Maternal Instinct

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘I can get through it,’ she said. ‘I’ve got through worse things.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Don’t you need to be getting home for the kids?’

  ‘They’ll keep.’

  ‘No. Please, Hugh, I want to be alone for a while. I need time to think. Go home to your family. I’ll be fine. Sam’s taking good care of me.’

  And because she seemed so adamant, because there was nothing he could say to change her mind, he went home, and sat his kids down in the kitchen, and told them.

  ‘Eve’s had a miscarriage,’ he said, and to his horror he heard his voice crack, and tears filled his eyes, and then Lucy’s arms were round him, and Tom was holding his hand, and, safe in the heart of his loving and supportive little family, he wept for the child he’d lost and the woman who didn’t want to love him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘SAM, can you do me a favour?’

  Sam studied Eve thoughtfully, perched on the end of the bed and nodded. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Can you get me down for this scan when Hugh’s not around? I really don’t want him there.’

  Sam sighed, studying his hands for a second before meeting her eyes. ‘He loves you, you know.’

  ‘I know. I still don’t want him there. Please.’

  ‘OK. I’ll do what I can. He’s got no right of access to your notes anyway, but that won’t stop him looking at them if they’re in with the others.’

  ‘So don’t leave them in with the others. Put them somewhere else.’

  He sighed again, nodded briefly and stood up. ‘OK. He’ll probably kick up a fuss, but I can deal with him. I’ll wait till he’s gone.’

  She felt the pressure ease a little. Stupid, really, because the scan was just routine, to prove that the pregnancy had ended and to make sure her uterus was empty and she didn’t need surgery. It wouldn’t matter if Hugh was there or not, but for some reason she wanted this small private moment to say goodbye to her child.

  The child she hadn’t wanted, had no time for at this stage in her life, who would have skewed all her plans and trashed her carefully orchestrated career path. The child who, in the last few hours, had stolen a corner of his mother’s heart for ever.

  Sam was true to his word. She went down for the ultrasound at ten past seven, with Hugh safely at home and utterly unaware. Sam went with her, watching the screen as Mike, the radiologist, smeared gel on her smooth, flat abdomen—an abdomen doomed to remain flat for the foreseeable future—and searched for the evidence of her miscarriage.

  Mike grunted, leant closer, moved the probe a little, stared at the screen again, then frowned. ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘What?’ she asked, turning her head to look at the screen.

  ‘Looks like another foetus,’ he said. He used a blunt finger to point to a tiny little curve on the edge of her uterus. ‘Here—and here, this is the remains of a pregnancy. That must be the one you lost.’ He pointed to another little area, no more than a blip. Then he went back to the first little area, the curve, and zoomed in closer—close enough to see a tiny, tiny flutter in the centre of the curve.

  ‘See that?’ he said, pointing at it and smiling at her sympathetically. ‘That’s a heartbeat—only the one, I’m sorry to say. The other one’s definitely gone. There’s just a little shred of membrane left, and that’ll soon be discharged, I think. It’s not attached at all. You must have been pregnant with twins.’

  ‘Gestation?’ Sam asked, while Eve lay there and stared in stunned silence at the tiny flutter that was her baby’s beating heart.

  ‘About eight weeks? Give or take.’

  ‘Can I see it again?’ she asked, still reeling with shock, and the radiologist moved the probe back.

  ‘There. Want a photo?’

  She gulped and shook her head. ‘No.’

  Because it was unnecessary. The image was engraved on her heart for ever. She would need no other reminders of this child she was almost bound to lose. There had been too much pain, too much blood for it to remain secure.

  Mike, however, seemed to have a different opinion. ‘It looks fine. I would say there must have been something wrong with the other twin rather than with the pregnancy, and there’s certainly no uterine abnormality,’ he was saying to them, and Sam was nodding thoughtfully, but all Eve could think of was what would happen next.

  ‘I’m likely to lose it, though, aren’t I?’ she asked, and they both looked at her, Sam a little more keenly.

  ‘Can’t say,’ Mike told her. ‘There’s nothing showing on this scan to indicate that you will, but time will tell. Sorry, can’t be more specific. The 3D scanner might pick up more. We can have a look in the morning with that, if you like.’

  ‘We’ll discuss it tomorrow,’ Sam said. He wheeled her back up to the ward, closed the door of her little side room and stood for a long moment looking down at her in silence.

  ‘Did you know it was twins?’ she asked him eventually, and he shook his head.

  ‘Not for sure. I had a feeling you were still pregnant, but it was too small to see clearly enough on the portable machine and there was too much blood for it to be that baby. That rather hinted at twins, and it’s not uncommon. And the HCG was a little high in your pregnancy test. That rather indicated another foetus. We’ll get a good view tomorrow with the 3D scanner. It might give us a better idea of all sorts of things.’

  She reached out and caught his hand, the realisation of what was facing her just starting to hit home. ‘Sam, please don’t tell Hugh,’ she said, panicking. ‘I really don’t want him to know about this. Let’s just tell him I’ve lost the baby and leave it at that. It’s not a lie. Buy me time.’

  Sam frowned. ‘Eve, it’s his child. He ought to know. And he loves you.’

  She looked away, feeling the pain starting to build like pressure behind her breastbone. ‘I know, but I need time to think, to get used to it. Please?’

  He nodded reluctantly. ‘OK. I’ll see you in the morning and we’ll get the other scan. Try and sleep tonight.’ He squeezed her hand and released it, then left her alone with her tumbling emotions. Sleep? Not a chance.

  She was still pregnant. Pregnant and, unless nature took its course, facing the most monumental decision of her life.

  ‘What do you mean, I can’t look?’

  Sam sighed wearily. ‘Hugh, she’s not your patient. You don’t have access to her notes.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘No, it’s her right, and I’m going to respect it. I’m sorry. She’ll tell you if there’s anything she wants you to know.’

  ‘And you won’t? Dammit, I thought you were my friend.’

  Sam sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘Hugh, don’t make this any harder for me.’

  ‘And what about me? What about how hard it is for me?’

  ‘This isn’t about you, it’s about her,’ he said firmly. ‘She’s lost a baby, and she’s feeling very vulnerable at the moment, and you need to respect that.’

  Hugh swallowed hard, feeling a ridiculous stab of pain at Sam’s confirmation that their baby had died. He’d known anyway, really, but while the pregnancy test had still shown positive, there had been a shred of hope.

  Now that hope was gone, and he nodded acceptance, patted Sam awkwardly on the arm and apologised for giving him such a hard time. He went up to the ward to see Eve, and was told she was resting, so he went back to his clinic and growled at Maggie and Oliver and tried to concentrate.

  On the way back to the ward at the end of his clinic, he bumped into Julia. The last person he wanted to see, but she put a hand on his arm and said softly, ‘I’m so sorry, Hugh. You don’t deserve this, either of you. She’s a lovely girl, you were right. Is she OK?’

  He stared at her in amazement. ‘Um—yes, I think so. I’m just going back up there.’

  ‘Give her my love.’

  But he didn’t, because when he reached the ward, he found she’d been discharged and gone home. ‘How could you let her g
o home alone?’ he raved at Sam, but Sam simply sighed and let him get it out of his system.

  ‘She’s fine, Hugh. She’s gone home to rest, and if you’ve got any sense you’ll let her. Right now what she needs to do is sleep and heal.’

  He was right, of course, but it didn’t make it any easier when all he wanted to do was gather her into his arms and hold her. He tried to concentrate, tried to work, but he’d grown so used to having her by his side that it seemed odd without her.

  He couldn’t get her out of his mind—and when, later, he went to see Sam about a patient and found not Sam but Eve’s notes on his desk, there was no way he wasn’t going to scan through them.

  And when he did, the shock of what he read took the legs out from under him.

  ‘Hugh, what the hell are you doing?’

  He raised his head and met Sam’s furious eyes steadily.

  ‘Reading her notes,’ he said, with what he felt was commendable calm, under the circumstances.

  Sam snatched the notes from him and slammed them shut, hurling them in a drawer and locking it. Hugh inclined his head towards it.

  ‘That’ll be handy when she’s brought in in the night because she’s lost the other twin.’

  Sam swore viciously. ‘You weren’t supposed to know.’

  ‘She’s pregnant with my child and I wasn’t supposed to know?’ he roared, getting to his feet. ‘Dammit, Sam, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because she asked me not to.’

  ‘Why? Why wouldn’t she want me to know? Unless…’ He stared at Sam in horror, the truth dawning. ‘Oh, my God. She’s going to get rid of it. She’s going to have a termination, isn’t she? Isn’t she?’

  Sam shook his head wordlessly. ‘Hugh, you’re jumping to conclusions. I can’t discuss this with you, you know that.’

  ‘No, but I can discuss it with her,’ he said. Thrusting Sam out of the way, he went into his office and found Maggie.

  ‘Field my calls,’ he said crisply. ‘And page Oliver and tell him he’s in charge. I’m out of the hospital for a while.’

  ‘But—’

  He didn’t give her time for any buts, just grabbed his jacket and keys, and left. His phone was in his pocket, but he had no intention of phoning her. He’d just go round there, confront her, make her talk about it, because this was ridiculous and there was no way she was going through with something so monumental without discussing it with him first.

  And she didn’t even need to let him in. She’d had a spare set of keys cut for her flat weeks ago, after she’d been shut out, and she’d given them to him to hang on to for her. They were still in the glovebox of his car, and he was going to use them now for the first time. They could talk about the ethics of it later.

  Eve slipped off her clothes, crawled into the middle of her bed and curled into a ball. She was so tired, so tired and sad and confused, weighed down by the impossibility of her position and crushed by a wave of grief so huge she couldn’t even comprehend it.

  This time yesterday she hadn’t even been aware that she was pregnant. Now her whole life had been thrown into turmoil, and nothing would ever be the same again.

  She didn’t cry. Some things, she’d heard, went too deep to cry for, and this, it seemed, was one of them.

  Instead she lay there, not even really thinking, just allowing the pain to wash over her, until finally she slept.

  The sound of a key in her door woke her three hours later. Puzzled, she sat up, wondering if she’d imagined it, but she hadn’t. Hugh stood there in her bedroom doorway, his eyes tortured, and she thought, He knows. He knows about the twin. Her heart, already over-burdened, sank still further.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  He held the keys up, dangling them in front of her. ‘I think it’s time we had a chat, don’t you?’

  She scooted up the bed, hunching over, hugging her knees. He looked—no, not angry, but hurt, confused, puzzled. A lump lodged itself in her throat and she looked away, unable to meet those sad, accusing eyes. ‘You could have phoned—rung the doorbell. Anything.’

  ‘And given you a chance to put the chain on the door and deadlock it? I don’t think so, not this time, Eve. I’m going to put the kettle on, and I’m going to make you something to eat and drink, and you’re going to talk to me, whether you like it or not.’

  She didn’t. She really, really didn’t, but she guessed he was going nowhere, so when the door clicked shut she got up, feeling oddly light-headed, pulled on a dressing-gown and went through into the living room.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’

  Eve shook her head. ‘Not tea. I really don’t fancy it at the moment. I’ll have fruit juice—there’s some in the fridge.’

  He set it down in front of her on the coffee-table, his eyes concerned, but she couldn’t meet them and looked away, and he went back into the kitchen and started to fix himself a coffee.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were still pregnant?’ he asked softly, and she swallowed and fiddled with the belt of her dressing-gown.

  ‘I wasn’t sure I was,’ she lied, and she heard his hand slam down on the kitchen worktop.

  ‘Of course you knew. You knew last night—that’s why you wouldn’t see me today. Eve, I’ve looked at your notes.’

  Her head yanked up at that, and she met his eyes then, furious. ‘You had no right—’

  ‘Let’s not talk about rights,’ he said, every bit as furious. ‘There’s a baby’s rights here that are more important than yours or mine, and they’re the only ones I’m interested in.’

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked away hastily, but not fast enough, apparently, because he sighed and came and sat down opposite her on the coffee-table, pushing the fruit juice out of the way and taking her hands.

  ‘Oh, hell, Eve, I’m sorry.’

  She shook her head and clung to him, needing him even though she couldn’t bear to face him.

  ‘I love you, Eve,’ he said raggedly. ‘Don’t shut me out.’

  ‘I have to,’ she said, the tears filling her eyes now not for her or for her babies, but for Hugh, their father, the man she loved more than she would ever have believed possible.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he said gently, and wrapped her in his arms, shifting so he was on the sofa and she was on his lap, cradled against his heart with her head on his shoulder and her arms locked tightly around him. ‘You don’t have to shut me out. You can talk to me. Surely there’s something I can do?’

  She gave a shaky laugh. If only. There was nothing anyone could do. She’d made a promise and she’d failed, because she hadn’t even been organised enough to take her pills on time.

  Oh, Daddy, she thought sadly, her father’s stern face clear in her mind. Why can’t I get it right even now, so many, many years later? Why must I always disappoint you?

  ‘There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing to talk about. I promised my father I’d do this, and I have to do it—somehow.’

  He stared at her in confusion. ‘Do what? What did you promise him that’s more important than this?’

  She struggled off his lap, picked up her juice and went out onto the balcony. The last rays of the evening sun were just coming over the trees opposite, and she sat down at her little table and stared sightlessly at the river.

  ‘Eve? Talk to me.’

  She had to. They couldn’t, after all, sit in silence indefinitely, so she talked about the only thing that she could deal with at the moment, because she’d been dealing with it for years and another night wasn’t going to hurt her.

  ‘My father was a tyrant,’ she told him quietly. ‘No, that’s unfair. He was a surgeon, and he was talented, skilful and he set exacting standards, for himself and for everybody else. I never lived up to them. No matter how hard I tried, I never managed to be good enough for him. I was a girl, and he wanted a son to follow in his footsteps, but my brother was a waste of space. I tried to make up for his shortcomings, but I couldn’t do it.’

&nbs
p; ‘So that’s what this is all about? Being good enough for your father?’ He sighed and sat down on the other chair, crossing one ankle over the other knee and staring out across the water. ‘Eve, I’m a father. There’s no way I’d want my daughter to do anything that made her this unhappy.’

  ‘But I’m not unhappy. I love medicine—’

  ‘I’m talking about the baby.’

  She gasped, sucking in air, clamping down the sob, willing him to stop, but he didn’t.

  ‘Just tell me something. If you hadn’t made your father that promise, if you’d just found yourself in this situation, with me, with the baby—would you still want to have a termination?’

  She stared at him in horror, tears spilling unchecked from her eyes. ‘I don’t want to have a termination!’

  ‘So marry me.’

  She sucked in a huge breath and shook her head. ‘No! No, Hugh, I can’t!’

  ‘Because of some stupid bloody promise?’

  He closed his eyes, scrubbing his hands over his face, hauling in a steadying breath before he opened his eyes and looked at her again.

  She was killing him. She could see that, see the pain in his eyes, the drawn lines bracketing his mouth. And she knew just how much he was hurting, because it was tearing her apart inside.

  ‘I can’t let him down, Hugh,’ she said.

  ‘And this doesn’t change anything? The fact that you’re pregnant with his grandchild? What about letting your baby down? What about letting me down? Eve, he was your father. He loved you—’

  ‘Did he? He never said so.’

  His face was stunned. ‘What? I tell my kids every day—more than that. Every time I talk to them. They’ve never been in any doubt.’

  ‘I know.’ She felt the sobs welling. Her child could have that. Could have Hugh as a father, could know the warmth and emotional security of his love, if only…