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Anna stands next to me; she hasn’t let go of my hand. I feel so angry at myself for everything at this moment. The woman I’ve intentionally hurt is the one standing here with me in the scariest time of my life. The tears roll down my cheeks.
“It’s going to be okay, boo bear,” she says, running her hands over my head the way a mother would. I bite my lip so hard I worry it’ll break the skin.
The doctor squeezes some of that cold gel onto my stomach, and I remember my first appointment. I shrieked and laughed at the icy contact. I don’t do that now. I heard a heartbeat that time, a strong one. I couldn’t believe that something so tiny had a heartbeat. But this time, the doctor searches and searches, and that beautiful pounding I once heard doesn’t come.
“No,” I whisper. He looks at me solemnly. “I am sorry, Mrs. Kent, but there is no heartbeat.”
I hear a scream and realize that it’s from my own lips. “No!” I demand. I feel my throat closing up as I gasp for breath, clawing at my neck.
“I am so sorry,” Anna sobs, holding my hand tighter. She wraps her arms around me, and I hold onto her like a life preserver. My baby, my baby is gone.
After a few minutes, she breaks away and takes a seat on the chair next to my bed.
“I’ll give you some time, and then we can talk about what we have to do next,” the doctor says.
“No, just tell me now,” I wipe my nose on the hospital robe. I don’t actually care how disgusting that is. I don’t care about shit right now.
He sighs, then nods. “I trust you’re a friend?” He directs this at Anna. “Will the father be joining us?”
“Right after he’s done fucking his colleague,” I hiss.
Both the doctor, nurse, and Anna look taken aback. I look away, not willing to meet their eyes.
“I’ll stay with her through this,” Anna says.
“Mrs Kent, you have the option of going home and waiting for labor to start naturally.”
“Labor?” I laugh at that. “Are you serious?”
“I know this is a difficult time, Mrs. Kent, but as hard as this is to say, you will have to birth this baby. The other option is that you be induced, which means we start the labor process artificially right here in the hospital.” He explains that the process is painful and goes into detail about the procedure, but I zone out after a while.
Anna listens to him more than I do, she nods, and I look between her and the ceiling made up of square blocks of what looks like cardboard. “Mrs Kent?”
“I want to induce labor,” I say. My phone starts to ring in my handbag. “You can answer and tell him what’s happening,” I tell Anna.
Hours later, my daughter is born. I ask to hold her. She’s so tiny at six months, I worry I’ll break her.But I hold her anyway and try to decipher who she looks more like. I don’t cry. I start to feel dizzy and hand her to Nate, who is a sobbing mess.She isn’t even your baby, asshole.Monitors beep, and I try to speak, but I am fading. I want to stay awake, hold my baby again, but my eyes are so heavy. I give in, closing them.
When I wake up, I’m groggy and in a different hospital room. Nate, Anna, and even Denton are in the room. Denton stands when he sees that I’m awake but hangs back, realizing what he’s doing.
“Welcome back, baby.” Nate runs a hand down my cheek. I want to pull away, but I don’t have the strength to.
“How long have I been out?” I croak.
Anna looks at Nate then back at me. “A couple of hours.”
“The baby.” I don’t say,my baby,I realize.
“She’s in the hospital mortuary,” Nate says gently.
“What happened to me?” I ask.
“I think we should get the doctor,” Denton says, walking out of the room. He returns with a doctor. “We should get out of here for a bit,” Denton tells Anna.
She nods and follows reluctantly. Nate sits on the recliner next to my bed, his head bowed low.
“Mrs Kent. How’re you feeling?”
“Groggy, a bit out of it. What happened?”
