Epilogue

EPILOGUE

JODI

“ A re you okay?” Derek asked, coming into the living room where I was lying on the couch, curled on my side.

I pressed my hand to the side of my belly and drew in a breath to try to calm the sharp pain going through me. I shook my head.

“It hurts,” I said.

Worry flickered across his face as he dropped down onto his knees beside the couch. He ran his hand back over my forehead and rested the other on my hip.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Are you feeling sick?”

My morning sickness had been extreme for the first couple of months, but I was starting to have days when I felt better. Somehow that made feeling this pain more frightening and upsetting.

“I was just doing some cleaning, and my stomach started feeling a little strange. I thought I had just eaten something that wasn’t sitting right with me, but it got worse. Then a really sharp pain went through me.”

I’d heard before about women lying on their sides while they were pregnant and it helping settle pain from gallstones and other issues. It was the first thing that went through my mind, even though I didn’t know what was wrong. I could only hope it would help, but so far, the pain hadn’t gotten better.

“Have you called your doctor?” Derek asked. I shook my head. “Alright. I’m going to call her.”

He dug in his pocket and pulled out his phone. The doctor’s office was already programmed into it, so it was only moments before he connected with her. Derek offered the phone to me so I could talk to her, but the pain was getting more intense, so I pulled back and shook my head. He described what I told him and listened carefully for a few seconds before ending the call.

“She wants you to go to the hospital,” he said. “She said go straight to the emergency room. They’ll be able to check on you and see what might be going on.”

The evening was a blur after that. I was so afraid, so worried about what I was going to find out when I got to the hospital, I almost didn’t want to go. That was the most illogical thing I could be thinking. Not going wasn’t going to change what was happening. If anything, it could make things worse.

But I was still afraid to hear it. That part of me just wanted to stay right there on the couch. It told me if I just waited it out for another little while, the pain would go away, and everything would be fine.

Derek wasn’t hearing any of it, and soon he’d convinced me of what I already knew—I had to get to the hospital.

It was the early hours of the next morning before we got home. Derek tucked me into bed and rested the strip of ultrasound pictures on the nightstand beside me before heading to the shower. I reached out and took the pictures, slipping them under my pillow so I could keep them close.

They were the first images I’d seen of our baby. Our first ultrasound appointment wasn’t for several more weeks, and I’d been eagerly looking forward to that moment when we would get to see its little face and hands. That night was terrifying and had my nerves on edge, but the wonderful surprise of getting to see the image of our little one early helped to ease it.

I always imagined myself as a mother one day. I wouldn’t say I really dreamed about it or that it was something I longed for. It was just something I assumed would happen in my future, just like eventually finding someone to love and settling down. Though I didn’t think about it in that way until I got used to carrying my Derek and my baby, I realized running from my family and trying to avoid them until I could get my trust fund was for more than one reason.

I wanted to protect myself, of course. I didn’t want to let my family use me and tell me what I was going to do and who I was going to marry so they could reap the benefits. That was my choice to make. I wanted to have a real partner, to be in love and to have a real marriage.

During my pregnancy, I realized I was also protecting my future as a mother. It was hard to really wrap my head around, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have been guarding the child I would one day have, the child I would never have if I was forced into the marriage my parents wanted for me.

Even though I didn’t spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about it, I could just see myself with a child one day. I could see myself taking care of a baby and raising a child. I wondered if I would have a son or daughter, what kind of child they would be, and what kind of adult they would grow up to be. But I never put a lot of thought into pregnancy. That was just something that would happen, that I would get through in order to get that baby in my arms.

Raising a child wasn’t going to be easy all the time, and I knew I would face stress and challenges along the way. It never occurred to me that one of those challenges would be the pregnancy itself. As it turned out, the horrible weeks of sickness to start my pregnancy were just the beginning.

That first visit to the hospital started a string of visits with complications that kept me on edge and stopped me from feeling healthy and truly excited. I loved my baby and was still looking forward to meeting what we learned during one of the visits was our daughter. But there were times as the weeks passed, and I kept going in and out of the hospital when it got harder to believe I would ever actually get to feel the happiness I so wanted.

Rather than getting to schedule normal regular ultrasounds or look forward to finding out about each milestone of the pregnancy, those reveals were most often buried in emergency room visits or frightening overnight stays for observation.

Derek was helping me into the house after another visit when the emotion of it all came down on me, and tears pooled up in my eyes. I gripped his hand harder, and Derek looked over at me.

“Hey,” he said when he noticed my tears. “What’s going on?”

“I’m just thinking about everything,” I said.

He got me into the house and brought me into our room. I slipped into bed, and he pulled the covers up around me.

“Let me get you some tea. I’ll be right back.”

He left, and I tried to pull myself together and stop crying, but the tears just kept flowing. When he came back in with a cup of my favorite herbal, I sat up and leaned my head back against the headboard, wiping my cheeks.

“Everything that’s been going on with the baby has me thinking about my family,” I said.

He nodded. “Me too.”

“Really?” I asked, scooping some honey into my cup and stirring it around.

“Yes. My family has been around so much through this whole pregnancy.”

“I know. They’ve helped so much and been there for me through everything. I don’t know how I would have gotten through it all without everybody. Especially Ally. I am so lucky I met her.”

“I’m sure she would say the same thing about you,” he said with a smile.

I nodded. “I appreciate them all so much. They mean the world to me. But I can’t stop thinking about my family and how if things stay the same as they are right now, this baby will never know them. And they won’t know her. She won’t have any grandparents to love on or have sleepovers with or visit on the holidays.

“And my parents will miss out on their first grandchild. They did something terrible, and there were a lot of things as I was growing up that made me really uncomfortable. I’ll be the first to admit they have done shady things. But they are still my parents,” I said.

“Yes, they are,” Derek replied without hesitation. “And they deserve to know our daughter. At least, to know they have a granddaughter. You can decide from there how much they will have to do with her, and how much you will have to do with them.”

“So, what should we do?” I asked.

“Do you want to call them? Go visit?”

I immediately shook my head. “I meant what I said. I’m not going back there. Not even for just a visit. At least, not for a good while. And I don’t know if calling them out of the blue would really be a good idea. I think I’ll have Jack tell them. I still feel terrible about the things I thought about him.”

“You can’t beat yourself up about that anymore,” Derek said. “You made a mistake. You were under a huge amount of stress, and it happened. You can’t do anything about it, and you have the chance to move forward together. You should just enjoy your second chance with your brother and stop letting the past hold you back.”

I needed to hear that.

“You’re right. And I think that makes it even better to have him be the one to tell them where I am. He will be a bridge between us rather than me just going straight to our parents,” I said.

“What are you going to have him tell them?”

I drew in a breath and looked down into my tea, hoping for some sort of answers to rise up to the surface. Instead, it was just the sweet, wonderful smell of the tea and the hot steam touching my skin. That was nice, but not what I needed. I let out the breath and looked back up at Derek.

“He can tell them where I am. As long as they understand in no uncertain terms I’m not coming back,” I said.

He nodded and leaned forward to kiss me. It was an incredible feeling to know I had his support and love no matter what.

My parents didn’t make any effort to contact me after Jack told them where I was. It seemed so out of character for them, I was almost offended they didn’t at least try to push into my life. Instead, they had Jack tell me they were glad I was doing alright and congratulations on the baby, and that was that.

I tried not to put much more thought into it for the rest of my pregnancy. There was enough to be worried and stressed about with the complications that kept me going back to my doctor and spending far more time in the hospital than I ever would have wanted to while carrying a baby.

I did everything I could to stay healthy and to stay pregnant for as long as possible, but preeclampsia ended that mission for me. As soon as my doctor saw my blood pressure soaring and couldn’t manage to bring it down even with intervention in the hospital for a couple of days, she told me they needed to get the baby out urgently to save both of us.

They wheeled me into the operating room while the anesthesia was still working on kicking in, then suddenly, she was there. Born two months early and so small she looked like she would fit in one of Derek’s hands, little Nicola was a miracle and a fighter from the second she emerged. She was already squeaking and flailing as much as she could, which made me feel more confident she was going to pull through and be alright.

Having to hand my new baby over to the NICU was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life. I wanted my baby near me, to be able to hold her and comfort her as she fought to get stronger. It went so against my instincts to know she was struggling and not be the one to take care of her. It felt like as her mother I should be the one to give her everything she needed.

But as a mother, I also knew I wasn’t equipped to handle everything. I needed to trust those who were capable of giving her that care and to know they would do everything they could to make sure she would be coming home to me and her daddy soon.

That didn’t mean I just handed her over and stayed out of the way. We wouldn’t leave the hospital, staying in one of the parent rooms near the NICU instead. That meant Derek and I could be with Nicola for as much of every day and night they would allow me to.

That was where I was a week after Nicola’s birth when I got a call telling me someone was waiting for me at the reception desk. I figured it was one of Derek’s family, come to bring me food or other supplies like they did just about every day. But when I went down to the desk, I got what I imagined was the only thing that could have surprised me as much as my little girl’s sudden arrival.

It was my parents.

I stopped in my tracks and stared at them. Their heads were ducked close together as they had a conversation, but they went silent as soon as my father noticed me and brought it to my mother’s attention.

They stopped talking and stared at me. We were locked in our opposing positions for several long moments as both sides seemed to try to figure out what to say and do next. Then suddenly they were apologizing, asking my forgiveness and telling me how much they wanted to be in their grandbaby’s life.

I had to admit, I was surprised by what they were saying. My parents weren’t exactly known for saying they were sorry or ever admitting they did anything wrong.

“Thank you for apologizing,” I said. “I just want to be very clear. Derek and I want you to be a part of Nicola’s life, but you will only be able to if you accept that trying to treat me as a business asset instead of a daughter was wrong and will never be okay. You can’t treat me that way or expect me to behave how you want me to just because it’s what you think is good for the family.”

“We understand,” my mother said, nodding. “We’re so sorry.”

With that, I invited them to stand by the nursery window and asked the nurses to bring the baby’s isolette close so they could see her. They cooed and gushed, and I knew it was the right thing to do to accept their apology and let them back into my life.

Our relationship wasn’t going to be fixed right away. I still hadn’t fully released the negative feelings toward them, even if I was trying, and trust was going to be an issue for a long time. But we were going to work it out. That was what family did.And in the end, that was what we all were now.