Chapter 17
He woke up that night and rolled over to find she wasn't there. He got up and heard soft sobbing coming from the spare room. It was to be the nursery. There was no furniture, just a carpet and half-painted walls. There she sat in the middle of the floor, clutching the bear with the red scarf, slowly rocking back and forth.
"Sam?"
She looked around at him and broke into harder cries. He sat down beside her and folded her into his arms. He knew her particular kinds of crying and realised that she was really in pain about something.
"What's wrong honey? Please tell me."
She pulled back from him and stood up. She walked over to the window where the moonlight was lighting up the room. Sitting on the window sill she sighed. Jack's stomach was in knots trying to figure out what was up.
"I have to tell you something. Something I've never told anyone. I need you not to talk until I'm finished ok?" She was almost talking in a whisper.
He nodded. He was still sitting on the floor but he had shifted around to face her.
"When you decided to go back to Maria, um... about a month later, do you remember that I had to leave work early one day and then took a few days leave to go visit my mom? I told you she was sick."
He nodded, still confused.
"She wasn't sick and I didn't go and see her. That day, it was a Thursday; I started having really bad stomach pains. I just put them down to period pains so I went home, took some painkillers and tried to sleep it off. That night, I woke up screaming because the pain was so bad and when I pulled back the covers to get up….." Her eyes filled with tears again but she struggled to hold them back.
"The sheets were covered in blood." She put her face in her hands, desperately trying to compose herself.
"I called the paramedics and they took me to the hospital. The doctor told me that I'd had a miscarriage." Her shoulders were heaving uncontrollably with her sobs as his eyes shut with the pain of her words.
He got up and hugged her tightly. He too was crying at the loss that she'd carried on her own all of this time. More pain she had to go through because of him he thought.
The two of them sat on the sill for ten minutes simply crying and holding onto each other. Finally Jack spoke.
"Why, why didn't you tell me?" He said softly.
"I didn't know how. I wanted to so badly. I just couldn't deal with it. The day I came back to work I was going to tell you. I got to the front doors and there you were in the lobby with Maria. You kissed her goodbye and you were laughing and I just… I hid around the corner until you guys had gone and I realised that if I told you it would just make things worse. You had so much else to deal with and I couldn't lay that on you too, not when you'd just figured out what you wanted."
"So what did you do with the time you took off?"
"Sat at home, watching Dr Phil." She smiled through her tears hoping to get a laugh out of him.
He didn't laugh; she looked into his eyes and saw his pain. She took his face into her hands and rubbed his cheeks with her thumbs. Kissing him softly she pressed her forehead against his.
"I'm ok. It's just something I needed to tell you. Honestly, it's taken this long to get up the courage to relate that story to anyone, I never even told my mom. I'm going to be ok. We are going to be ok. I'm pregnant and it's all going well. There's nothing to worry about, only something to look forward to. I love you."
"I love you too. I'm just desperately sorry that you had to go through all of that by yourself and carry this on your shoulders for so long. Promise me you won't keep anything like that from me ever again."
"I promise."
She sighed kissing him again. He got up and took her by the hand, leading her back to bed. Once there, they held onto each other and cried a little more.
The next morning she felt better. She would never forget the baby they'd lost, but they had new hope for the future and remembering that time it seemed like a thousand years ago.