by James, Sandy
He knew.
Nate shrugged my hand away. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me?”
Damn it all anyway.
I should have forced Kathy to tell them both—but I’d made her a promise, and I hadn’t broken it. I just hoped Mark and Nate could understand and forgive me one day.
I stroked my son’s head.
He jerked away. His rejection hurt like a hard slap to my face.
“I promised her, Nate,” I said. “I promised Kat I’d let her tell you.”
“Tell you what?” Mark asked, clearly confused and already pissed off. His gaze shifted between mother and son, and I could tell he sensed a conspiracy. He narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s wrong with my daughter?” His voice had taken on a hard edge, and I couldn’t tell if he was yelling at Nate or me.
Probably both.
“She’s having a miscarriage.” Nate got to his feet and stared down at me with so much condemnation in his eyes I wanted to weep in response.
“A what?” Mark shouted. “She’s having a what?” I watched the emotions play across my husband’s face. Shock. Confusion. And then rage.
“A miscarriage,” Nate replied. “She was pregnant, and she lost the baby.”
Mark moved so fast, I didn’t even have a chance to stop him. Grabbing a couple of fistfuls of the front of Nate’s shirt, he pinned my son to the closest wall. “You son of a bitch. What did you do to her?”
“Don’t call my mom a bitch.” Nate managed to reply in a flat voice that seemed a bit peculiar considering the fact he’d just been slammed against a wall.
He wasn’t fighting back, which told me that he was angry with himself for what Kat was going through. He blamed himself, and he probably thought he deserved a good smack or two. He was evidently going to let Mark provide the punishment.
I put myself between them, wanting desperately to get Mark to let my son go. “Mark, stop it.” I tugged at his arm. It was like trying to move an anchored steel beam. “Not here. Please, not here.”
His arm remained straight as an arrow, but his gaze shifted from Nate to me.
I deserved some of fury flowing my way, but not all of it. I’d done the right thing by Kat when she had needed me most. When Mark got over his shock, surely he would see that.
“She was going to tell you tomorrow,” I insisted.
“But you already knew, didn’t you?”
I stood there, trying not to fight back and feeling the prying stares of everyone in the waiting area.
“Didn’t you?” he shouted loud enough to make me flinch.
“Just for a couple of days.”
“And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t think I needed to know my own daughter was pregnant? Damn you, Jackie.”
I wanted to shout right back at him. I wanted to tell him I had been helping his daughter, damn it. My own anger was quickly rising in response to his, and those suppressed defensive shields—the ones I had tucked away when I married Mark—were slowing creeping back into place.
He shouldn’t be yelling at me. He should be thanking me. I’d taken care of his daughter when she really needed someone. I’d done all the right things to help her through this. And what did I get in return?
Damn me?
Damn me?
Damn him!
“Let Nate go.” I grabbed at his arm again. He didn’t budge an inch. “Let go of my son!”
A security guard was taking long strides to reach us, and Mark was going to be in a world of hurt if he didn’t get that temper under control pretty damn quick.
“Look, I know you’re pissed, but this isn’t the place for us to talk. Let him go, Mark,” I begged as I tugged at his arm. “Let him go. Now.”
Mark snarled and pulled his hands away from Nate’s chest.
Nate slowly eased away from the wall.
“Everything okay here?” the rent-a-cop asked when he reached us. He bore that air of self-importance that people who had no real power often sport. I could tell the guy irritated Mark as much as he did me.
“You all right?” The uniformed man looked Nate up and down.
“I’m fine,” Nate replied, giving his shoulders an exaggerated roll and straightening his shirt.
The security officer eyeballed us for a few more moments. “If I let this here go, I won’t have no more trouble from you folks?” He gave Mark a stern glare I figured was supposed to intimidate him.
Mark scowled right back at the man. I could see the carefully contained fury in my husband’s eyes and hoped the barriers would hold for a little while longer. For my part, all I wanted to do was correct the guard’s abhorrent grammar and send him on his way, figuring there was a vending machine waiting somewhere in the hospital where he could get himself another snack and add another inch or two to that enormous waistline.
“No more trouble,” I replied. “Emotions are just running a little hot. That’s all.”
The security guard nodded at me. Then he hiked up his sagging pants and walked over to the reception desk. He said something to the lady sitting behind it—probably telling her to call him if the white trash he’d just expertly handled got rowdy again—and he left the waiting room.
“Stay here. I’m going back to see my daughter,” Mark said as he walked over to the reception desk.
I followed, trying to control my annoyance at having been dismissed like some child. “Maybe I better go back too.”
“Oh, I think you’ve caused enough trouble,” Mark sneered before he asked the receptionist where Kat was. He listened attentively, and then he leveled a glare at me. “Take your son and go home.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not going anywhere,” I replied with a condescending wave of my hand that didn’t help cool Mark’s anger.
I was every bit as anxious to see Kathy as he was, and I wasn’t about to leave her with only her father to lean on. His temper was getting the better of him, and right now she probably needed some TLC. I doubted her enraged father could provide much.
“Neither is Nate,” I insisted. “Look, I know you’re angry, but—”
“Angry? Angry? I’m so far past that...” He stopped, huffed a few breaths out of his flared nostrils, and drew his lips into a grim line. “You’re a piece of work, lady. You know that?” He turned to go.
I grabbed his arm.
He stared down at me, throwing daggers with his eyes aimed right at my heart.
“Kat made me promise. She was going to tell you and Nate, but she just wanted to think it all through first. She was scared—scared to tell Nate and scared to tell you. Please don’t shout at her when you go back there.”
“I think getting parenting advice from you is a colossal waste of time.” He pulled his arm away and jerked his thumb toward where Nate stood. “I mean, look how great your son turned out.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“He goes and gets some innocent girl pregnant and—”
“They were both there, Mark. It takes two people to make a baby.”
“I’m going back to see my daughter.” He punched the big button, and the double doors opened. He strode through them and disappeared in the treatment area.
“I’ll be here if either of you need me,” I called after him, hoping he would hear.
Nate was sitting with his head in his hands again when I went to take a seat next to him. I put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
He sat up and brushed it away.
“Nate, I’m sorry. I know this is hard. You’re both so young...”
“What would you know about how I feel?” he scoffed.
Because I was nineteen when I got pregnant with your brother, Nate. Remember?
I reined in my sarcasm. “Think about that for a minute.”
He stared over at me for a few moments. “Fine. Maybe you do understand.”
The anger seemed to ebb right out of him as it was rapidly replaced with hurt. I felt entirely helpless, only able to watch him and listen.
&n
bsp; “You know what sucks?” he asked. “She didn’t trust me enough to tell me. I love Kat so much, and she wouldn’t even tell me she was pregnant with my baby.”
“She was going to—after the concert.”
I saw the flicker of hope in his eyes. He loved Kathy and wanted to believe she loved him in return. “Really? She was going to tell me?”
I nodded. “Right after the concert. Then she was going to come home with you tomorrow and tell Mark. What happened tonight?”
He put his elbows back to his knees and rested his forehead against his hands. He might as well have been talking to the carpet. “We were eating at The Chuckwagon, and she just...doubled over and started crying. Then I noticed that...” Nate turned his head away, obviously embarrassed.
“She was bleeding?”
He nodded. “I drove her right here. She wouldn’t even let me call an ambulance. When we got here, I stayed with her for a couple of minutes, but then she told me to leave. She didn’t want me with her.”
“Nate, I’m so sorry.”
His head snapped up, and our gazes locked. Nate looked like he was drowning—like a young man who was being pulled down by a relentless undertow and was tired of fighting it. “I want to come home. I hate it here. I hate classes. I hate the profs.” Nate got up and started to pace. “I hate the dorm. I hate not having you around when I need something. The only thing I had here was Kat. And now she... she...” He shook his head.
I heaved a sigh, feeling entirely inadequate to help my son. He wasn’t a child anymore. I couldn’t fix this for him. It was time for him to put some starch in his spine. “College can be rough, but you’ve got to tough it out. Finish the year here, then we can talk about transferring somewhere else—somewhere a little closer if you want.”
“Rough?” Nate shook his head again, this time adding a rueful laugh. “I’m in the ninth circle of Hell.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the exaggeration, and a hesitant smile twitched on my lips. Nate always liked his melodrama, and his usual personality was starting to assert itself.
He would be all right.
I refused, however, to indulge him in any pity. “We need to take things one step at a time. Let’s help Kat through this, then we can talk about everything else.”
“She won’t let me help her through this. I want to be back there with her, but she doesn’t want me.”
I stood up and started pacing next to my son. “I know, but she’s hurting. She doesn’t know what she wants. When Mark comes back out, I’ll see if she’ll let you go back.”
“I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around it. I was going to be a father. Now I’m not.”
“Jackie?” I turned around to see Mark. His face now read of hurt, the anger seemingly evaporated. “What?”
“Kat won’t talk to me. She wants you.”
***
I peeked around the curtain.
Kathy was lying curled up on her side with her back to me. An IV was pumping next to her bed, humming softly every few seconds. She appeared so fragile—so young—in the green hospital gown. I was overwhelmed with sympathy. The poor girl had been through so much so very quickly.
I went to the bed and put my hand on her shoulder. “Kat?”
She rolled to her back. One look at me, and she started crying. “I lost the baby.”
“I know, honey. I’m so sorry.”
Sitting up, she reached for me.
I sat down on the bed next to her and hugged her close, stroking her hair as she cried against my shoulder. I could feel the tears rolling down my own cheeks.
After several minutes, she pulled away and leaned back against the pillow. “I couldn’t talk to my dad.”
“I understand, but you need to face him. You can’t hide from this forever. He’s just worried about you, Kat. So is Nate.”
She breathed a long, shuddering sigh. “I know. I just... They both hate me now.” She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them.
“No,” I replied with a shake of my head, “they don’t. They both love you. We all love you. We’ll help you get through this.”
A doctor who appeared barely old enough to shave came into the cubicle, making me feel ancient. Doctors were supposed to be older than me, not younger—especially not that much younger. Plucking the chart from the end of Kat’s bed, he flipped it open before he started to make notes.
“How are you feeling now, Katherine?”
Kat shrugged. “Better, I guess. Kind of crampy, but the stuff they gave me helped some. Makes me sleepy though.”
The way-too-young-to-practice-medicine doctor smiled and made a few more notes on her chart. “We can adjust the dosage if the pain gets worse. I’ve got your test results.” He glanced over at me. “If you’d please excuse us for a minute.”
Kathy shook her head. “No. She can stay. She’s my mom.”
She’s my mom.
My chin was quivering, and my eyes were pooling with fresh tears. I’d finally earned her trust, and I doubted she would ever know how much that meant to me.
But what had Kat’s trust cost me?
Don’t think like that, Jackie.
“The ultrasound shows you miscarried, but there are no products of conception remaining.” He stated all of that with an air of matter-of-fact that told me he assumed we knew exactly what he was talking about.
He was wrong.
“Want to put that in English, doctor?” I asked.
“It means she shouldn’t have any complications. She miscarried completely. I don’t think we’ll have to do a D and C.” He glanced back at Kat, who looked confused again.
At least this I understood. “That means you won’t need surgery, honey. That’s good news.”
Dr. Adolescent nodded. “But we want to keep you for a few hours to keep an eye on the bleeding.”
“Can I still have kids?” Kat asked, staring at her knees and blushing dark red.
I realized how embarrassing the situation must be for a girl her age. Over the years, I’d become desensitized to doctors discussing the private parts of my anatomy or seeing me naked. Hell, I could have an entire conversation with my gynecologist while I was trussed up in stirrups or with a radiologist, who was smashing one of my breasts entirely flat for a mammogram.
Kathy was still shy because she hadn’t experienced two births where everyone and their cousin were staring at your hoohah while you tried to squeeze out a baby who seemed to have a head the size of a bowling ball.
“This shouldn’t hurt your fertility,” he said. “Lots of first pregnancies are miscarried—especially in the first trimester.” He hung the chart back on the end of her bed, clicked his pen closed, and shoved it in his lab coat. “We’re going to admit you to a day ward for a couple of hours.” He glanced at the clock. “If everything looks good, then your mom can take you home in the morning.”
***
Mark and Nate were actually talking when I went back to the waiting room. I was so relieved to see them sitting together, I didn’t want to interrupt and break the spell. Mark patted Nate on the back, and I almost started crying again at the conciliatory gesture between my husband and my son.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t leave them alone to continue to work through their differences because I needed to talk to them both about Kat. I sighed and walked up to stand in front of them.
Mark stared up at me from where he sat. His anger had ebbed, and his features appeared less strained. This hadn’t been easy on him. It hadn’t been easy on any of us.
I wanted to reach out to him, but I felt coldness in his gaze that pinched all the way to my heart.
“How’s she doing?” he asked.
I gave him a hesitant smile.
He didn’t offer me one in return, but I tried not to read too much into that.
“She’s going to be fine,” I said. “The doctor wants her to stay for a little bit longer, then we can take her home. I think I’m going to take her back with us instead of ta
king her to the dorm. She really needs a few days of rest, and it would help if I could take care of her. I’ll email her teachers.”
“I’m going home too,” Nate said.
I shook my head.
So did Mark.
“No, you’re not,” I said firmly, hoping he wouldn’t fight me on this. I couldn’t let him walk away from his responsibilities, no matter how tempting it was to want to let him come back home and just be my little boy again.
Nate needed to grow up.
I needed to let him grow up.
Now was as good a time as any. “You have classes on Monday, and right now, I think Kat needs some alone time. There’ll be plenty of time for you two to talk this out later. Maybe even next weekend.”
He gave me a short stare down, trying to change my mind.
I stared back, letting him know that simply wasn’t going to happen.
Nate finally nodded. “Can I see her at least?”
“I think she’d like that.”
Nate hopped to his feet and headed through the big doors leading to the treatment area.
I sat down next to Mark and folded my hands in my lap. I desperately wanted to touch him—to pull him into my arms—but my radar told me that wouldn’t be a good move on my part. “I’m sorry you’re stuck here until we can take her home.”
“I’m going to have Nate take me to the dorm, and I’ll take Kat’s car home.”
“You’re leaving the hospital?” I wondered if I looked as incredulous as I sounded.
“I’m going home.”
I might as well have been sitting in the waiting room with a total stranger discussing a change in the weather or the ridiculous price of gasoline. For the first time since I’d met him, I was getting nothing from Mark Brennan. No affection, no attraction, no anger. No emotion whatsoever.
That scared the hell out of me.
I rushed to explain. “Kat was going to tell you tomorrow.”
My husband turned his head to stare at me, and a frightened shiver raced through me when I met his gaze. All I read in those dark eyes was contempt meant for me.
My stomach tied itself into nervous knots.
“I’ll just bet she was,” he said, sounding cynical.