Here comes the pivotal point where the relationship gets to the rocky part of the paradise they've created. Well, a blend of paradise and purgatory. And losses that hurt more than the plague and the failed re-animations.

Chapter Eight

Honeymoon Hell

Present Day

This bathroom reminded me of paradise. The paradise Herbert and I went to in the summer of 2007 when we got married. The walls were soft seafoam blue, reminding me of being underwater, splashed with white and marble in the countertop of the sink and around the bathtub. Sometimes Herbert had it in him to come and join me after a long stressful day, even when we were tired but still wanted each other. On our honeymoon, we'd gone to Cape Cod, which was out towards the Atlantic Ocean and isolated from Bolton and Arkham altogether, where it was supposed to be just us celebrating the official start of the rest of our lives together. Just wedded bliss.

I slipped out of my expensive suit and got into the hot bath; being in a hotter than intended bath was also my way of burning the pain my body didn't deserve. After so many years, Herbert had finally given in to me begging about having a baby, but he didn't complain much as I thought he would have since he thought the work so important above everything else. I had found out I was pregnant in April of that year, frightened to death when I tried to think of how to tell him and show him the test as proof. He did agree to this, but I doubted he was fully prepared for being a father. His own was a bad example. I had been raised by a single mother, but my father was gone long before I was in middle school years. But I had a good feeling about that, though I wondered then how we would raise a child in the middle of everything we did. I didn't learn that the answer was never until it was too late.

~o~

8 years ago

I was twenty-nine years old when I found out I was pregnant. I was overjoyed, but it didn't last because my mother wasn't there to welcome a grandchild. For a month, I suffered nausea and my bleeding missed, but it was clear to me Herbert and I were going to have a baby after all these years. We'd been together for seven, but you'd think marriage first and baby second.

Herbert hadn't reacted much other than a smile and him taking me into his arms; words weren't always his way of expressing how he felt. He whispered in my ear that he was happy. "I love you, Barbara," he breathed in my hair. "I know I don't say it often, but you know I do."

I nodded and leaned into him, smelling his musk. Things between us had been pretty stiff regarding the use of bodies, our times together lessening, but then the last one - a victim of a burning house - which almost tried to kill me made him realize he didn't want to lose me ever. So it took him that long to finally realize that after nine years total? "Why did it take you that long to finally tell me you can't stand losing me?" I asked when we drew away. "And now telling me you're sure you want this?" I took his hand and put it against my stomach so he could at least feel our child there. I knew that having a baby meant making big changes in life. But Herbert wasn't really bent on change, or was he?

He smiled down at me. "Of course I do. I promised I wouldn't survive without you, and I am keeping it. Which is why I've wanted to ask you this for awhile." He reached into his pocket then and withdrew the most beautiful golden ring I'd ever seen; the design was flawless and set with three diamonds, like it came from another century. "Barbara Kane, I love you so much, you're my partner and equal in all things besides our work, and I want to marry you as long as you'll have me."

I could not refuse, so I wept in his arms and buried my face into his neck, crying until he took me to bed with him so we could make up for lost times.

In June, we were married on the beach of Cape Cod, which was also where we spent our honeymoon. Mom wasn't there to help me pick my dress out, and the affair wasn't overtly done. It was just me and him taking our vows, the flowers present being those on the balconies of the hotel rooms of our resort of stay. My dress was irresistible, gleaming white satin with an overlay of floral-embroidered silk chiffon and short sleeves, my hair half up and accented with a crystalline headband. I wore my favorite cross as the one piece of my mother's spiritual presence, so I would know she was with me on this day that she couldn't be, as well as the beautiful, double-looped diamond ring he gave me as a wedding present, which was the perfect symbol of the classic love story.

"God, you look beautiful," commented Dr. Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee, a very good friend and colleague of ours who had been a classmate of mine back in high school, though I admit I believe he had a crush on me then as I did him, before we went our separate ways. He was internationally celebrated, traveling over the world and had a ninety percent success rate. Returning to Massachusetts, we reconnected but were never more than just friends. Herbert accepted him as a colleague, allowing him to discuss the theory of re-animation but never allowing him to work with us on what we kept hidden from the world. Even though I felt I could trust Eric, I had to admit that my husband-to-be was right.

Eric did the honors of marrying us, the only one allowed to witness our intimate affair. Our vows were taken under the cloudy sky parting to let the sun shine down on us, and we were married with a single kiss.

No priest to bless us, no religious services...just Herbert and me, and our dear friend Clapham-Lee. I thought it all the more perfect than any other wedding I dreamed of as a little girl.

Nothing but spas and pools, the beach, and some fun which wasn't the dead to deal with. Herbert West had very little fun in his life and therefore was still struggling to adjust to it. At night, we made love with the windows open to let some summer breeze in to guide us in our coupling. I felt happier than I remember, but then the night before we were supposed to return to Bolton, I was awakened by strange sensations in my stomach. I felt something sticky beneath the covers and threw them back to show that my naked body - I slept without nightclothes on because of the summer humidity - was covered in blood.

I screamed, waking Herbert.

"Barbara, God!" He jumped out of bed and hurriedly helped me into a slip-over dress and out the door for the infirmary right away, where Eric was volunteering for the time being. But I had the terrible feeling it was too late, and I would later find out that it was. I'd lost our baby.

Words can't describe the mental, physical, and emotional agony I suffered in the infirmary room, being in that bed while they ran some tests for me, Herbert by my side the whole time and holding my hand, though he seemed distant. Our baby was gone, but it wasn't either fault of ours. "This happens sometimes, as you both know," Eric tried to assure us, "so, I'm sure next time might be the charm. But I still owe my condolences for your loss." He knelt down before us both and took my hand in his, then hesitantly patted Herbert on the shoulder. My husband stiffened a little under his touch.

I turned my head to the side, unsure of what to say. I could not speak, would not speak, because the loss of the life in my womb was too much to bear. I was only two months pregnant, and this was my first child. I wondered how my husband was taking this. He was aggrieved, too, but he wasn't the one who was having the baby. You could never fully understand death until you've given life.

~o~

Present Day

I cried harder than I ever did in my life, cried more than when Mom died, more than when Dad died before her. I cried for the loss of the babe, and the same amount for the next one we lost, which was a year after we were married. It was another miscarriage, caused by another subject which reacted violently this time, if a bit lesser than the cannibal monster at Sefton, but it took our next and last hope from us. As it turned out, being the wife of Dr. Herbert West was never going to make anything any better.

I finished my bath and rose to slip into the dress I picked out. The sooner I exited did I hear my mobile ringing. I answered it. "Dr. West."

"Is this a bad time?"

I laughed at the familiar voice of Dawn Ryder, my intern at Miskatonic. She was the daughter I always wanted but never had from my barren body. "Not at all. How is my angel?" Favoritism wasn't tolerated, but Dawn, who lost both her parents at an early age, was everything to me as both little ones I lost too early in the first trimester.

"I wanted to see how you were handling being back over there. I know people talked about how...weird your husband was, but I would have done the same back where my parents used to live. I know it's not the same, but..." She trailed off, but I understood what she was trying to say. And yes, she was right about our situations not being the same. She was the only one who knew the truth about my marriage to Herbert West. Eight years of being in matrimony to a man who changed thanks to the miscarriages and his downward spiral as time went on, shattering everything we had.

Marriage has plenty of ups and downs, but this one is more advanced and out of the ordinary. It's really unclear at the present if the Wests' marriage is too damaged to be saved. Time will tell.