“And you listened to her?” I snapped.
“My decision to keep this from you had absolutely nothing to do with her.”
Pushing off the bench, I stood to pace. “I’m going to fucking kill him!”
“Joey…”
“Did you tell him not to touch you?”
“Of course I did.”
“Did he back off?”
“Not until I broke a glass lamp over his head.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him!”
“Joey…” She was trying to calm me down, but it wasn’t going to happen until I had a heart-to-heart with my cousin.
“Don’t, B. Don’t sit there and tell me it’s okay because he didn’t get the chance to do something worse. Along with everyone else, he knew you were off limits.”
“I wasn’t going to say it was.” She wouldn’t look at me. “There’s just more, and you said you’d listen to the whole thing.”
“There’s more?” How could there be more? I was already losing my mind.
“Please, sit down.” I did. “My reason for not telling you right away was selfish, but I was more furious for allowing myself to be in such a situation where something worse had the potential to happen.”
I interrupted her again when I realized she’d left out the main detail. How could I have forgotten? “I sent you up there.”
“Stop it.”
“I purposely sent you upstairs thinking you’d be safe.”
Her hand rested on my thigh. “Let me finish.” The whole mess was my fault. “I knew I had to deal with my own frustration, so I went back to school planning on doing just that. My thought was I’d be over it the next time we saw each other and I’d never have to think about it again.”
“But if you would have told me, I could’ve been there for you.”
“If I would have said anything, we both know you would’ve gone after him. It wouldn’t have ended well.”
“No shit!” She sighed at my low tolerance, so I shut up.
“When I returned from class a couple days later, Donnie was outside my building.”
“What?!” I needed to punch something.
“He wanted to tell you, but I wouldn’t let him. I refused to put your career as a police officer on the line so he could feel better about himself.” It was too much. Everything she said was more than I could handle. How the hell did she deal with it? “When a girl I knew called for me, Donnie took off. I didn’t know where he was until I went into the building. He was waiting in the stairwell. He continued his argument, insisting I tell you or he would. At one point, he reached out to grab me. I was so irritated, I forgot where my feet were. I only meant to step back but, instead, I fell down the stairs. When I woke up, he was gone, and a bunch of people I barely knew were surrounding me. Rebecca was there a few minutes later.”
“When you woke up? Fuck!” Angrily burying my head in my hands, I barely felt her rubbing my back. “Please tell me this is where this nightmare ends.”
“I wish I could.” Something told me she’d say that. “If you want me to stop…”
“No. Finish.” My jaw clenched forcefully as I hoped to make it through whatever she said next. BC stayed quiet longer than I preferred. When I glanced at her, she was pulling something out of her wallet. “B? What is it?”
She cleared her throat, breaking from the trance she’d fallen into. “I, um…” She put her fingers over her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Joey.” What the hell did she have to be sorry for? “I swear I had no idea. If I did…” She took one deep breath, then another. “If I knew, I would’ve been more careful. I would’ve done more.”
“If you knew what, Buttercup?” The pain and sorrow on her face were the most awful part of the conversation. Words escaped her, so she gave me the laminated picture from her wallet. An intense feeling shocked my body into paralysis. “What the fuck is this?” I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what an ultrasound looked like, but why did she have it?
“The one and only picture I ever had of our baby.” I couldn’t have heard correctly. “I’m so sorry, Joey. I couldn’t save the most precious gift you’d ever given me. One minute, all was well; the next…” She exhaled. “And the next, it wasn’t. I’m so sorry.”
I should’ve comforted her. She desperately needed to hear me say it wasn’t her fault. While I didn’t believe she was to blame, I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture. Everything I ever wanted was right in front of me. It was there, but it wasn’t. No, this wasn’t her doing, but I knew whose it was. Without saying anything, I got up and walked toward the car.
“Joey?”
I still couldn’t find the words. When I reached the vehicle, I opened the passenger door and waited. BC stopped a few feet away, trembling.
“Get in the car,” I mumbled.
“Maybe I should…”
The world felt as if it was crumbling around me. The longer I stood there, the bigger the pieces were that fell at my feet. “Get…in…the…car.” If she knew me at all, she’d do as I asked. It looked like she wanted to but was scared to death. My control slipped. “Brielle, don’t push me right now. Get your ass in the fucking car!” My tone was enough to convince her. I slammed the door and checked the time on my phone. It was quarter after six. I knew exactly where the motherfucker was.
Neither of us uttered a single word during the short trip from the park to my parents’ house. Pulling into the driveway, I wasn’t completely positive all four wheels were actually on the concrete, but at least the car wasn’t in the street. If the lawn was damaged, I’d hear about it. The key barely twisted when I ordered BC to get out.
“I’ll wait here.” She spoke so low, I barely made out what she said.
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Your mom doesn’t want me in her house.”
“If you don’t get out on your own, I’ll carry you. Let’s go.” I was relieved she didn’t force me to prove it.
Storming through the front door, I strode into the dining room. The second he saw me, Don knew why I was there.
“Joe, I can explain,” he said, pushing away from the table, but the fucker didn’t get a chance to stand before I shoved his face onto the plate in front of him. Food splattered everywhere. It didn’t dawn on me how pissed my mother would be. This was her favorite china.
Simultaneously, Mom yelled my name, Dad and Jack both instinctively stood, and my aunt screamed for her son. I didn’t pay attention to any of them.
“Did she tell you no?” Don’s face turned red. When he didn’t answer, I raised him off the table, then slammed him back down. My aunt tried pushing against my arm, but she wasn’t strong enough to budge me.
“If you’ll–”
“Did she fucking tell you no?!”
“Yes. No. I don’t remember,” he choked out.
“Stop it! You’re hurting him!” my aunt yelled.
“Joe?” Jack’s attempt to distract me was unsuccessful. He even came halfway around the table before I told him to sit the hell down. So much for his police training.
“What about when she fell down the stairs? Did you forget that, too?”
“No.” For emphasis, I smashed his face down again. “I’m sorry, man!”
An apology? Not good enough. “You’re sorry?” Ripping him out of the chair, I rammed him back into the wall. Glass in the china cabinet shook, and the sheetrock vibrated with aftershocks. I wanted him to see the anger in my eyes. “Do you have any fucking idea what you stole from me?”
“Joey.” It wasn’t loud or harsh, but BC’s voice cut right through to me. “Please, don’t do this.” The desperation in her voice was unconcealed. I turned to look at her standing just outside the room. “This is why I didn’t tell you in the first place. He’s not worth losing everything for which you’ve worked.”
“But, he–”
She shook her head. “Nothing you do or say will change what happened. It won’t make anything better.” The pain of being without her for so long, com
bined with the pain of losing something as special as our baby before he or she even had a chance at life struck hard. I felt helpless. I felt a horrible void. I felt as if a hole had been permanently torn through my chest. I knew I’d never be the same. The fact it transpired nearly seven years ago should’ve eased the ache, but it didn’t. To me, it was all happening at that moment. “Let him go,” BC whispered.
I faced him again. My rage flared, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the pain and heartache. “Don’t ever go near her again. Do you understand me?” He nodded. “If you do, I will gladly spend the rest of my life rotting in a cell for putting you six feet underground.” After one more push into the wall, I released my grasp. Don slid down the wall, breathing heavily and clasping his neck. “Get out before I change my mind and finish the job.”
My aunt leaned down to give him a hand, but glared at me. “How dare you? He’s your family.”
“He’s no family of mine and, while we’re on the subject, neither are you.”
“She’s nothing but a whore, Joseph. You’re making a big mistake.”
In the chaos, I hadn’t realized my mom had come up behind me until she stepped between us and slapped my aunt across the face. “Brielle is more family than you’ll ever be. Get the hell out of my home.”
“You’re just as stupid as your son,” my aunt spit out.
“Mom,” I said, holding her arm. She looked like she was going to slice her only sibling’s throat open with her bare hands. I had a pretty decent feeling my dad wouldn’t be thrilled to have crime scene investigators traipsing through his kitchen.
After my aunt helped Don up, Jack shielded BC from them. It took everything I had to let Don pass me and walk out the front door. Scumbags like him didn’t deserve to walk freely in our streets. He should be locked up, never to see the light of day. I supposed there was a reason cops weren’t the ones who sentenced the people they dealt with on a daily basis. Most wouldn’t get a second chance.
Dad ensured they left. When he returned to the kitchen, he was in police mode and not very happy about it. “Tell me every fucking detail.”
Knowing it was necessary, I began the story as BC told it to me. There were probably small things I missed, but he got the gist of it. As I was about to explain the events that occurred once she was in the hospital, Jack interrupted.
“Joe.” He tapped my arm, tilting his head toward BC. “Go to her before I do.” When I glanced over, BC was leaning against the wall, her body trembling, her skin pale. It wasn’t clear if she was going to faint or vomit.
I reached her side just before she hit the floor. Tears of sadness, grief, and an abundance of pain exploded from her beautiful eyes. “It’s okay, Buttercup. I got you,” I said into her hair as I lifted her off the ground.
“I’m s-s-sorry, Joey,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry I lost our baby.”
A loud gasp came from somewhere behind me, but I didn’t need to turn. I knew it was my mom. At one time or another, a million different things popped into my head on why BC left me, but none of us expected that.
Forgetting all about her, I nearly tripped over Maddie when she came to check on BC. “Move, girl,” I commanded. She obeyed, but stayed beside me all the way to the couch. I sat, holding BC in my lap. Maddie instantly jumped up next to me, whining. I tried shoving her away, but she wasn’t having it. Instead, she rested her chin on BC’s legs and waited out the emotional storm we all would’ve given anything to stop.
It seemed like hours I sat rocking her, kissing her head, wishing I could take away every ounce of the pain she felt. Mom came walking over with a box of tissues, trying like hell not to cry herself. When BC felt her sit down next to us, she bawled even harder. That was it for my mom. She could no longer contain herself. Jack, his head in his hands, occupied the chair across from us. Dad walked in with glasses of whiskey.
He leaned over, gently moved hair away from her face, and lightly kissed her cheek. “Drink this, Brie. It’ll help.” She didn’t move much when she took the glass, eventually managing a swallow or two. I nodded to my dad, who had trouble responding. Pop never got emotional. Keeping his back to us, he walked to the other side of the room.
Slowly, the tears subsided. Maddie grew impatient, nudging BC. She stuck her hand out and the neglected puppy slobbered it up in no time. Finally, BC lifted her head, taking the tissues Mom held.
“Thank you.” She’d exhausted herself. We saw years of agony displayed on her face as she apologized for her breakdown and disrupting dinner. Mom quickly put a stop to that. BC admitted to it being the first time she had cried about the loss. We all exchanged glances, then I asked for clarification. “I wouldn’t allow it. Other than yesterday, I haven’t ever talked about it.”
“Yesterday?” I questioned.
“I told my mom yesterday.”
“Not even your mom knew this whole time?”
“No one did.”
“Why?” I couldn’t understand.
“I didn’t want this for anyone else.” Tears threatened to fall again.
“B?”
“I didn’t want this for you.” She wiped her face. “It hurts so much, Joey. I’d bury the pain for an eternity to keep you from the torture. I get how someone would think I’m crazy. I could see how they’d think it shouldn’t affect me this way. I may have only known about our angel for a fraction of a second, but it was enough. It was enough to fall in love.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Mom rubbed her arm. “I don’t believe anyone would think that. Not anyone I know.”
“I’m so sorry I let you down,” BC uttered to me.
“What are you talking about? How did you let me down?”
“It was my job to protect our baby and I didn’t do it.”
“You didn’t know, B. This wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s not how I see it.”
I placed her on the cushion beside me, then knelt in front of her, taking both her hands in mine. “You aren’t any more to blame than I am.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she protested.
“I wasn’t there when you needed me the most.” I dropped my head into her lap. “I swear to you, B. Even if it’s the last thing I do on this earth, I’ll make sure you don’t feel that way anymore. Your heart may never be rid of the pain of losing a part of us, and neither will mine. However, it’ll be free of the guilt. I promise.”
Counting raindrops. It may sound like a boring way to pass the time, but it created a diversion from a nightmare with no means of escaping.
“Are you positive there’s no one I can call for you?” the nurse asked. Her name was Celia. She wrote it in black marker across the whiteboard on the wall opposite my bed. I fixated on it while the doctor explained that miscarriages were complicated. While he was sympathetic and caring, listening to him ramble on about how they happened more often than most thought was the last thing I wanted to hear. In not so many words, he tried telling me it wasn’t the end of the world, and occasionally was for the best. My first thought was it may not have been the end of his world, but it certainly felt like the end of mine. And my second was if he couldn’t give a definite answer as to why or how it happened to me, how the hell did he know it was for the best?
“No, thank you.” I preferred Celia. Her demeanor differed from the doctor’s. She had a way of comforting without making me feel like a child. The fact I was younger than most of his patients didn’t lessen the emotional pain. It didn’t make my loss any less significant. He wasn’t the one who had to break the news to Joey.
“Being alone during a difficult time may not be in your best interest.”
Sighing, I rolled my head from one side of the pillow to the other. “I know that may be true for most people, but being alone is exactly what I need right now. Breaking the hearts of my boyfriend and family isn’t my main concern at the moment.”
“I understand, Brielle,” she said. “I have some things to do. I’ll be back as soon as possible. If you need anything, p
ress this button.” She pointed to the device tied on the bedrail. I nodded.
The room felt cold and empty. They had brought me back to the same room I’d been in since leaving the emergency department. It seemed brighter and a whole lot warmer earlier. It was strange how quickly things changed. My phone sat on the table. If I made just one call, the room would be filled with more love and support than any one person would ever need, but I didn’t have it in me to pick it up.
At some point during the night, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. A storm had settled in, apparently planning on sticking around. Somewhere outside the window, water dripped at a steady rate. I could’ve laid there consumed with guilt and heartache, but decided to count the drops instead. The highest number I remembered counting to was three hundred thirteen. Then the medication kicked in.
Late the next morning, I woke up and started over. I dozed off every now and then, but always began again at one.
Joey and Jack insisted I stay the night at their place, neither of them accepting my request to go home. At one point, Joey got up to speak with his dad. When I glanced at the front door, Jack was suddenly beside me.
“Don’t even think about it, Babycakes.”
“He’s angry and hurt. He needs time to process everything. Being with me isn’t going to help.”
“Damn right, he’s angry. So am I!” he snapped, instantly regretting it. Jack shut his eyelids, collected himself, then reopened them. “Look, Brie. Just because we’re mad doesn’t mean we don’t love you. I get why you thought keeping this from him, from all of us, was a good idea, but I don’t agree. You’re our family. We should’ve been there when you needed us. That’s how this shit works.” He put an arm over my shoulders and pulled me to him. “I am so sorry you had to go through that. You didn’t deserve it.”
“Jack,” his mom interrupted. “Please get Maddie from the yard. Joe’s almost ready to leave.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
When he vacated his spot, Donna plopped into it. “You were absolutely right,” she whispered.
“About?”
Subtle Reminders Page 40