Worth the Fall

by Mara Jacobs

He parked in front, and as he was walking around the front of the truck, a nurse came through the door, looking at him expectantly.

  “My…she’s pregnant,” he said as he opened Al’s door. The nurse seemed to be expecting a woman about to give birth. She gave Petey a look as she moved toward a non-showing Alison. “She’s six weeks along and she started bleeding. She said she started cramping a couple of hours ago.”

  The nurse nodded, took a few steps back through the door and called out to someone. She then returned to Alison and took her hand. “Just relax, honey. We’ll take good care of you and your baby.”

  The look of confusion on Alison’s face wrenched Petey apart. “Yes,” Alison finally said, clutching at the nurse. “Take care of the baby if you can. Save it if…” She looked at Petey and he nodded his encouragement and stepped toward her. But he was halted by a man and a woman, both in scrubs, coming out of the door pushing a wheelchair.

  “I need for you to get out of the way right now,” the nurse gently told him. “What’s your name, honey?” she said to Alison.

  “Alison,” she croaked out.

  “Alison, I need for you to try to stay calm. We’re going to get you in this chair and take you inside, okay?”

  Alison nodded, her eyes huge with fear, looking at Petey for…what?

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said as they helped her out of the truck and into the chair. He wanted to touch her, hold her hand…something to let her know he was with her.

  He didn’t get the chance. They were wheeling her into the hospital before he could get close enough.

  The first nurse stopped him as he tried to follow. “I need you to move your truck. We have to have this space available for the ambulances and emergencies. You can park over there.” She pointed to a lot a hundred yards away. “Then come back.” What? Like he was going to leave her? “We’ll need to get some information from you about Alison.”

  She was gone before he could respond, but he still nodded his head in acceptance. He ran around to his side of the truck and jumped in. He didn’t look at the empty passenger seat for fear of seeing Alison’s blood. After he parked the truck, he sprinted back to the emergency entrance and to Alison.

  Hoping that it was going to be okay. Hoping that Alison was going to be okay. Beyond that, he wasn’t sure what else to hope for.

  ***

  Alison had never been so scared in her life. And she’d had some scary days lately. The first was when she realized she had skipped a period. The second had been her drive to Calumet to buy a home pregnancy test from an out-of-town drugstore.

  And, of course, waiting for the line to turn blue after she’d peed on the stick.

  But those all paled as the medical staff wheeled her into an examination room and began asking her questions as a nurse helped her out of her clothes and into a gown.

  She had wanted the drive to Green Bay. Four more hours to really decide if this was a choice she could make. Petey seemed willing to go along with whatever she decided. She knew she should have found that incredibly supportive, but it actually just pissed her off.

  She was eighteen, scared to death, and had to make a choice that would affect several lives.

  But now it seemed that the choice might be taken from her.

  The staff had her prepped and lying down and a female doctor came in and examined Alison.

  “You say you’re six weeks along?”

  Alison nodded, not trusting her voice to speak. It seemed to take forever, but probably was only a few minutes before the doctor pulled away from her and removed her gloves.

  “I’m sorry, but it appears you’ve suffered a miscarriage. You’ll continue to have cramping for a while, but the worst is over.”

  “But it isn’t even that bad. It doen’t feel any different from a regular period.”

  The doctor was nodding with Alison while she wrote in a chart. “That’s often the case with early pregnancies. Many times women don’t even know they’re pregnant.”

  She wrote down a few more things, put the chart back at the end of the bed, and then came to Alison’s side and touched her arm. “Sometimes this is just nature’s way. But there’s no reason why you can’t have more children.” The doctor paused, then added. “When you’re ready.”

  It was probably something she said to every woman who miscarried, but Alison’s face turned red with embarrassment.

  “Do you live in the area? Close by?”

  “No. We were just driving through on our way to Green Bay.”

  “If at all possible, I suggest that you not travel any more today. I’m going to keep you here another hour or two to make sure the bleeding is under control—which I expect to be the case. But you need rest, and to be in bed for the rest of the day.”

  Alison nodded her understanding. They’d planned on staying in Green Bay tonight anyway…after. They’d just stay in Iron Mountain instead.

  “I’ll stop by and check on you in an hour or so. Try to relax if you can,” the doctor said, and left the curtained-off area.

  The nurse who had come out to Petey’s truck poked her head in and said, “Your friend is out here and would like to see you if you’re up to it.”

  No, she wasn’t up to facing Petey. But things had to be taken care of. “That’s fine,” she told the nurse.

  Petey came in a moment later. His face was completely white, and he looked liked he’d aged ten years in the last hour.

  She knew the feeling.

  Relief flooded over his features as he saw her. “I’m okay,” she repeated. He started toward her, then seemed to think better of it and stopped at the foot of her bed.

  “They said you were, but I didn’t…I needed…” He ran his hand through his dark hair, taking a deep breath and then letting it out. “Jesus, Al, I was so scared.” His voice wavered, and she held a hand out to him. He quickly moved to her side and took her outstretched hand in his.

  “Me too,” she whispered. And then the tears came again.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said over and over as one of his hands held hers, and the other stroked her hair.

  “I lost it. It’s gone,” she told him, though he most likely knew or had figured it out.

  “I know,” he answered in a soft voice. He squeezed her hand.

  “I wish…” But he didn’t finish the sentence and Alison knew how he felt. She wasn’t sure what she wished for either.

  So he just stood there and held her hand and stroked her hair. And she said nothing.

  There was so much for them to say, yet neither of them had the maturity to find the right words. But they instinctively knew it was better to say nothing than the wrong words.

  Finally Alison said, “They said I shouldn’t travel today. That I should rest. So, can you find a motel room for us here? And call the place in Green Bay and tell them we won’t…”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said. He squeezed her hand, placed it on the bed and then took a step back away from the bed.

  “The number of the place is in my overnight bag in an address book. I guess you should probably bring the whole bag. I’m going to need the sweatpants I packed.”

  He nodded and started to leave the area. At the curtain he stopped, turned around and then walked back to Alison’s side. He bent down to kiss her forehead and then turned his head to her ear. She couldn’t see his face, but she heard his whispered words.

  “I desperately want to say the right thing to you, but I know I’ll probably fuck it up. Please know I never want to see you hurt like this. I don’t know if this was God intervening or nature, or dumb luck or what. But I’m sorry you have to be going through any of it.”

  He kissed her ear and silently left the room.

  Alison kept her eyes shut, not watching him leave.

  Eighteen

  Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

  ~ Carl Gustav Jung

  Avoiding Petey that night was fairly e
asy. She stayed at the hospital with her father later than normal, and by the time she got home Petey was asleep.

  She felt both relief and, yeah, okay, a little bit of annoyance.

  Chase her, my ass!

  She got ready for bed quietly, not quite willing to wake the sleeping giant. Crawling into bed, she tried to turn her mind off from all the things swirling around. Her parents’ upcoming move, her sisters possibly making trouble about her cottage, and her patients.

  Nothing helped, and she considered—not seriously, but still—getting up and crawling in next to Petey.

  She didn’t want to wake him up or anything. She just wanted to back into some spooning action.

  The one time that they actually spent the night in a bed together was the blurry night of Katie’s wedding. Parts of that night had been coming back to her in lovely snippets, but she obviously remembered waking up next to him. And for that moment before she realized who he was—and all the history they shared came screaming back to her—she had felt so safe and at peace being wrapped in a Petey blanket.

  Eventually her mind must have shut down from exhaustion. When she awoke, she was stunned to see it was past ten. She seldom even set an alarm, as her body would always wake her up before one would go off. Thank goodness she didn’t have patients today. She would have missed her first appointment.

  So, how to continue with her cowardice and sneak out of the house without Petey seeing her? She listened for sounds of either a sleeping Petey or one thumping through the house. Nothing.

  Then she heard the garage door opening. The idiot wasn’t going to try driving, was he? With a brace on his right leg? In her little car?

  She jumped out of bed and threw a robe over her flannel pajama bottoms and thermal Henley she slept in. She slid her feet into her sheep’s wool slippers and left the room. A quick glance as she passed her room confirmed that Petey was out of bed.

  She went through the great room, barely glancing into the living area, just enough to make sure he wasn’t on the couch. The kitchen was untouched, with no coffee in the maker and no cup in the sink. Nearing the entryway to the garage, she did see his shoes were gone. Rather, one was gone. The right shoe was sitting all by its lonely self.

  Damn him. He had better not do anything that set his recovery back.

  On the other hand, if he was recovered enough to drive, he could damn well climb the stairs at his parents’ house.

  She opened the door to the garage expecting to find it empty with the door shut, but no, her Subaru sat in its space and the garage door was up.

  Petey stood against the back wall, waving hand directions to a pickup truck that was backing into the second spot in her two-car garage.

  Not just any pickup, but Petey’s red Ford. A truck that should have been in Detroit.

  The truck made it in and stopped when Petey held up his hand. The engine was cut and Finn stepped out. Just then Lizzie pulled into the driveway in her Navigator.

  “What’s going on?” Alison asked, startling Petey. He must not have heard her open the door over the noisy truck.

  “Lizzie had one of her interns drive my truck and a bunch of my stuff up,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “So I had more than my jeans and these track pants that I’m so frickin’ sick of I could scream.”

  “A quick trip to Shopko would fix that.”

  He made his way over to her. He was walking with only one crutch, which he used more for balance than support.

  “Yeah, but this is better. It’s my stuff, and, more importantly, my truck. I should be able to drive in a few days if the doc okays it. And I can’t be stuck asking my mom and dad to borrow their car.”

  She noticed he didn’t include her in that statement. He was probably just as anxious to get out of her house as she was to have him gone. For her, it was to reduce temptation. She didn’t want to think about his motivation.

  Lizzie got out of her car and went to the backseat where she unbuckled Sam from his car seat base. Finn came over to her and took Sam in his carrier from Lizzie, who then reached in and grabbed a diaper bag.

  “I’ll put on coffee,” Alison said, and ducked back into the house.

  They all came in, and Lizzie and Finn rid themselves of their winter garb.

  “Oh, I forgot the coffee cake,” Lizzie said and started to turn back, but Finn handed her Sam, said he’d go get it, and went back through the garage.

  “Best perk of being married, bar none,” Lizzie said. “The bringing in of groceries.”

  “God, please no more groceries,” Alison groaned. “There’s no room in the fridge as it is.”

  “There’s room now,” Petey remarked as he went to the cupboard and got out four mugs and brought them to the table. “I cleaned up the lasagna last night.” He came back by her and looked at her as he added, “It wasn’t nearly as good as the first night.” He winked at her. “But it was still pretty good.”

  “We didn’t bring more groceries. Clea made a coffee cake, and we brought some milk to wash it down, that’s all.”

  “Oooh, Clea’s coffee cake,” Alison said. She’d had Finn’s grandmother’s specialty on a couple of occasions at Lizzie and Finn’s.

  The coffee was nearly done. She started to get out plates and forks, but Petey had beaten her to it.

  “You should sit down,” she told him.

  “I need to be on it a little more today,” he said. “I was on my ass all day yesterday. No exercise at all. No exertion of any kind.”

  She shot him a look while Lizzie got Sam out of his carrier and unwrapped the baby from his many layers of warmth.

  Petey did sit down then, motioning to Lizzie to bring Sam to him.

  “Okay. Give me that kid. I didn’t get to hold him that day in the hospital.”

  Lizzie handed Sam to Petey, nervously holding her hands out lest Petey drop the baby. “I’ve got him, Lizard,” Petey told her, and the new mother took a step back. A reluctant step back, it seemed to Alison.

  “Hey, you’re not such a big guy at all,” Petey said to Sam, who just stared back at Petey in awe. “How can a guy with the big name of Samuel Ezekiel Robbins be such a little peanut?” His voice was soft and low, with a lilting quality.

  Finn came back in and handed the still-warm pan and the gallon of milk to Alison, who placed them on the table while Finn took off his boots.

  Lizzie and Finn sat at the table and watched Petey hold their son, broad smiles on their faces. Alison grabbed the coffee pot, brought it to the table, and sat with the rest of her friends.

  “And pretty soon we’ll get you on skates,” Petey cooed to Sam.

  “Oh, no,” Lizzie said. “No son of mine is going to be a hockey player. A hockey-playing stepson is bad enough.”

  “Don’t forget a stepdaughter.”

  “Seriously?” Petey said, looking up from the baby to Finn, who was nodding.

  “Annie started skating this year. She’s not ready for hockey yet, but she says she wants to play next year.”

  “Awesome,” Petey said. “As soon as I’m able, I’ll take her to the rink for a few laps on the ice.”

  “She’d love that,” Lizzie and Finn said at the same time.

  Petey had bonded with Finn’s kids two summers ago when Lizzie had planned a fundraiser to cover Finn’s daughter’s medical expenses for lumbar fusion surgery.

  “Wow, hockey. Skating even. That’s amazing,” Petey said, shaking his head. Alison agreed with him. Annie’s recovery had been nothing short of a miracle.

  “Hockey will be a long shot. We don’t want any chance of injury, but we decided to wait and see what the doctors think next year,” Lizzie said.

  “And just why wouldn’t you want Sam—and Stevie and Annie for that matter—to be hockey players?” Petey chided Lizzie. “Hockey players were your first clients when you put up your own shingle.”

  “Yes, I know, and I’m grateful to them. I love them as clients—lord knows they need PR help. But
I know them a little too well to want that life for my boys.” She looked at Finn and smiled. “And for my girl.” Lizzie and Annie had started out pretty rocky, but were solid now.

  The smile she gave Finn was small and intimate, and returned in kind. Alison felt like an intruder, so she turned her attention to Petey, who was holding Sam to his chest now, whispering in his ear. “What are you telling him?” Alison asked and then wished she hadn’t. She covered it with, “Teaching him the F-bomb already? Sharing with him the maximum way to enjoy a good chew?”

  Petey looked over at her. She was expecting some kind of comeback about her lack of maternal skills, but all she saw was hurt in his eyes.

  Well, crap.

  “Actually, I was telling Sam here what a lucky boy he is.”

  She had nothing to say to that, but Lizzie quickly jumped in with, “No. We’re the lucky ones.” She looked at her husband again, and he slid a hand along the table to Lizzie’s.

  They had overcome a lot to be together, and Alison was proud of her friend for putting her fears behind her and reaching for happiness. Right now, however, she wanted this freakin’ marvel of familial bliss out of her house.

  She took another glance at Petey and Sam as she sipped her coffee. The tiny baby looked miniscule in the giant’s paws. Petey leaned his head down and smelled Sam’s head and smiled. A deep pain shot through Alison.

  Yeah. Wasn’t it time for Lizzie and Finn to hit the road?

  Nineteen

  I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.

  ~ Rodney Dangerfield

  Eighteen years ago

  Alison heard Petey come into the motel room but pretended she was asleep. It wasn’t hard to do because the pills they’d given her at the hospital had knocked her out for most of the day. It had to be nearly eight o’clock, but she was facing away from the nightstand and the clock.

  Petey quietly moved around the room. She heard the rustle of a paper bag. Good, he’d gone out to get some food. He must have been absolutely famished by now. The thought of food for her, on the other hand, turned her stomach.