Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HER — PRESENT DAY

“We must’ve bumped the table and couches when we were leaving. We were in such a hurry, it would be easy enough to do,” Cal tells me again.

It’s the fifth time he’s made that argument, and I’m no closer to being convinced than I was last night. We secured the place, checked to make sure nothing else was missing, and I still don’t feel safe. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have slept here last night. But if we don’t feel safe at the cabin, and we don’t feel safe here, where will we feel safe?

On top of that, I’m having strange pains in my stomach that make me worry about preterm labor. I know they’re probably Braxton Hicks contractions, but with all the stress lately, I’m going to the doctor this morning to ease my fears.

“Don’t you think we would’ve noticed that, though? And, even if we did, it still doesn’t explain the fact that our picture is literally missing,” I remind him. I’m sitting on the end of our bed, begging and pleading with him to step into the reality we’re currently in. “I just don’t think it would hurt to call the police and ask them to patrol our area.”

“Okay, and tell them what? Someone broke in and stole our picture? We have a doorbell camera that would’ve alerted me if someone was here, and it never went off. There’s no evidence anyone was at the door, let alone in the house.”

“Except the missing picture.”

He sighs, turning away from me to adjust his shirt in the mirror. “I can’t do this right now. I think you need to sleep, okay? Clearly, you’re not getting enough sleep.”

I glare at him. “You did not just say that to me.”

“I’m sorry.” He scratches his forehead. “I’m tired, too. I just…look, the picture could’ve been knocked off the wall at some other point, and we just didn’t notice it. Maybe I picked it up and put it somewhere else and forgot about it. No one has any reason to break in and steal a photo and nothing else.”

“Did you move it?” I demand. “Seems like something you’d remember.” Another pain hits my stomach, and I groan.

His gaze rakes over me, clocking my distress. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I’m not telling him about the pains yet. I don’t want him to have yet another thing to call me paranoid about. “If you’re going in to work this morning after all, I’m going to go out for a bit.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No. I’m okay,” I tell him. “I just need some air, I think.”

“Are you mad at me?” He sounds so broken it cracks a wall inside me.

“No,” I tell him, kissing his cheek. “Of course not. I just need to cool down from all the stress. Baby girl and I are going to go to the park for a walk.”

He studies me for several seconds, but eventually he nods. “You’ve got your pepper spray?”

“Always.”

“And you won’t overdo it? No running. No uneven surfaces.”

“Yes, father ,” I groan, rolling my eyes.

“I just want you to be safe.” He places his palm on my stomach. “You’ve got precious cargo in there, you know?”

I smile, but it’s sad. I don’t feel connected to my expression at all. In fact, I’m starting to feel less and less connected to Cal, too. “So I’ve heard.”

At the doctor’s office, it comes as no surprise that my blood pressure is sky high. The doctor does a good job of pretending not to be too worried, but I can tell she is.

“I’m going to have you wait in another little waiting area for about half an hour,” she informs me, an uneasy smile on her face. “Then we can recheck it and hope it’s gone down some. Baby’s heartbeat sounds good, and we’ll take a look at the ultrasound too, but I want that blood pressure down, or we’re going to have to talk about bedrest or possible induction. I want to avoid that if we can. You’re far enough along that if you had to deliver, her chances are great, but each extra day we give her lungs is just better for her odds. So, we’ll weigh the risks and benefits depending on what we see from your blood pressure and the ultrasound. Any questions for me right now?”

I swallow, my throat dry, and shake my head. “I don’t think so.” I’m going to do everything in my power to lower my blood pressure for this baby girl. As we walk out of the room, I find myself grinning over a scene from a sitcom I love where a character tells another he can raise and lower his blood pressure at will. If only I had such luck.

She leads me to a small, empty waiting room and hands me a bottle of water with instructions to wait here for a nurse to get me. I pull a book out of my bag and try to focus on the story, breathing in and out steadily to slow my racing heart. As stressed as I am, this isn’t good for the baby, and I have to think of her first.

I have to calm myself down.

Though I’m not calmed down. I’m still actively thinking about calming down when a middle-aged nurse comes to find me half an hour later. “Sadie?”

I stand abruptly, slipping my book back into my bag. It’s only then I realize I didn’t make it through a single page. I’ve never been good at drowning everything out. I worry and obsess and make the smallest things my biggest focus until they’re resolved. It’s never been more frustrating to me than when my daughter’s health is at risk.

“I’m going to take you back to your room and get your blood pressure, and then I’ll take you to the lab for an ultrasound,” she says, her voice monotonous.

“Okay, great.”

She leads me down the hall, and it’s only as she’s opening the door to the room that I realize this is all wrong. “Oh, this wasn’t my room.”

I turn to face her, prepared to leave, but she’s blocking me in and staring at me as if I’ve lost my mind. She blinks. “Yes, it was.”

I stare around at the room that’s so different from the one I was in half an hour ago. This room has a window, that one did not. This one has chairs on the wall directly in front of me, that one had chairs to my right.

“Sorry, I don’t think it was. My room didn’t have a window, and the chairs were in a different spot. I think I might’ve been next door.”

Unmoving, she glares at me. “No, ma’am. This was your room.”

I huff a breath as sudden, frustrated tears fill my eyes. Then, overwhelmed by the frustration, they overflow. “Oh. I don’t think so.” I chew my lip. “I mean, it doesn’t matter. I just didn’t want to be in the wrong person’s room and have them come in here or something.”

“They won’t, because this is your room.” Her dark brows rise as she practically begs me to argue again. “Sit down, Ms. Hawthorne.”

I suck in a breath, grateful, at least, that she’s ignoring my tears so they will hopefully go away soon. Dutifully, I sit down on the edge of the chair, feeling uncomfortable with the way the white sheet on the table is clearly wrinkled. Someone has been sitting on the bed, and probably in this chair, too. This room hasn’t been cleaned, and if I think about that too much, it’ll make me sick.

She approaches me with the machine to test my blood pressure without a word, slips the cuff on my arm, and presses a button. Seconds later, she pulls the cuff off of my arm and walks back to the counter, facing away from me.

“Is it better?” I ask, my voice low.

Without looking my way, she says, “Your doctor will discuss everything with you when she sees you.”

I chomp on my bottom lip, frustration and exhaustion brimming over. I can’t open my mouth to speak for fear my voice will break.

She steps toward the door and pulls it open, walking out into the hall before looking back. “Come on.”

I stand, like a scolded child, and fall in line behind her on my way to make sure my daughter is okay, while feeling very much not okay myself.

Later, with the reassurance that the baby is fine, and I’m just experiencing mild Braxton Hicks contractions, the doctor sends me home with instructions to monitor my blood pressure at least twice a day and call her if it gets too high.

On my way home, I call Cal. I’m no longer in the mood to ignore him or keep him out of this. The nurse’s actions and disregard for my concerns about being in the wrong room, though it all seems small and insignificant in hindsight, really upset me. We should feel safe with our medical professionals, and her responses toward me made me feel the exact opposite. I just want someone to make me feel safe at this moment, and the person who can do that without fail is Cal.

He answers quickly. “Hey, honey. What’s up?”

“I, um, I just left the doctor’s office,” I tell him, my voice on the verge of cracking.

“What? What’s wrong? Did something happen with the baby? Did you get hurt at the park?” His usually calm voice is suddenly filled with fear and concern.

“No, baby’s fine. I’m fine. I was having some pains, so I went in to have everything checked out, but they’re just Braxton Hicks. Nothing to worry about.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to the doctor? I would’ve gone with you.”

Now I feel as if I’ve betrayed him in the worst way. What if something actually had been wrong? He deserved to be there, and I let my pride and frustration keep him from that. “I know.” Now my voice does crack, and suddenly, the dam breaks. I’m sobbing as I say, “I’m sorry. I was just really stressed, and my blood pressure was up, and I was mad at you about the house, but none of that matters. Can you come home?” I just want to hug him, cuddle up on the couch, and forget about this whole stupid argument.

“Of course. I’m still at work, but I had coverage for today, so I don’t have a class. I can leave. Are you on your way home now? Do you want me to meet you somewhere? Are you okay to drive? Tell me what you need.”

I sniffle, wiping my nose and cheeks. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I just…I just need you to meet me at home, okay?”

“Okay, I’ll finish up here and meet you at home in the next hour or so…” He trails off on the word, sounding distracted.

“What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, nothing. That Norma lady from the rental keeps calling, wanting us to come back and pick up your gift. She’s getting pretty persistent about it. I told her I can probably run up there and get it one day soon when I have a chance, but she wants you there specifically. I guess they want to see your reaction or something. I told her I’m not sure you’re up for the trip.”

“No, Cal. I’m not going, and I don’t want you to go either. I don’t trust them. Why are they being so pushy? Why would they have gotten me a gift in the first place? It just feels like they want us back out there for some reason, and now specifically me.”

“Some reason like what?” he asks, his tone less judgmental than before.

“Do you not think it’s strange?”

He sighs. “I think they’re a lonely old couple whose kids are probably grown and long gone, and they’re trying to be nice. But the point is, if you’re not comfortable, we won’t go. Plain and simple. I’ll block their number. They don’t have our address, so we’ll all just move on. You and our daughter are all that matter to me. You know that, right?”

I squeeze my eyes shut at a stoplight, drying my cheeks. “I know.”

“Now get home safe, okay? I’ll see you soon.”

We end the call, and I turn my blinker on, preparing to turn left to go home, but something clicks inside me. I don’t want to go home. Right now, I don’t feel safe at home. Not alone. I don’t want to wait in that apartment for him for even a second. I’ll go by the school and surprise him instead, sneak a kiss in the parking lot. It’s been ages since I did that. Not since graduation in the spring, I suppose.

The drive is relatively quick, just a short trip to the campus downtown. When I get there, I drive through the rows of cars, searching for his. The black Camry is hardly one of a kind in this lot, but I recognize his by the yellow ‘Baby on Board’ sticker stuck to his back windshield. He insisted he get it the day we found out I was pregnant.

As I slow to park next to him, my stomach lurches. It feels like a hallucination. A side effect of my erratic blood pressure. I swallow, gripping the steering wheel so tightly it hurts as I stare straight through the gap between the cars. Cal can’t see me from here—he isn’t looking—but if he did, he’d see how ghastly white my face has gone. I’m surprised he can’t hear the way my heart is pounding in my chest, even through the closed windows and space that separate us.

I swallow, trying to comprehend what I’m seeing.

I sent her away, and she still found him.

As I watch the scene play out, the two of them standing together, chatting and laughing as if everything is right in the world, I can’t help thinking how impossible it is. And yet, it’s real. There, just a few feet in front of me, is my husband, and right in front of him—a pretty smile on her perfect face—is Janelle.