by Jo Briggs
With a nervous smile, William moved past her, and into the indicated room. She breathed in a waft of his cologne as he did so. Elle took another deep breath, trying to hold back the welling up of tears, as the familiarity of the smell, and the fact it would be the last time she would smell it on him, overwhelmed her.
Entering the room, she pushed the door partially closed, leaving enough of a gap, that Cate would hear if it were wise to enter when she returned. William was standing in his usual pose, with his back to the room by the window, staring out at the view. Taking a seat, she waited for several moments, before he turned and spoke.
“As I said to your sister, this will take just a few minutes.” His voice trembled with obvious emotion.
Elle stared down at her hands, allowing him to continue without interruption.
“I accept that there is no going back from your decision to leave, but I just needed to see you one last...” He paused, obviously struggling to get his words out. “...one last time, to say sorry, sorry for not being supportive enough. I know I am guilty of letting business get in the way of us being able to grieve together.”
Elle looked up for the first time since he started talking, an expression of wonder written on her face. For weeks, she felt guilty for not being able to express her grief into words with him. She had thought his anger had been over the frustration of her endless crying, rather than talking it through. Hearing that he felt blameable, for not being able to spend enough time to help get them through their grief together, threw her thoughts totally off balance. “You should not feel guilty for having to go to work. I am just sorry for all the nights; I kept you up with my endless crying, rather than talking about it. Maybe if, I had been able to open up more, we would not be in this position today,” she said looking away from his gaze.
“Do not tear yourself up about it – each of us could have done things better in hindsight, but losing your parents, and the baby in a short space of time is enough to make anyone struggle to discuss things. I know I went into a shutdown mode when my mother and father died.”
Elle offered him a weak smile, as she did not trust herself to speak. She was trying her utmost to resist listening to the inner voice screaming in her head to ask for another chance since he seemed to share her regret. But, this misunderstanding had hit her with the cold reality that, no matter how much she still loved him, she needed to be alone, to do some growing up.
“Anyway,” He said letting out a deep sigh. “I think my few minutes are up. I guess I will be seeing you at Charlie’s from time to time.”
“You might be relieved to know that I will not be there often at all, I have accepted a job in New York.”
William’s face fell. The thought of knowing he would be seeing her from time to time, when Jess and Charlie had parties, was the one thing that had kept him from begging her not to leave him. He hoped, in time, he would have been able to draw her back into his life, but now, with that opportunity gone, he felt the acute pain of separation truly for the first time. “Oh...I see, well...umm good luck,” he stammered.
She gave him a small smile. “Thanks.” She tried to sound casual as she added, “By the way, I appreciate the flowers.” Her understanding why he bought that type of flower was written all over her face for him to see.
William shrugged, seemingly trying to match her casualness. “I bought them before...before I saw your note.”
Elle reddened at this, looking away from his gaze again, with embarrassment.
“I thought you may appreciate them, better than I do, under the circumstances.” Looking down, as he fiddled with something bulking out his jacket pocket, he struggled to compose himself once more. When he looked up again a moment later, he caught Elle staring at him wistfully. “I will leave you in peace. I had better get going before the traffic gets too heavy as I am heading to Kent.” He continued to stand in the same spot, rather than moving towards the door, as if still deliberating something in his head.
As Elle stood up from the sofa, William finally moved from his spot, catching her unaware - he was standing in front of her, before she had time to react. He brought his arms up to rest on either side of her waist, pulling her close, as his lips brushed against hers urgently before releasing her from his grip. “As much as this hurts, I know loving you means I have to let you go, so you will come back to me of your own accord.”
Dazed by the turmoil of emotions the kiss invoked, Elle did not get a chance to reply as Cate interrupted them by entering the room.
“Cate, thank you for allowing me to descend upon your home uninvited; I will not intrude any longer,” William said turning stiffly from Elle, to focus on her sister, his unreadable mask of emotions in place once more, as he strode from the room.
Cate followed him out into the hallway, leaving behind a quivering Elle, sobbing in the drawing room, as she finally released the tears she had been holding back, since he arrived.
After shutting the door behind a retreating William, Cate had stood outside the drawing room, listening to Elle’s sobbing for a couple of minutes, allowing her to get the worst out of her system, before she re-entered the room to comfort her.
Outside in the driveway, a desolate William got back into the driver’s seat of his car. Clutching so hard at the steering wheel, he made his knuckles go white, as he tried to compose himself. Pulling the object from his jacket that he had been fiddling with earlier, he hurled it across the car in frustration with such force that it fell into the foot well of the passenger side. The outer box breaking and creaking, revealing its contents; a double banded single solitaire diamond ring.
Seeing the ring sparkling in the remains of the box, cracked his composure altogether as he brought both hands up to his face and sobbed uncontrollably.
Life changes
December 2003
On the second day after William’s visit, Elle pulled off a controlled performance of a lifetime worthy of any award-winning actress, as she stepped onto the plane leaving her life in England behind for a fresh start.
After a gruelling six-hour flight, the wife of her mother’s brother, Annette, greeted her at the other end of the flight. Despite losing her mother just six weeks before, Elle had never been exceptionally close to her, and looked upon Annette as more of a mother so it did not take her long to get behind the facade of her cheerfulness.
“Elle, you know you don’t have to put a front on for me. William contacted Lorry yesterday saying you had parted ways extremely distressed -” Annette began softly as Elle’s smile was replaced by uneasiness. “Do you want to tell me about it?” The older woman leaned over and touched her niece’s arm, as an offer of comfort.
“There is nothing much to tell, other than I have left him, as I cannot stand the pain, we both blame the other for any longer.” Elle's expression became unreadable. She was not ready to open up fully yet. Her hormones were all over the place still. The doctor had warned her that it might take up to two months for everything to settle down after the miscarriage. It was four weeks so far.
“He blames you for losing the baby?” Annette looked shocked.
Elle shook her head. “No, not exactly, more than anything I could not talk to him about it, until it was too late.”
“But now you have started talking, can you not work through the pain together?”
Elle shook her head again. “No, it has become far more now. The shock of all these events, and my handling of them have made me realise, I need to grow up more before re-entering into any relationship.”
Annette sighed, sad for the pain, her niece was evidently going through, and disappointed to see two people who so obviously were meant for each other, part ways. “Well, I am here, if you want to talk things through further.”
“Thanks.”
Excusing herself from the room, Elle headed to the guest room, where she always stayed. Throwing herself on the bed, she contemplated the coming weeks, as she knew the only way to cope with the emptiness was to bury herself
into a heavy workload.
~~~
Settling into a routine of working and playing at a diligent pace, Christmas and New Year were soon forgotten. Elle began to build a name on the global modelling stage. The exposure of doing a campaign with a company with Dexter Media's reputation gave her a solid foundation to build upon.
As much as Elle kept busy during the daytime and evenings, the stark hours after midnight still dragged by slowly, as she tossed and turned, reliving the painful memories of losing the baby, and William in quick succession. To a lesser degree, she was also grieving her parent’s deaths as well, but the lack of love they had shown her during her childhood had dampened any sorrow.
As the end of January beckoned, Elle was still living reluctantly in her relatives’ apartment, despite her earlier idea of moving into her own place. It was not for want of looking for a new place, but her aunt and uncle made her agree to stay for the near future, as they were still concerned about her health, in particular, her continued sickness in the morning.
Her London doctor had given her the recommendation of a particular doctor in New York, in whose care she now was. The recommended doctor was a female gynaecologist that specialised in after care of trauma-induced miscarriages and high-risk pregnancies.
Despite reassurances that the loss of the pregnancy was not her fault, the dark nightmares sweeping through her sleeping mind each night, continued to thrive, leading to problems starting to appear in her work. Her new agent knew of Elle’s reputation of always being highly versatile in her work, but the on-going fatigue and sickness were beginning to hinder Elle getting work. One client had said Elle was getting too fat for them to consider.
This criticism was the final straw in allowing her agent, and family, to convince her to see the doctor. Several days later, a downcast Elle found herself in front of her new doctor for the first time.
“I am going to organise another round of blood tests, since you are still suffering from disrupted sleep and sickness.” The doctor began after silently perusing the notes Elle’s old doctor had faxed over. “Have you menstruated since your surgery?”
Elle shook her head.
“And that was about ten weeks ago?” The doctor said peering down at the papers again.
“Yes.”
“Do you experience any residual pain around the injury area?”
“Slight soreness, but not any pain as such, but I do experience a strange fluttering at times.”
The doctor looked at her strangely for a moment, “Flutterings?"
“Yes, not quite where the wound was, but in the abdomen surrounding it.”
“Ok, if you go behind the curtain and take off your top, I can have a closer look at the wound.”
After gently probing of the wound just above her right hip, and the surrounding abdominal area, her doctor wrote in her file, and asked her to redress and sit back down.
“The wound seems to be healed perfectly, so I do not believe that is what is causing your symptoms. I am going to send you over to my colleague in the centre to have them do an internal, and abdominal ultrasound within the next hour. The receptionist will be able to give you directions, and then I will see you back here later today, after the scan.”
Elle sighed at the prospect of waiting around all day, even if it were within the state of the art private health practice.
“Ok, but do you have an idea of what is going on?”
“I have my suspicions, but I will get a better idea after the tests – we should have a definite diagnosis by the end of today.”
Elle gave the doctor a small smile, relieved that a conclusion to her general feeling of poor health could be in sight.
Three hours later, Elle found herself on a narrow bed in one of the ultrasound rooms. The ultrasound technician had placed the familiar cold gel over her lower abdomen before doing a few sweeps with the scanner. An image came up on the screen, but Elle did not understand what she was seeing. The technician made notes, and then said she was going to go get the doctor to come talk to her.
A feeling of uneasiness swept over Elle. She had had ultrasounds before, and they had never needed to send a doctor in during the examination in the past. What if the fall had caused irreparable internal damage to the abdomen after all? At the time of her surgery, they had said she was lucky to escape with the minor damage she had done.
The door opened revealing her doctor and the technician. They both huddled over the screen, as Elle’s doctor did another sweep of the scanner over her belly.
“Ok, well, it would seem all your nausea was caused by this area here.” The doctor said, turning to smile at Elle for the first time, as she indicated to a prominent shape on the screen.
Frowning, Elle tried to make out what part of her anatomy the shape corresponded with, “What is it?”
“This outer shaper is your uterus, and inside, there is a sixteen-week foetus.”
“Foetus? How can that be?” Elle stammered, her hand clutching the side of the bed, as she tried to lean in further, to stare at the screen incredulously.
“Well, it would seem, although the trauma of your fall caused heavy blood loss and presumed miscarriage, there is still a viable baby in there.”
“But they said there was no chance of foetal survival after all the blood loss, they could not find a heartbeat, and my hormone levels had started to fall.” Elle did still not quite believe what the doctor was telling her.
“It could also have been that you had twins, and one of them did come away. If it had its own separate placenta, this would account for all the blood, and the hormone levels would have dipped because of going down to one foetus— it would have soon elevated again.”
“Can you tell if this baby is ok?”
“The measurements show it’s a little on the small side, but nothing to be overly concerned about yet. We just need to keep a close eye on you through the rest of your baby’s gestation.
“I genuinely cannot believe this.” Elle finally responded after struggling to find her voice, a powerful sense of shock vibrating through her.
“I realise it’s a lot to take in after all you have been through. I suggest you have lots of rest, eat well, and I will see you again in another couple of weeks,” The doctor suggested. “The bathroom is through that door, once you are cleaned up you are free to go."
Standing up, Elle thanked the doctor, and exited the room through the door that had been indicated to her.
~~~
The revelation of what the doctor said took several days to sink into Elle’s mind properly. At first, she wondered if she had dreamt it all. Finding the paperwork for another appointment and scan in her handbag, she knew it was all too real. After getting back from her appointment, she had quietly disappeared into her room, and spent the rest of the day searching through pages of information on the internet.
As thrilled, as she was to be having a baby still growing inside her, despite the loss of its twin, she could not help but start to wonder how to handle this turn of events. When should she tell him about the new baby? Did it mean she should go back to him? Yes, she missed him terribly, but her heart had started to heal, and she was not sure she wanted to move from New York, now that she was here.
Following more sleepless nights, she decided that he deserved to know about the child, but she would not change her mind about needing to remain single. The existence of a surviving baby did not change the fact; she was not ready emotionally for such an intense relationship, as the one she had shared with William.
With that settled the next significant problem was how and when to tell him.
After telling her aunt and uncle the news, she had asked for their co-operation in keeping it between themselves for now. She felt she needed to get used to the idea of the baby herself, before she could cope with telling him. Due to the delicate balance of happiness and depression that Elle was experiencing, her aunt and uncle agreed, not wanting her to feel any added pressure of having to tell others, until she w
as ready.
Elle maintained this stance for just a month when she finally told Cate, but with a continued frostiness between her other sister and herself, she remained silent on the issue with Jess.
With the morning sickness finally abated, Elle had also decided to give up work as a model straightaway, and moved her career focus back to fashion design. This had been her primary goal, before being plucked from obscurity by her first modelling agency. She was already educated in all the basic elements of putting a design together, from pencil to computer aided, and then onto pattern and fabric. Her next step would be a degree course, to advance that knowledge to a higher level, which would help her on her path to running her own clothes line.
Feeling more confident about her plans for the future also helped her feel ready to contact William about the upcoming birth.
Alone in the apartment, she took the opportunity to dial his number straight from her phone, as he always had that with him no matter what. Disconcerted by the fact it went straight to voicemail at first, she managed to leave a brief message, asking him to phone her. After hearing, nothing back from him, she tried again on several other occasions, but it simply rang off and went to voicemail. On the final occasion, she had even become so emotional at his silence, she blurted out about the news about the child, whereas all her earlier messages had been just asking him to make contact about something important.
Elle became resigned to the fact that he was not interested in the child, after hearing no response to any of her messages, after several weeks. Dejected, Elle remained unwavering in her determination to do her best for their child, even if he was not.
She tried to keep the strain of William’s rejection from affecting the baby, but after Elle had experienced sharp abdominal pains, she had visited the ER to be told she was suffering from pre-eclampsia, beginning a cycle of uncertainty as to whether the baby would go to full term, or be born via emergency C-section.
Her doctor arranged for her to be transferred from the emergency room and admitted onto a maternity ward so they could hook her up to a machine to watch the baby’s heartbeat rate and movement, and to monitor the baby for any distress. After just a few hours, it became clear the seriousness of the situation was escalating further, and to save both Elle and the child an emergency C-section was performed bringing the child into the world four weeks premature.