knew better than to get too close while he was having a nightmare, but wanting to be near.
He was drenched in sweat, his thin T-shirt stuck to his chest as his pulse raced. He wiped a hand down his face, trying to erase his mind’s image of Jennie covered in blood, their baby gone.
He focused on the willowy cotton gown she wore and the way tendrils of her hair fell over her breasts.
He reached out his hand, wanting to feel her, to know she was real and alive and whole, that she was still with him. She crawled onto the cot and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close.
He held tightly to her, knowing he shouldn’t but not willing to let her go. He breathed in her scent and listened to the murmured words of comfort she whispered in his ear for what seemed like hours.
When he woke later, his arms were empty. Chad sat up and looked at the light pouring in the windows of the cabin, falling on the floor of the living room.
Morning.
He sat on the edge of the cot and wondered how much he had dreamt and how much was real. He wasn’t sure if Jennie had come to him after his nightmare or if he’d just wanted her to be there so much, he’d conjured her up.
He held a hand out in front of him, not surprised to see that it shook. Seeing Jennie in his dream, her body so still and lifeless, had shaken him more than any of the horrors he’d seen in war.
He rose and went to the door of Jennie’s room to make sure she was okay. She lay sleeping, more beautiful than he remembered. Her hair fanned out on the pillow and her arms wrapped around Zeke. She looked so small and frail. Not like the Jennie he was used to seeing.
He began to wonder how her tiny body was going to manage to carry a baby that could someday be his size, but he turned away and forced the worry from his mind. He needed to get a handle on his paranoia. He wouldn’t make it through the pregnancy if he kept this up.
Chad walked to the kitchen and began searching through drawers and cupboards. He would bet they’d have a good old-fashioned phone book around the cabin somewhere. He needed to find a walk-in clinic to get Jennie checked out. He had to know she and the baby were okay.
Three hours later, they walked into the small medical clinic two towns over from where the cabin was located. If they were holed up there much longer, Chad would find a doctor he was sure they could trust with Jennie’s real name and medical history. For right now, he wanted someone who wouldn’t check the fake IDs he carried in his pocket, or at least wouldn’t push too hard if they thought they were fake. He wanted to be sure Jennie and the baby were okay.
He would pay cash, giving them no reason to even ask for ID, much less question it. The clinic probably often saw people who lied about their names for one reason or another. He didn’t much care if they did pick up on their fake names.
In fact, he didn’t care if they thought he was her drug dealer or her pimp, as long as they made sure Jennie was okay. He’d been watching her lose weight. The few times he’d gotten her to eat anything other than pudding or pastries, he ended up holding her hair for her while she threw it up. Then he’d watch her try to smile and joke about how she felt, faking her good spirits when he could tell she was getting more and more drained.
He didn’t understand how her body could handle a croissant but not chicken or pasta. And, he hated that he couldn’t fix it for her. He should be taking better care of them, he told himself.
After filling out forms and answering a few questions, they sat side by side in ragged chairs in the clinic’s waiting room. Chad reached over and laced his fingers through hers. She stared straight ahead but she did squeeze his hand back. He knew this had to suck for her.
Going to some walk-in clinic instead of to the doctor she knew and trusted. And being in a strange cabin out in the woods when she felt so sick and tired all the time, instead of being in her own bed. Being pregnant with his baby when she probably wished with all her heart it was Kyle’s baby.
A door opened on the far side of the room and a woman in scrubs held the door open.
“Nancy?”
Chad had to squeeze Jennie’s hand to get her to respond to the fake name. She stood and crossed to the door, but paused when she got there, turning back to him.
“Come with me?”
He felt his heart kick into high gear and he wondered for a second if he’d heard her right. Maybe he’d imagined it? He couldn’t believe she asked him to be with her for the exam. Chad had planned to ask if he could be there for one of her ultrasounds down the road, but he never thought she’d want him to come in with her this time.
He rose and went through the door with Jennie, taking her hand in his again. The nurse stopped off at a bathroom and asked Jennie to leave a urine sample. He saw the flush in her cheeks and wondered if she was sorry she had brought him back there.
When she emerged from the bathroom, they were shown to a small room. They didn’t ask Jennie to undress so he wasn’t sure whether she would be given a full exam or not.
An older woman walked in the room and introduced herself as Dr. Breckman. She listened as Jennie filled her in on how far along she was, her exhaustion and nausea and inability to eat anything other than pudding and pastries.
“Well, let’s take a listen to the baby and make sure things sound good, then we can talk about getting more food in you,” Dr. Breckman said with a kind smile.
The woman didn’t seem overly concerned, which made Chad alternate between feeling relieved and wondering if he should shake the woman and yell until her level of concern matched his.
The doctor pulled out a small handheld machine and helped Jennie lay back on the exam table. She lifted Jennie’s shirt and tucked the top of Jennie’s jeans under a bit to get to her lower abdomen. She squirted clear gel on her stomach. This is when it dawned on Chad that the doctor had said they’d be listening to the baby’s heartbeat.
