Part 6
Alex was heart broken. Her child was now non-existent. She also felt shame as she thought if she'd only waited a couple days before telling someone, she wouldn't have had to tell anyone at all. And then Greg never would have known about her infidelity.
She removed her hand from Greg's and turned on to her side so that she was facing away from him. She pulled her knees towards her chest and curled in to the fetal position. She couldn't look at him. She couldn't look at this room. She just wanted to fade away.
Greg didn't want to let her pull away from him. He was worried she might give in to her sorrow. The look he saw in her eyes was the same he'd seen in his mother's when he was 10. And he didn't want to go through that again.
He maneuvered himself onto the bed beside her. He wrapped one arm around her, trying to get it under the arm holding her knees. He could feel the sobs that racked her body.
"Shhh, Alex," he whispered into her ear. "We'll make it through."
She shook her head. "I don't know if I can," she cried.
"We'll do it together," he tried to reassure her.
His reassurances were doing nothing but driving the nails into her coffin of guilt. She kept thinking that if only she hadn't cheated, the baby would have been ok. She and Greg would have been ok. Now, she wasn't so sure.
She tried to shake off his embrace, but it only made him hold tighter. "Alex, please, don't push me away." He wanted to soothe her, but didn't know how. He knew, though, that he didn't want to go through this again. He decided it was time to tell her something he'd never told anyone else. "Have I ever told you about my mother?"
"What does your mother have to do with anything?" she replied, angry that he wouldn't just leave her alone.
"I'll tell you if you'll just listen," he said and then paused.
She nodded. Anything to just not think.
Greg took a deep breath and then continued. "I was an only child. Not by design, but because my parents couldn't have another child."
"I didn't know that," Alex told him.
He just nodded and carried on. "I almost wasn't an only child, though. When I was 10, my mom got pregnant again. My parents were ecstatic. I was pretty hyped too. I thought it would be great to have a little brother or sister to perform experiments on."
She let out a little laugh at the thought of Greg playing Dr. Frankenstein with a younger sibling.
Greg smiled a little on the inside. It was nice to hear her laugh. He gave her a small kiss on the back of her neck. Then he finished his story. "But four months into the pregnancy my mom lost the baby. She was very distraught. My dad tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't let him. She just knew it was her fault, and there wasn't anything you could do to change her mind about that.
Like I said, I was only ten, but I could see something wasn't right with mom. And one day, when I got home from school," Greg choked up at the thought, but knew he had to finish.
Alex carefully rolled over, so that she could face Greg. She had a feeling what he was going to say next. "What?" she prodded him gently.
"I found my mom, lying in bed with an empty pill bottle next to her. She was still breathing slightly, so I called 911. She never made it to the hospital." Greg's eyes welled up with tears.
"Oh Greg!" Alex put her arm around him and placed her forehead against his. It then slowly dawned on her why he had shared this story now. "I'm so sorry."
His memory flashed back to himself as a boy. He was dressed in a suit, standing next to the lifeless body of his mother. Greg shrugged his shoulders, trying to shrug off the memory. "I always felt partially responsible, like if I had been a better son maybe they wouldn't have wanted another child so bad. I got into everything and anything I could from then on, just trying to be good enough."
"Oh god," she said, realizing the implications of his story and how he reacted to her actions of the last couple months.
"What?" Greg asked, thinking maybe she was in more pain.
She started to cry. "I'm such a bad person, Greg. You deserve someone so much better than me." She covered her face with her hands.
He removed her hands from her face and looked directly into her eyes. "Alex," he said softly. "I love you, which means there is no one better." Then he kissed her.
She could feel the kiss down to the core of her soul. She couldn't believe she'd met someone like him. That he would still love her, want her, after everything.
"Shit!" she said, breaking the tender moment.
"What?" Greg asked.
"Everybody else. Does anyone know I'm here?"
Greg shook his head. "The only person I told was your boss."
"You told my boss I had a miscarriage?" she was concerned. It would have only been her second day today.
Again, he shook his head. "I'm not that crazy. I told her we had take-out last night and you got extremely bad food poisoning. I told her you might not be back until Thursday."
Alex put her hand on his cheek. "You're so smart!" she said. "Thank you." Then as an after thought, "What did she say?"
"She said when you come back, you're not allowed any time off for a year." He laughed.
There was a knock on the door. Greg jumped up; he didn't want to be caught on the bed.
"Come in," Alex called.
When Greg saw it was the doctor, he excused himself to get some coffee.
"How're you feeling, Ms. Hart?" the doctor asked.
"I'm still a little sore, but I feel alright. What happened?"
The doctor flipped through the chart he had in his hands. "It appears you had a miscarriage and there was some hemorrhaging so they kept you overnight," the doctor replied.
She rolled her eyes slightly at the technically correct answer. "I mean, why did I miscarry?"
The doctor flipped through the chart again. "It seems you have some injury to your internal organs from a previous incident. It apparently was worse than your records indicated." He flipped a couple more pages. "It looks like you may have difficulty conceiving in the future too."
She felt the disappointment grow inside her. There had been a lot in life she was unsure of, but one thing she had always known is that she wanted to have children. And now that possibility might be taken away from her. She took a deep breath trying to calm herself.
"Did they get the results from the other test?" she asked.
The doctor nodded.
"What was the result?" She held her breath.
"It appears that the sample we collected and the fetus were a match," the doctor responded.
She let out a sigh of relief. When she was brought in, she had an inkling she might lose the paper. She requested a DNA sample from the fetus if she lost it. She also convinced the hospital to take a sample of Greg's DNA to compare it to. The results were in; the baby had been Greg's.
The doctor examined her after their brief exchange. He felt she was all right to leave and would send her discharge papers in a few hours. She was glad to hear. She wanted out of this hospital.
Greg came back in as the doctor went out. He raised his eyebrows in a questioning look.
"I'm going to be discharged," she answered the unspoken question.
"That's good!" he replied.
"He also told me something else," she said, not knowing if it would make things better or worse.
"Oh?" he asked.
"Remember that blood sample they collected from you?" she answered with a question.
"How did you know about that?"
"I asked for it, for a paternity test," she told him. "The baby was yours."
Greg paused for a moment. He wasn't sure if he should be happy or sad. He finally just slowly nodded.
"If you need to go," she finally broke the silence. "I know you have to go to work tonight. You probably need to sleep."
Greg yawned at the mention of sleep. He hadn't really thought about it, but now that she mentioned it, he was tired. "I'll wait till they discharge you," he dismissed the idea of leaving. "I can just nap in this chair."
"I can get a cab," she said, knowing she wouldn't be able to drive.
He waved his hand, taking a sip of his coffee. "Nonsense. We still have apartments and a wedding to discuss," he informed her.
"You still want to get move in and get married?" She thought for sure he would have wanted to wait or even take it back.
"Of course," he replied. "Your miscarriage doesn't change how I feel about you."
She smiled slightly. She was relieved to know he didn't blame her for the miscarriage. "So, where you have any apartments in mind?" she asked, needing to move on with her life.
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Alex and Greg found a nice two-bedroom apartment halfway between the lab and her work. They decided not to set a date for the wedding just yet. As Alex had said, they did have forever. And right now, they needed to work on other things—together.
Nick was disappointed the baby wasn't his, but he was happy for Greg and Alex. He knew each was very lucky. Things were uncomfortable between him and Greg for a while, but they eventually became more bearable. Nick had to hand it to Greg, he was one hell of a guy. And he had gotten one hell of a girl.