“J-just…today, I think.”
“She’s been sick for a few days, but the pain seems to have started this morning. The bleeding just happened,” Mark explained.
“Are you pregnant?” the nurse asked.
“No,” I told her, gritting my teeth and pressing my heels into the bed with another pain. “Oh! Please make it stop.”
“We can get you on some pain medicine, but I’m going to want to do an ultrasound to see what’s going on. Have you been diagnosed with endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome?”
I shook my head.
“What about any history of fibroids?”
“No.”
“Any history of ovarian or uterine cancer in your family?”
Cancer? I gasped. “No!”
“Okay, stay calm,” she said. “Just covering all the bases. Let’s get an ultrasound and see if we can figure out what’s going on.” She pulled a cart from the corner of the room and asked me to lift my shirt. I expected the gel that she squirted on my belly to be cold, but it surprised me by being almost hot.
She lowered my pants just a bit and placed a paper towel around the waistband so the gel wouldn’t transfer onto them. Then, she placed the probe onto my skin and began to press down, her eyes focused on the computer screen that was giving us all a fuzzy view of what was going on inside of me.
I tried to make sense of what I was seeing, but try as I might, I couldn’t make anything out. She moved from one side of my pelvis to the next and then toward the middle. Finally, she stopped.
“What is it?” I asked, my mind still reeling as I tried to recall if anyone I knew had been diagnosed with cancer.
“Excuse me for just a moment,” she said, turning the screen off and walking from the room.
Left alone to assume the worst, Mark and I met each other’s eyes. “What’s going on?” I asked him.
He swallowed, his face pale. He moved toward my bedside, wiping the cool sweat from my brow. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I’m so sorry I didn’t bring you sooner.”
“I wasn’t in any pain sooner,” I told him. “We thought it was just a bug. If it’s…if it’s something serious, you have to call my mom, okay? I can’t call her. We’d end up sobbing on the phone,” my voice broke at the thought, “and I wouldn’t be able to tell her everything I needed to.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said. “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”
I wanted so badly to believe him, though judging by the look on his face, I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t. Several agonizing minutes later, the nurse returned with a doctor just behind her. “Hello, Hannah, I’m Doctor Fielding.” He was a tall, balding man with a thick mustache. His smile was warm, though his eyes told me all I needed to know. I’d been right all along. There was definitely something wrong.
He washed his hands in the sink on the far side of the room before walking toward my bedside. Another cramp hit me, though less intense than before, and he grimaced, waiting for it to subside before lifting the ultrasound probe to my stomach.
He was silent as he stared at the screen, moving the probe over my skin, pressing down here and there and adjusting the settings on the screen. Finally, he set the probe down and turned the machine off. He clasped his hands in front of him and sighed. “When was your last menstrual period?”
“I, um, well, I had one last month. I have the exact dates on an app on my phone. Why?” I tried to think. My next one wasn’t due yet.
“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. Oliver.” No longer was I Hannah, the fun patient, but I’d become Mrs. Oliver, the patient he’d be delivering bad news to. I had cancer. I knew it the second she’d asked. I was dying. Six months to live at most. “It looks like you were about nine weeks pregnant when your body began to miscarry,” he said, his words catching me by complete surprise. “It’s very common not to know this early, but I know that doesn’t make the loss any less painful.”
“P-pregnant? I was pregnant?” I asked, looking to Mark in shock. His jaw hung open as he stared at the doctor. “But I had my period.”
“You were. I’m so sorry. It looks like the pregnancy was lost, which has caused your cramping and bleeding. Bleeding in early pregnancy can sometimes be mistaken for a period.” He paused, waiting for me to react, but I felt frozen in place. “You were early enough along that this likely won’t require any intervention from us. You’re in the beginning stages of passing the tissue. I’m going to do a quick exam to make sure your cervix is dilating on its own, but I’d say that it is with the pain that you’re experiencing. We can give you some medicine to help with that pain, but other than that, we just have to let nature run its course. Who is your gynecologist?”
“Dr. Absher…” I said, not entirely listening to him as he drolled on. What mattered most was that I was pregnant. Was being the operative word. No longer. For weeks, I’d been carrying a child that I had no idea about. A child I’d wanted so badly it hurt.
“I’ll have Amanda draw some blood from you today, and then we’ll need to get you in to see Dr. Absher for some additional blood testing in a few days to make sure your levels are dropping like they should.” He looked to Mark, who I guessed must look as shocked as I felt. “I know this must come as quite a surprise. We’ll give you two a few minutes while I have Amanda go get some medicine and prepare for your exam. Are there any questions I can answer before I go?”
I shook my head, though I could make no words form. “No,” Mark finally answered for us both. Without another word, the doctor backed out of the room, followed quickly by the nurse. When we were alone, the tears I’d been holding back finally escaped.
How could I have not known? What if I’d come to the doctor sooner? Would that have mattered? Could I have saved my child? Mark moved toward me, and though every part of me didn’t want to let him see me fall apart, I couldn’t hold it in. I fell into his arms, feeling his strong chin resting on my head. He rubbed my hair, both of us clinging to each other like we were the only things keeping each other alive. My tears soaked his shirt, and I heard his soothing whisper in my ears. He didn’t try to tell me it was going to be okay; somehow I think we both knew it wasn’t. Instead, he just held me and allowed me to fall apart in his arms, my chest screaming for relief from the tears that wouldn’t stop coming. It seemed like the room was spinning, like I couldn’t capture enough oxygen to sustain me any longer. How could I be grieving over the loss of someone I hadn’t even known existed? How could one person hold so much grief? I was sure I was going to combust at any moment, tiny shreds of who I used to be falling to the floor.
The woman I once was, the woman Mark loved, died that day alongside my child. Thinking back, she seems like a stranger. Then again, I’m not entirely sure I’ve met the woman I’ve become either.
Chapter Twenty-One
Her
Mark took me home with the doctor’s okay. There was nothing to do at that point but wait for our child to pass. I say our child, which I realize is presumptuous. Luis and I began our affair almost twelve weeks to the day that I miscarried. The baby could’ve been his, but saying so at that point would’ve done nothing but cause us all unnecessary pain.
They gave me pain medicine to numb the physical torture that I was in, but that did nothing for the emotional pain, which was a fair bit worse. I laid in bed the rest of the day, unable to eat or drink. Mark stayed home, checking in on me every few minutes.
I heard him downstairs on the phone, and I knew he’d have to tell his bosses what had happened. Somehow, that embarrassed me even more. I didn’t want anyone to know how I had failed at the very first step of motherhood. That my body had betrayed my deepest desire.
Did I blame Mark? Not at first, maybe. But the longer I laid in that bed, with nothing to do but think and scroll through my phone researching causes of miscarriage, the anger began to set in. With how much stress I’d been in, how could I be expected to sustain a pregnancy? And the stress was
all because of him. I could see that now.
When Mark came to check on me the last time, it was dark outside. He sank down on the bed behind my back, wrapping one arm around my waist. “Can I get you anything?”
“A divorce,” I spat. I’d been rehearsing how I’d tell him, but when it escaped my throat, rather than relief, I felt only fear. What if he agreed?
My husband sucked in a breath, not moving his hand from my waist. “You don’t mean that.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks, staring blankly at the wall. “Why aren’t you more sad, Mark? Don’t you care that your child died today?”
“I care, Han. Of course I do. But…I mean, we didn’t know about it. It wasn’t really like losing a child. I mean…you know what I mean.”
“It could’ve been a child, though. Our child. We could be hearing its heartbeat today instead of preparing to flush it down the toilet if you’d—” I stopped, hiccupping through another sob.
“If I’d what?” he asked, his body tensing against mine.
I remained silent. I wanted to tell him all that was on my mind, how I blamed him for so much, but I couldn’t do it. “Just forget it.”
“No, just say it, Hannah.” He pulled his hand from my waist but didn’t leave the bed. I wanted to fight. I realized that as I laid there. I needed to fight with him. I needed to scream and yell and put the blame on anyone but myself. I needed to feel something besides the overwhelming grief I couldn’t get past.
“This was your fault,” I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper.
“My fault?” he demanded. “My fault? How the hell is any of this my fault?”
“If I hadn’t been so stressed, we may not have lost the baby,” I told him, rolling over and wiping my eyes. “But I had to deal with the wreck and all of your issues. Of course I lost it. How could I not?”
To my surprise, he didn’t lose his temper like I’d expected him to. Instead, he stood from the bed. “Well, I’m so sorry if my problems affected you in any way.”
“Well, they did.” Why wasn’t he fighting back? I needed one of our classic fights like I needed oxygen in that moment.
“Well, you know what, Hannah? If you want a divorce so badly, why don’t you just go out and file for one? If I’m such a horrible husband.” He took a step back. This wasn’t the reaction I’d expected from him. Rather than feeling better from the release of anger, his reaction was only making me feel worse.
“Just go away,” I said finally, rolling over away from him. I expected him to argue, but he didn’t. He stayed still for a moment, and I listened to his steady breathing in the dark room. Then, a few minutes later, I heard the door swish against the carpet and his footsteps departing in retreat.
I closed my eyes, begging for sleep. Nothing mattered anymore. Not me. Not Mark. Not our marriage. Not our future. All I could see was darkness. Emptiness. I wanted to get away from him and myself, and never see either of us again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Her
The next day, I passed the bloody mass that the doctors said would’ve been a baby if given seven more months. With its passing, the physical pain subsided. I took a shower, washing the sticky blood from my legs. I was numb to everything. I know it sounds crazy, but if you haven’t experienced it, you can’t judge. To me, that clot was my child, and my loss was every bit as real as a mother burying her five-year-old.
When I went downstairs, Mark was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t come to bed that night, not that I blamed him. I suspected he’d gone to work, and a very small part of me was furious that he could just carry on as if nothing had happened. Then again, as far as he was concerned, nothing had happened. He’d gotten what he wanted. In fact, I guessed he’d be more upset if I’d told him we were expecting a child than at the news that we’d lost one.
I couldn’t bring myself to feel much more than a twinge of anger at him, though. Most of my feelings were dulled by the incredible numbness I felt. The anger I felt most prominently was at myself. Had my sins caused this? Was I paying a penance for all that I’d done wrong? It felt like it. If I’d never been with Luis, if I’d never lied to Mark, maybe…
I stopped the thought before it could completely form, though I knew where it was going. I walked into the kitchen, looking around. He hadn’t even bothered to do the dishes for me. In fact, it looked like he’d only added to the pile. I considered doing them. The doctors had said getting back to normal was the best way to begin moving on, but I didn’t want to.
I didn’t want to get back to this supposed normal. Our normal wasn’t good, and hadn’t been for months. Instead, I walked to the cabinet that I never opened. The cabinet I’d ignored for years in support of my husband’s sobriety while he continued to stock it. I pulled down the first bottle, a half-empty bottle of whiskey, and grabbed a mug from the cabinet next to it.
I poured enough to be considered a shot at first, welcoming the once-familiar burn as it filled my throat before settling into my stomach. I continued like that, shot after blissful shot, until all pain—emotional and physical—had disappeared.
My head was resting on the table, and I had no idea if I’d fallen asleep or just zoned out, when a sharp knocking sounded at my front door. I jumped up, the buzz of alcohol causing the room to move in slow motion as I made my way toward the sound. I opened the door cautiously, closing one eye as the sun blinded me. When I saw who was waiting for me, I gasped.
“Luis?”
“Hannah, oh thank God. I was so worried.” He clutched one hand to his chiseled chest in pure concern.
“What are you doing here?” I was trying hard to make my eyes focus on his face, though the alcohol was protesting every step of the way.
“I know I shouldn’t be, but I was worried about you. I’ve seen you every weekday for two months, and now you’ve missed nearly a whole month of classes. I hope I’m not overstepping, but I thought we left things in a good place. If this was your way of dumping me, let me know and I’ll leave, but I was worried about you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I shook my head, trying to clear my fuzzy vision. “I’m sorry. I, um, how did you say you—how did you find me? Find where I live?”
His beautiful cheeks flushed red, and he looked down, tucking a stray piece of hair behind his ear. “You never gave me your phone number, or even your last name, so I had no way to contact you at first. But then I was so worried. We do keep records at the studio in case of an emergency. I tried calling you, but I got no answer.”
Truth be told, I had no idea where my phone was. I hadn’t thought about it since I was in bed yesterday and using it for research. “I’m sorry. I’ve just…I’ve been going through some things.”
“I understand,” he said, his eyes warming as he cocked his head to the side and waited for me to let him in. “Anything I can help with?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, though my voice cracked as I answered.
“Oh, mi tesoro,” he said, leaning forward as I began to stifle sobs. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I—” I clutched my stomach, unable to bring myself to say the words. Where would I even begin? There was so much I needed to tell him, but instead, I let my cries be my voice. He held me, there in my doorway, as my sobs brought us both to our knees. He whispered to me in a language I didn’t understand, yet somehow it soothed me. His kisses were loving, not passionate, as he placed them in my hair, clinging to me for dear life as I cried over a loss he didn’t understand.
We sat there for what felt like hours, me shaking in his arms while he rocked me and whispered comforting words in my ear.
“Give me your pain, mi tesoro,” he whispered, the first phrase I understood. “Give it all to me.”
When I’d calmed slightly, he scooped me up in the threshold. “May I come in?” he whispered before stepping foot into the home he thought belonged only to me.
I nodded, unable to prepare him for the pain I would have to inflict when he real
ized the truth about the woman he thought he knew. He carried me into the entryway and then through to the living room. He sat down in the recliner Mark loved so much and continued to rock me. He didn’t ask for any explanation, and yet, I felt like I owed him one. The tears fell as quickly as I wiped them. What would he say when I told him the reason for the tears?
“I’m sorry about this,” I said finally, sitting up away from his chest.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I wish I had been here sooner to hold you. No one should have to cry alone.”
“Luis, I—I,” I sucked in a deep breath. “I’m so sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for, mi tesoro?” His eyes filled with worry and then understanding. “Ah, I see.” The smile on his face was sad. “You were trying to let me down easy by not coming back to class.”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, it’s not that.”
“Then what is it, Hannah?” When he said my name, there was no anger, just confusion. I was so unused to anyone regarding me in such a kind manner that the truth spilled out of me before I’d meant for it to.
“I…I had a miscarriage.”
To my surprise, his eyes began to glisten at my words, and he pulled me into him as he let out a haggard breath of his own. “Oh. Oh, mi tesoro, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He kissed my head and wiped his eyes quickly. “When? When did you…”
“I found out yesterday.”
He placed a hand on my stomach, whispering again in Spanish, “Descansa en paz, hija mía.”
“What does that mean?” I asked him, when the words stopped coming.
“It means, ‘rest in peace, my child.’ Fear not, my love, we will see our baby again.” He smiled, and his comfort and hope broke my heart. I should’ve told him the truth, I should’ve been honest about my infidelity, but he was the first person to show me true kindness about my loss. The first person to act like my child was more than a mass of tissue. So, instead of doing the right thing, I nodded.
I Said Yes Page 9