Page 90 of While You're There
She was relentless. He knew she wasn’t going to stop trying to grief counsel him until he gave her something. Most people hesitated when it came to talking about death and loss, choosing to tiptoe around the pain or just stay silent for fear of saying the wrong thing. Not Tori. Years of therapy and volunteering with the New Hope Foundation had armed her with an arsenal of all the right things to say.
He had to choose his words wisely. He couldn’t stand to unleash the fury of emotions swirling inside him. He refused to give her his pain, but he had to give hersomethingto make her feel like he wasn’t shutting down completely. He decided to share the most logical thing he could think of.
“I offered to pay for all of Chandler’s hospital bills.”
She stilled in his arms. He could see out of the corner of his eye that she was looking up at him, but he had his gaze set on the door.
“Okay…” she prompted, waiting for him to continue. He silently cursed himself for offering so little.
“I just thought I should let you know, since I’ll be paying for it from our checking account. She just started a new job a few weeks ago, and technically, she’s still on her parents’ health insurance. She was terrified about them finding out, so I offered to pay cash and already set it up with the hospital billing department. I don’t know if we should have talked about it first or…”
“No, of course not. That was the right thing to do,” she murmured. She reached down and took his hand in hers, interlacing their fingers as she leaned back onto his chest. “Anything else?”
Fuck. He shouldn’t have gone so surface level… he should have shared something more intimate so they could move on.
He was desperate to not have to talk about this anymore. It shouldn’t be the issue on the table right now. Not with what Tori was currently going through. Not when he thought about what came next. He had already focused enough of his time and energy on Chandler and the baby. All he wanted to do now was focus on his wife. Everything he was feeling, everything he wanted to shove down and forget about, it could wait. He had to be back in Virginia in twenty-four hours. His grief would keep until then.
He racked his brain for something else to say. Something honest, something true. Something that would be enough to end this conversation.
“I kept one of the ultrasound pictures,” he finally offered. He had asked Chandler if he could have one when he came across the small strip of glossy black and white printouts in her dresser drawer. It was a picture from her first appointment at the OBGYN’s office a few weeks ago. In the picture, his baby was seven weeks old. In the picture, his baby was alive.
Tori said nothing, instead shifting closer and spreading a hand across his chest, her palm resting over his heart. Rhett kept his gaze fixed on her bedroom door, but he felt her body tremble in his arms. It was the only indication she was crying.
There. That ought to do it.He knew he wouldn’t have to talk about it again this weekend. His cool, stoic mask slipped back into place. It was over for now.
Chapter thirty-seven
Tori
“Thanksagainforcomingwith me today,” Tori said, turning to her best friend and stifling a big yawn. She really was grateful Lia had been willing to drive her to and from the fertility clinic in her old boat of a farm truck. She could have driven herself to the appointment, but her stomach had ballooned this week because of the hormone injections, and she hated how the seatbelt cut across and rubbed her bruised tummy skin. At least in the passenger seat, she could hold the belt away from her body.
It had been Tori’s second ultrasound so far that week, and she had received the exact news she was hoping to hear. Everything looked good, and they were able to schedule the procedure first thing on Friday morning. She had to give herself one more injection at eight tonight—the trigger shot—and then she just had to take it easy for the next thirty-six hours.
“Seriously, Tor. Anytime. It was a good excuse to get away from the farm for the morning. And to see you, of course.”
Summer was the busiest season on the Perry’s family farm. Lia’s parents relied on her to work fourteen hours a day alongside the rest of the cattle farm staff. Lia’s only “breaks” in the summer were the days she worked at Clinton’s as a server, a job she refused to give up, much to her parents’ chagrin. Tori rarely saw Lia during the warmer months unless they were both scheduled on the same shift at the restaurant.
Lia making time in her busy schedule plucked at a chord of dissonance. Rhett hadn’t been around all week. She had told him it was fine, and the logical part of her brain knew it didn’t make sense to expect him to be in Hampton for every single one of her appointments, given the fact that so much of the egg retrieval process had to be taken day-by-day. But at least now that she knew the end game, she could make sure Rhett would be around for the actual procedure on Friday.
She cracked her knuckles in a satisfying release while debating what she could do to fill the time and distract herself over the next few days. “What are you doing the rest of the day? Want to come over and lie out at the Wheelers’ pool?”
Lia let out a frustrated breath. “I wish. I told my parents I’d only be gone for part of the morning, so I have to get back to the farm.”
“Darn. Okay. Do we have time to stop at Cali Juice and get a smoothie before you drop me off? It’s the least I can do for making you drive me around today.”
“Are you gonna buy mine and put it on your husband’s credit card?” Lia was still giddy about Tori’s new tax bracket, even though Tori tried to downplay it. She got it—she really did. It was crazy to go from living from paycheck to paycheck and always being anxious about money to just being able to swipe a rose gold AmEx without giving the purchase another thought.
“I will usemycredit card to buy you a smoothie,” she corrected.
“And then let your husband pay the bill?”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t bother correcting her, mostly because she wasn’t wrong.
“Okay, quick stop at Cali Juice, then I’ll drop you at home. What are you gonna do the rest of the day?” Lia asked.
Tori had given up all her shifts at Clinton’s for the week after she woke up painfully bloated on Sunday morning. Since she didn’t have to work, and all the prep was done for camp, she didn’t have any real plans until Friday.
“I’m not sure. I’m supposed to take it easy, which is honestly fine by me because I don’t feel like doing much of anything. I might text Field, or maybe I’ll see what Jake’s doing if he’s not already at The Oak.”
