by Lisa N. Paul
His name being called grabbed his attention; the woman attached to the voice captured his rage. Heat flashed through Danny’s body as his hands clenched into fists. While he still saw Sheila as a woman—and therefore, he would never lay so much as a finger on her—his pain felt like a grenade and the pin had been pulled. “What in the motherfuck happened to her?”
Had Danny not been so lost in his own grief, he would have seen that Sheila was drowning in her own.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“That’s not good enough!” he screamed. “She paged me right before midnight. She fucking paged me. She was goddamn fine then. So how’s it possible that now, not two hours later, my daughter’s dead?” Sheila gasped, but Danny continued to rant. “They’re in there trying to stop my wife from bleeding to death. How, Sheila? Tell me how the fuck that happened?” His throat tightened when the last word passed his lips. The tears that he had held back since receiving Sheila’s call finally fell. Their daughter was gone. His Julie was bleeding…“I…I can’t…I can’t lose her.” His voice broke as the sadness left his throat and emptied his soul.
“Please, come sit down with me.” Sheila gestured toward the privacy room, but Danny refused, explaining that he wanted to be in the main waiting room in case anyone needed him.
Once he’d checked in with the admissions desk, giving them Julie’s insurance information and medical background, he shuffled to the waiting room, claimed a chair, and let his mind wander.
“What happened?” he asked calmly when Sheila handed him a cup of vending machine coffee and sat next to him.
The woman looked lost. “I’ve been trying to piece it together since we found her—”
“We?” Danny interrupted.
“Yeah. The place was slammed tonight. I can’t remember it being like that on a Wednesday night, ever,” she explained. “We both worked our asses off, and before you freak out on me, Danny, I know. I know she shouldn’t have been working so hard, okay? But have you ever tried to tell Julie not to do something she wanted to do?”
Danny glared at his wife’s boss and friend before admitting, “Okay, I get it. So she fell at work?”
“Not that I know of,” Sheila claimed. “She said she was going to page you, then head home. That was the last I saw of her until one of my regulars came in from the parking lot, freaking out because Julie was laying, unresponsive, on the ground.”
The coffee cup in Danny’s grip crumpled, sending hot liquid over his fist and onto the floor. “She was outside alone, unconscious, on the wet ground like fucking road kill?” Rage boiled in his guts and he grinded his teeth. The deep affection Sheila felt for Julie was the only thing keeping his raw fury at bay.
“Danny, trust me—”
Nope, wrong thing to say. Boom.
“Trust you! You? Oh, that’s rich. You run a bar, Sheila—a fucking bar filled with drunk assholes—and you let your female staff walk out to their cars at night alone?”
“Dan—”
“No,” Danny snapped, “I’ve heard it all before. Julie’s told me time and again. Your parking lot is well-lit, you have people buddy up when they can… how’d that buddy system work out for my wife tonight? How ‘bout my daughter?”
Sheila sat speechless, her mouth agape.
“Know you love, Julie, and that makes us friends, but I swear on my life, if something happens to that woman, I’m coming after you, your family, your bar, and everything you hold dear. That is not a threat, friend. It’s a promise.”
He stood and stalked to the large window. Hands splayed on the cool glass, Danny leaned forward to stare into the dark sky. Movement in the reflection caught his eye, and his gaze traveled to the image of Sheila, her shoulders trembling as quiet sobs racked her body. Still rain-soaked and most likely freezing, she wrapped her arms around herself and rocked in the chair. Shit, Julie would kill me if she knew how I treated her friend. Thinking about Julie in the operating room hurt, but knowing he was letting her down in the waiting room felt even worse. He couldn’t help her in there… he left the window and went back to the admissions window.
“Here” He placed a warm blanket around Sheila’s shoulders. The surprise in her eyes made him feel worse than the gratitude from her smile. “I’m scared, Sheel. Scared to fucking death. But I know my Julie. She’s stubborn as the day is long. She wanted to work, she would have. She wanted to walk to her car, she would have.”
Sheila pulled the blanket tighter and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Not gonna apologize for acting like a dick, but what happened…Christ, there are no words. But I’m sorry for taking it out on you, Sheel. You’ve been nothing but kind to her, to us. I’m…sorry.”
Chapter Thirteen
I’m Not Done Yet
“DR. BURKE?” DANNY left the vending machine, his coffee cup still under the drip, and hurried to the obstetrician’s side. After nearly three hours of waiting, Danny’s nerves were shot and his patience was worn thin. “How is she? When can I see her?”
The doctor slowly pulled the cap off her head. The eyes that had been filled with compassion hours before shone with a spark of satisfaction. “You’ve got yourself a fighter, Danny. It took nearly every trick in our box to get her bleeding under control. When everything else failed, we had to embolize, or in other words, block, the blood vessels that feed her uterus.”
The doctor may as well have been speaking a different language.
“What are you saying? Is she okay or not?” It wasn’t that Danny didn’t want the details; he just needed the bottom line first.
Sheila, who hadn’t left Danny’s side, walked over from the vending machine and asked the question Danny was too scared to even think. “Has she regained consciousness?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, to both of your questions. Julie regained consciousness just before the anesthesiologist put her back under for the procedure, and now that the bleeding is under control, her stats are improving.”
“Thank God,” Danny sighed, his knees threatening to give out. “When can I see her?”
“Give us another half hour to get her situated, and I’ll have someone come and get you.”
The doctor turned to leave when panic struck Danny. “Doctor Burke…does she know?”
The doctor lifted a brow as if waiting for Danny to elaborate.
“She know about the baby?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t something we wanted to tell her while she was unstable.” Compassion was back in the woman’s brown eyes. “But trust me, she knows. She may not admit it, not even to herself, but she knows.”
Danny swallowed hard and nodded, unsure of how to respond. But he didn’t need to, because the doctor’s next words hit home.
“What you guys experienced tonight was tragic, heartbreaking…but you still have each other. Don’t lose sight of that.”
He barely registered the doctor leaving, hardly noticed Sheila’s staring, because all he focused on was that he would never, could never, lose sight of Julie.
***
IT WAS COLD, unseasonably cold for mid-October. Julie could tell because people outside were bundled in coats with the collars pulled up around their ears. She watched them through the passenger window of Danny’s Ranger. She, however, felt nothing. Not the goose bumps that pebbled her skin, not the fact that her usually cool fingertips were freezing, not even the way her teeth chattered as her body shook. Nothing. She was numb, empty.
“Honey?” Danny’s voice held the careful tone it had had since the moment she woke up four days earlier. “How ‘bout I stop at a drive-through and get you some coffee? It’ll warm you up.” He looked at her quickly before he cranked up the heat and focused on the road.
“I’m not cold,” she whispered, her eyes glued to the window but her focus no longer on the present.
Memories of the look on her husband’s face when she opened her eyes after surgery swirled in her mind. Joy, gratitude, and love—raw and rea
l—came with his tear-filled eyes and shallow breaths.
“Welcome back,” he’d said with an emotion-thickened voice. “Can’t tell you how happy I am to see your eyes, honey.”
She’d felt the same, relished the gentle kiss he’d placed on her mouth, but when she went to place her hand on his cheek, a plaster cast caught her attention. Flashes hit her all at once: the bar, the broom closet door, the rain…
“The baby?” she’d whimpered, inching her lips away from Danny’s. Deep in her heart, she had known before opening her eyes. She remembered the sounds of doctors’ voices, beeping machines, and instructions, but seeing the pain on her husband’s face, the tears filling his hazel orbs, was confirmation she didn’t want. “No…not our baby. Not our little girl.” Wails clawed from her lungs as Danny’s arms pulled her tight to his chest.
Julie fell apart that first day and had yet to locate even the first piece with which to put herself back together.
“Okay, baby, no coffee,” he relented.
Other than when she disclosed the events that had occurred at O’Brian’s the night of her accident—which sent Danny on a rampage of epic proportions, one so bad that he stopped screaming mid-rant and stormed from Julie’s room, Danny had been soft-spoken and reluctant to upset Julie in anyway.
As their house came into view, waves of nausea hit, accompanied by the hollowness Julie had felt since she woke up in the hospital. Their baby’s room…a labor of love she and Danny had worked on since the day they learned she was pregnant. A space they’d painted pink eight weeks before.
“Come on, honey, let me help you out. I’m sure your stomach is killing you.”
Danny’s arm threaded under her armpits as he gently assisted her down from the Ranger. Was her stomach hurting? They had performed abdominal surgery, yet she had no baby. Then again, she had no pain, just numbness.
Once she was on solid ground, Danny grabbed her bag from the back along with the assortment of get-well gifts and cards that had been sent to the hospital, while she gingerly walked to the front door. Dread crept up her spine as she entered their home and white-knuckled the banister. Pure adrenaline assisted her climb up the stairs.
She passed the first door on the left as if it were invisible, the first on the right… the same, but when she came to the second door on the left, she paused. The door was closed, but the room called to her.
“Julie…don’t,” Danny pled. His voice was barely a whisper from less than an inch behind her.
Her eyes rested on the door, a barrier between her and what once could have been. Her lids closed as fear wrestled with bravery. Each time Danny had left the hospital, Julie wanted to beg. Every time he returned, she wanted to ask. She did neither; now it was time to find out.
“Jules, please, honey, let’s not do this today,” his voice wobbled.
She inhaled and opened the door. “Danny…” In an instant, her legs no longer held her weight, and she was sobbing in her husband’s arms.
In the middle of the pale pink room was a bright, white wooden rocking chair with the word Princess painted across the headrest. They had ordered it on Labor Day weekend. It was supposed to come with the rest of the furniture. Obviously it was too early…or too late.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Danny murmured as he lowered them both to the carpet, she on his lap. “It came the day after your accident. It was raining, so I brought it in, closed the door, and haven’t come back in since.”
Guilt, more guilt, huge vats of guilt piled on Julie’s shoulders as she held her empty tummy and cried. “I’m a horrible person, Danny. A terrible wife…”
“Jul, stop. None of this is your fault, I—”
“No, you don’t understand. I’ve been so worried. I think…I think I was even a little upset with you.”
“With me?” He titled his head. “Why? ‘Cause I lost my shit at the hospital? Jules, honestly, I thought I handled that well, considering. I ever find the motherfuckers who did that to you, they’ll wish I killed them.”
Julie let out a small snort, then gripped her stomach—ahh, pain, there it was. Danny was such a beautiful man. He loved her to distraction, and she’d doubted him. A horrible mother and a horrible wife, the voice inside her head screamed.
“No, it had nothing to do with you losing your shit.” She took a shallow breath, because any deeper ached her stomach, then slowly released the air. “I know that you hate when I’m upset. You like control, and this”—she touched her soft belly before motioning to the pink room—“is killing me and it’s way beyond your control.” Danny’s brows were pinched, but he listened without saying a word, so she continued. “I was scared, and the longer I sat in that sterile place, my fear turned to anger. I thought maybe, one night after leaving me, you may have come home and gotten rid of this room.”
He squinted. “Gotten rid of the room?”
“Yeah, I was convinced that I’d come home and all of this would be gone—the room painted white, the clothes packed up—and it would be one more thing I didn’t say good-bye to.”
The rhythm of Danny’s breathing increased as his chest rose and fell against her back.
As the silence stretched on, Julie’s heart ached for the pain she’d just caused her man. “Danny, I’m sorr—”
“Your turn is over for a few minutes, honey.”
Shifting them so his body no longer supported hers, he sent a coldness through her that she felt clear to the marrow of her bones. But the distance lasted mere seconds before he sat facing her with his jean-clad legs encircling her and locked at the ankles. His hands held hers.
“I ever scare you? Make you think you don’t have a say in our life or our relationship? Other than when I was with the fire company?” The questions came out slowly, as if they were hard to ask but he wanted only the truth.
So she gave him only that. “No, never. You have only ever made me feel secure, loved, and free. It’s just, I know that you hate to see me sad, and when I cry…please, I know that tears you up.”
“Yeah, honey, it does. Fucking kills me, because your happiness is important to me. No, that ain’t right—it’s everything to me. Always has been, always will be.”
“Danny—”
“Control? Yeah, Jules, I love control, because it helps me navigate through life, but guess what? Life is beyond control. You know it; hell, I know it. The only real control I ever have is in the bedroom, and even then…come on”—he tilted his head, his hazel eyes softened pools of love—“it’s based on your willingness.”
“Danny—”
“No, I’m not done just yet. This room”—he pulled a hand free and gestured to the open space—“belonged to our daughter. Our daughter, Jules. We need to mourn the loss, honey, together. Seeing you cry tears me up inside; knowing you’re hiding it destroys me. We’ll get through this, Julie. Believe in us.”
Tears filled her eyes and stung her nose, but words were stuck behind the lump in her throat.
“I’m done now, honey.” Danny stared at her, worry etched in the lines of his forehead. “You wanna say something?”
“I’m sorry,” Julie whispered, and the dam broke.
“No apologies needed, sweetness.” Danny once again swept her into his arms, careful of her mended abdomen, and they rocked together on the newly carpeted nursery floor.
Chapter Fourteen
My Cousin Vinny
THE FIRST FEW weeks after Julie’s accident were painful, both physically and emotionally. She felt as if comfort would forever be an arm’s length away, a thing of the past and a foolish fantasy of what the future could have held. While awake, her body hurt and her muscles burned from healing, and while sleeping, nightmares robbed her of peace. Two faces—twisted and drunk on liquor and lust—mocked her and beat her, day after day, night after night. She dreamed of pain, loss, and even a few times of her baby girl waving good-bye, not such a baby at all. The more Julie dreamed, the worse the dreams got, until her dreams were nothing like the event
s that had taken place that rainy night, but more like every horror movie she’d ever refused to watch, ironically enough, because she feared nightmares. Julie would wake up in the dark room, pain searing her gut, sweat dripping down her spine, and a scream caught in her throat.
“I’m here, honey, you’re safe,” Danny would assure as his large hand stroked her pajama-covered body and pulled her close. “Shhh, you’re safe.”
And while she knew that she was, in fact, safe, she was forever tense, short-tempered, and tired.
###
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you asked Dr. Burke about therapy,” she fumed once Danny was seated in the Ranger with the door closed. “Don’t you think that you should have discussed it with me first?”
He sighed, clearly trying his best to quell the urge to argue with her, an urge he’d mastered over the six weeks since her surgery. “I have discussed it with you. You haven’t slept more than a few hours a night since the accident, you barely eat, you spend hours in the nursery, and the worst part…you do it all alone.” His chest rose and fell in rapid succession. “What happened to believing in me?”
She shrugged.
“Dammit, Julie.” Danny slammed his palms against the steering wheel once before reining in his temper like a fishing line. “We took vows, honey. For better or worse. You remember that? I promised to love you till I fucking die. Look at me,” he demanded, waiting until she brought her eyes to his. “I’m not dead yet. And there’s no fucking way I’m gonna sit back and watch you drown. We need help, honey. I’ll support you, go with you, or get out of the way so you can go by yourself. But you, my beautiful wife, are done doing this alone.”
A sliver of guilt broke through her shell as she looked at her husband for the first time in weeks. He was hurting too. He’d done his best to support her, love her, and give her space while he worked full time, managed the house, and held her through the night as she shivered from fear. He couldn’t possibly understand the pain and torment she felt from losing their baby, but he was doing the best he could.