by Melissa Hill
Trish looked shell-shocked. ‘I’m so sorry …I just didn’t think … I really thought you would be happy,’ she whispered.
‘No, I’m not happy. I’m miserable. My life is ruined and I want to go back to Los Angeles. I want to forget everything about this stupid place.’
Nina put a comforting hand on her arm. ‘Ruth, it will be OK. Things will work out, with Charlie, I know they will – and with the baby and all.’
‘No they won’t. He doesn’t want me or the baby. He made that perfectly clear.’
Trish sighed heavily. ‘Ruth, I’m truly sorry, I really am.’
Ruth turned her face away, it was clear she wasn’t finding any of it easy.
‘Tell you what,’ Nina said, hoping to make peace, ‘why don’t we pop down to Ella’s and get a coffee? It’s been a rough day already, and I’m not sure I can take much more of all this.’ She indicated the surrounding papers and boxes.
‘You guys go ahead,’ Trish said in an absent tone. ‘I’ve got a bit more to do here.’
‘Oh you can come if you like,’ Ruth muttered, realising it was up to her to break bread.
‘No seriously,’ Trish continued frowning, looking with interest at a newspaper clipping she held in her hand. She turned to Nina. ‘Remember I said that nothing interesting ever happens in this town?’ She held up the paper and pointed to the headline. ‘Well take a look at this…’
Chapter 34
Jess felt lost as she looked at Brian’s side of the wardrobe. Since his decision to leave, most of his clothes had in the meantime been transferred to a nearby hotel where he was currently staying.
Staring at the empty rails, Jess still couldn’t quite believe that this was happening. Her husband, her soul mate and best friend was leaving her. This was not supposed to be happening; and not what she’d pictured when it came to their future.
All that had happened over the last few months had shattered their lovely life, and now she had no idea how to start picking up the pieces. Even worse, it was all her own doing.
In truth Brian had every right to feel betrayed and hurt by her actions. What had she been thinking giving up the pill without telling him? Or informing all their friends that they were trying for a baby? What on earth had possessed her? Had she really been that desperate to hold onto her friends that she was prepared to risk losing her husband in the process?
She’d tried in the meantime to talk to him about it, to try and explain the reasons behind her behaviour but he wouldn’t listen. It seemed that this time, she’d pushed him too far.
And the worst part of it all was that she didn’t really have anyone to talk to about it. She couldn’t realistically call up Deirdre or Emer to discuss it; notwithstanding that Emer had her own problems, it would mean coming clean about how Brian had all along been clueless about their so-called decision, which would only lead to more egg on Jess’s face.
It was such a difficult situation to explain, and she was sure most people would think she was barmy. As it was, she couldn’t quite explain her behaviour to herself. The other day she’d been sorely tempted to talk to Nina about it …
Nina, Jess thought, perking up …she could confide in her about this, couldn’t she? After all, she’d already revealed so much to her, especially after their chat the other day.
She picked up the phone and scrolled through it, trying to find the number.
‘Jess, hi,’ Nina said answering the phone, but Jess could immediately tell that she was distracted.
‘Hi – is this a bad time?’
‘No no, it’s fine. I’m just at the library with Trish and Ruth. I’ve been meaning to call you actually to say thanks for the other day. You know – for the lift and the advice and everything.’
‘Actually, speaking of advice …’ Despite, herself Jess felt her voice waver.
‘Are you OK?’ Nina asked. ‘You sound a bit …sad.’
The kindness in her voice was enough to set Jess off, and before she knew it she was in floods of tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed, giving Nina the short version of what had happened. ‘I shouldn’t be boring you with all this but I really have nobody else to talk to –’
‘Oh you poor thing – don’t be silly. Of course you need to talk to someone.’ Her voice lowered. ‘Hold on a second, and I’ll just go into the other room.’ After a brief wait – one that Jess used to try and calm herself, Nina came back on the line. ‘Look are you sure it’s not just an argument?’ she asked gently. ‘Maybe it’ll blow over and you and Brian will be back on track before you know it.’
‘I don’t think so Nina. This time, I really think I blew it. He kept going on about how deceitful I was and how I was deluding myself … you should have seen the look in his eyes.’ The pain of the memory was almost too much to bear; and strangely Jess realised, it really did feel like physical pain – a sharp, acute dart in her abdomen. Overcome, she sat down on the bed, just as another sudden pain shot through her and she doubled over. ‘Ow.’
‘Jess?’ Nina’s concern was audible. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘I’m OK,’ she replied breathlessly, although she really wasn’t. And when another cramp assaulted her she realised that this wasn’t some physical manifestation of her sadness, it was real, actual pain. ‘Oh hell,’ she uttered, gritting her teeth.
‘Jess …you’re scaring me now. What’s happening?’ Nina enquired, urgency in her voice.
‘I’m not sure. I’ve just started having really bad stomach pains…’ she managed, her breath short.
‘What … just now? Keep on eye on it. After all something like that when you’re pregnant is not good.’
‘OK.’ Jess felt panicked all over again. This was turning into the worst week of her life. ‘Oh…!’ she squealed, as another painful wave rushed through her and she dropped the phone on the floor.
‘Jess? Jess!’ she heard Nina call out but she had no choice but to wait for the pain to subside before she could reach down and retrieve it.
‘I’m here,’ she said, trying to stand up. She leaned against the dressing table, realising then she’d broken out in a cold sweat. ‘I’m OK.’
‘That didn’t sound OK to me.’
She shook her head, ready to insist to Nina that everything really was fine when she turned back to the bed she had been sitting on. ‘Oh my goodness …’ she said softly, her heart racing.
‘Tell me what’s happening.’
‘I’m bleeding,’ she told Nina breathlessly, before stumbling into the ensuite bathroom. She checked her trousers and found them coated in blood. ‘Nina, I’m bleeding a lot. What do I do? What do I do?’
‘Oh no … look, OK, try and stay calm.’
Trying to control her panic, Jess doubled over yet again as a fresh cramp seized her abdomen and this time she physically felt something moist rush through her.
‘Jess try and stay calm, OK? What you need to do now is call the hospital and get them to send out an ambulance. But before you do that, can you give me Brian’s number?’
‘No – I don’t want to involve Brian. He doesn’t want to be involved and – ’
‘Jess, he’s your husband and you need help. Unfortunately at the moment I’m too far away to help you. Now give me the number,’ she asked, her calm controlled voice convincing Jess that there really was no other option. She rattled off Brian’s mobile number, all the while afraid to stir, fearful that the tiniest movement would make it worse.
‘Right, now hang up and call the hospital. And Jess, again, try to stay calm. It could be nothing sweetheart, but it needs to be checked out, OK?’
‘OK,’ Jess nodded, grimacing afresh as she hung up on Nina and called the hospital, all the while trying to fight her mounting terror.
It seemed like it was taking the ambulance forever to get there and Jess was growing more nervous and exhausted by the minute. On the advice of the hospital, she’d spent the last fifteen minutes on the downstairs bathroom floor with her feet elevated, and h
ad left the front door on the latch for the paramedics. By now she was breathless and damp with sweat, her fair hair plastered to her face, as each new cramp felt like it was tearing her body in two. Finally, she heard movement at the front door. Thank heavens, thank heavens …
‘In here!’ she called out, hearing frantic footsteps from down the hallway. However, it wasn’t the paramedics, but Brian, who looked just as terrified as she felt.
‘Oh Jess, honey, what’s happened?’ He flung off his coat, casting it to the floor and got on his knees next to where she lay.
She burst into tears, partly out of relief of not being alone any longer but mostly because it was Brian who’d come to her rescue. ‘I’m not … I’m not sure, I’ve been having cramps and then I started bleeding and well, all this blood…’
‘Ssh, ssh, let’s get you to the hospital.’ His hands were shaking as he grabbed a towel and soaked it in water, before gently cleaning up some of the blood on her legs. ‘But what’s going on … I mean… are you hurting?’
Jess wasn’t concentrating on the pain any longer; she was much more focused on his presence. ‘Nina called you?’
‘Yes, love she did.’
‘And you came,’ she said tearfully.
‘Of course I came, of course I did.’
‘But after everything …’ It would be too much to bear if he was just here out of duty, and then took off again after all of this was over. Way too much.
‘Let’s not talk about that just now OK?’ he said, his voice catching, and Jess noticed that he too had tears in his eyes. Then, they both heard some commotion outside followed by a knock on the door, and Brian quickly got to his feet. ‘That’ll be the ambulance.’
She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him cry – if ever – and it made her worry all over again. ‘Brian this is all my fault. I should never have –’
‘Oh honey, it will be fine, we are going to get you to the hospital and everything will be fine. We’ll be fine … the baby will be fine.’
‘But you don’t even want …’
‘Of course I do. I promise I do,’ he mumbled, his voice choking. ‘Everything will be fine.’
An hour later, the doctor left Jess’s hospital room and she sobbed into a pillow. Brian was half-sitting on the bed next to her, trying awkwardly to hold her while also avoiding the surrounding tubes and IV.
She had lost a lot of blood.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she cried, turning to look at her husband, relief flooding through her. ‘I can’t believe everything’s OK.’
‘Told you it would be,’ he replied with a lopsided grin, but still his face was pale and there was something in his expression that Jess couldn’t quite read.
Well maybe he might be having mixed feelings about it all, but the one thing that had come out of this momentous scare was that she now knew for sure that she wanted this baby, wanted it with all her heart.
And if it meant that as a result she couldn’t have Brian, well she would just have to live with that.
‘You don’t have to stay, you know,’ she said tentatively. ‘You heard the doctor; I can go home. I’ll be right as rain.’
‘Of course I’m going to stay. Where else would I be?’
‘Well, where you’ve been for the last few days I suppose.’
‘Jess I …’ he ran a hand through his hair and she waited for him to tell her that he couldn’t deal with being a father, didn’t plan for this, all the words she knew he wanted to say.
‘It’s OK, honestly. I understand. You never wanted this. It was all my doing, and you were right to be angry.’
‘It’s not that…yes, of course I was upset that you didn’t include me in all of this but …’
‘But what?’
‘Jess, I have to tell you. Until today, I was convinced that you were … well that day at the party … I’ll be honest, I truly thought you were making it up.’
‘Making what up?’ she asked, frowning.
He looked at her stomach. ‘Well … the baby … the whole pregnancy thing.’
She stared at him, flabbergasted. ‘You thought I was pretending to be pregnant?’
He nodded.
‘Oh my goodness Brian, what kind of psycho would do something like … I just can’t believe that you would –’
‘Calm down …I know - I know it was stupid, but I figured you got carried away and then didn’t know how to fix it.’ Brian now looked like he was sorry he’d said anything but Jess was dumbfounded. All this time he’d been thinking she was making it up? So that was why he’d been going on about her ‘coming clean’ and ‘telling the truth’.
‘But why would you think I would ever do something so …?’ She shook her head. ‘OK, so I know I have an active imagination but … I just can’t believe you would think such a thing.’
‘I don’t know I’m sorry… it was a combination of things. I’ll be honest, I was mad. I was mad about how stubborn you were, how you seemed to have a one-track mind. I was mad how you announced you were pregnant. I mean, Jess, I didn’t even know. There was nothing private, nothing special about that moment. That should have been something you and I learned about together.’
She nodded, once again ashamed of that.
‘So you have to understand that I was hurt, and yet you were more worried about your friends, about what they thought of you rather than our life together.’
Jess couldn’t believe it. No wonder he hadn’t engaged with her throughout it all and no wonder he’d been so distant and weird about everything. And although she couldn’t immediately forgive him for thinking so badly of her, in a way Jess was glad there was some kind of explanation. ‘But what did you think I’d do when the baby was supposed to be born – steal one or something?’
He shrugged. ‘Honestly, I wasn’t sure. But then for a while there you were talking a lot about Nina and how she might not be able to cope when her baby was born and I wondered if …’
Jess’s mouth dropped open as she tried to follow his line of thinking. ‘You seriously thought I was considering taking in Nina’s baby? And you say I have a vivid imagination?’
Now Brian looked shamefaced. ‘I know, it was stupid and then when I found you earlier in the middle of all that blood, I felt so guilty,’ he added, shaking his head. Then he took a deep breath and reached for her hand. ‘But now that I know you weren’t making it up, and that everything is …OK, I suppose now I’m trying to get my head around the idea that we’re going to be parents.’ He smiled. ‘Can you imagine me – a dad?’
Jess’s heart flooded with relief. ‘You’ll be an amazing dad,’ she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. ‘That is, if you still want to be.’
‘Of course I do, and I promise you that I will never walk out that door again – never let another misunderstanding come between us. I just need you to promise me that whatever happens, you’ll talk to me about it – the way you used to.’
‘I promise.’ He reached across to kiss her and Jess realised she had been hungering for him, needing him and his support. She ran her fingers along his face.
They sat together in silence for a moment until the peace was broken by the sound of Brian’s mobile. He looked at the display. ‘Oh no, it’s Nina. I promised I’d let her know how you were and I forgot.’
‘The poor thing, she must have been frantic. She was very good with me when it was all happening – despite you thinking we were in some form of cahoots together,’ she added wryly. ‘I really don’t know what I would have done without her.’
She took the phone from Brian and explained to a relieved and delighted Nina that everything was fine. ‘Thankfully it was just a scare and I’m going home this evening.’
When they’d finished talking Brian smiled.
‘I thought from the start that she was a good person, a good friend,’ he said. ‘She’s been there for you more in the short time you’ve known her than people like Emer and Deirdre, I hope you know that.’
Jess nodded sadly. She wasn’t sure what the future held for her friendship with the girls, but whatever happened she was going to be there for Emer, the same way she always had. That was what real friendship was about, being there when people needed you, not about making them feel left out and vulnerable. But, Jess thought, perhaps in that regard, she herself had been her own worst enemy?
‘It’ll be nice though, our baby growing up at the same time as Nina’s, won’t it?’ Brian said smiling.
But Jess didn’t reply. Because from the recent conversations she’d had with Nina, she knew that such a thing still wasn’t guaranteed.
Chapter 35
‘She’s going to be fine.’ Nina declared, hanging up the phone to Jess.
She, Ruth and Trish were in the cafe pondering over the newspaper article they’d found that morning.
‘Oh, that’s good news,’ Ruth said, her hand moving to her stomach in a subconsciously protective gesture. ‘The poor thing; she must have been terrified.’
‘Yes, all’s well that ends well,’ Trish said impatiently. She eyed Ella who was serving a table nearby. ‘So. Which one of us is going to ask her?’
Ruth sat back in her chair. ‘Well it’s your project, so I guess you should.’
Their conversation was cut short when at that moment Ella came over to greet them.
‘Hello girls, how are you all today?’
Ruth smiled. ‘We’re good Ella, how are you?’
‘Oh busy busy as always,’ she trilled. ‘Nina pet, don’t think twice about throwing on an apron, sure you won’t?’
Nina laughed. ‘Actually,’ she glanced at Trish, who nodded. ‘We were just helping Trish with the material for the charity book and well … we found something we wanted to ask you about.’
‘Well of course I’ll help if I can,’ Ella replied easily. ‘Heaven knows I’ve been around this town forever. So what can I get you girls? Coffee and pastries maybe? Or I’ve just taken a fresh batch of muffins out of the oven …’