Page 30 of Enough
“I’m on my way. Where’s Mike? Tell him to call an ambulance.”
“Gone. Never really here.”
“He didn’t come home? Ev? Stay with me. Talk to me. I’m calling an ambulance right now on my other phone.”
“The kids. Need to stay with the kids.”
“I’ll call Grandma Kay.”
“No! Don’t scare her… don’t!”
I hear her mumble in the background. My eyes wander over the dirty dishes in the sink. Then I focus on the pile of mail I need to go through. I try to concentrate on a cobweb I see hanging from the light fixture, but the pain causes me to fall to my knees and drop the phone.
I hear her through the receiver. “The ambulance is on its way, honey! Okay? I’m on my way too. I’ll stay with the kids. It’s going to be fine. Talk to me, Ev.Pleasetalk to me!”
I STARE AT the cream-colored wall of my hospital room and the small crack toward the baseboard. I feel empty and alone. I lost the baby. She’s gone. I don’t know for sure if it was a girl,but in my heart, I feel her loss. Gwen called my Grandma Kay against my wishes, and she came to the house to stay with the kids. I asked her not to tell them anything, so she told them I wasn’t feeling well and that I’d be back in no time. She cleaned up all the blood so they wouldn’t see it. I can’t even imagine the scene I left, and I feel even guiltier for having to rely on her.
Gwen wanders into my room with a big cup of Diet Coke and a cookie. “Hey, look what I found,” she says, holding them up. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. I can barely look at her.
I nod my head and go back to staring at the wall.
“Talk to me.”
I shake my head.
“You need to talk about it,” she whispers as she places the items on a nearby tray table.
I fixate on the wall. I can’t blink my eyes. “No, I don’t.”
“Ev, please. You’re scaring me.”
I force my eyes closed and think back to the emergency room doctor trying to find a heartbeat. I begged and pleaded with God to hear it, to let him find it, but there was nothing. Not a single sound. The doctor said it was an early-term miscarriage. The nurse tried to tell me it happens sometimes. That the fetus wasn’t viable and that it was nature’s way. Fuck nature and fuck her. Has she ever lost a baby? Did she think I wanted or needed to hear her tell me my baby wasn’tviable?
Tears spill down my cheeks, and Gwen leans down to wrap me in her arms.
I accept her embrace because as much as I want to be by myself, I alsodon’twant to be alone. My chin begins to quiver. My impending words cause physical pain in the back of mythroat as I make my confession. “It’s my fault,” I whisper into her shoulder.
She pulls back to regard me. “What do you mean it’s your fault?” she questions in a strained voice.
My inner strife haunts me. I swallow hard. To say the words out loud confirms my betrayal in my heart. “When I first found out I was pregnant, I told God I didn’t want her. He listened. He took her away because he knew I didn’t deserve her.”
She gently strokes my hair. “No!” Gwen blinks rapidly and grips my arm. “God wouldn’t do that. It’s not your fault! You can’t wish a baby away! And God knows you didn’t mean anything you might have said.”
I recoil from Gwen. My extremities shake uncontrollably. “Doesshe? Does my baby girl know? Does she know how sorry I am? That I wasn’t good enough for her? That I wasn’t good enough to keep her safe?”
“Ev, no! That’s not true. You’re the best mom in the world. You really are! Have I ever lied to you?” Gwen pauses, and I know she’s at a loss for words. She gives me a sidelong glance. “Except for that one time when I told you I didn’t eat your cupcake in college?”
I know she means to make me smile, but I can't. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to smile again; the tears are endless.
She clenches her jaw and reaches for me once more. “You didn’t do this. I know how you are. You blame yourself for everything. But you need to try to think like a nurse. We both know from school that sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes placentas detach, sometimes pregnancies are ectopic, and sometimes babies just aren’t…”
I turn to face her as my sadness turns to rage. “Don’t youdare say viable! Don’t say it! She was alive. She was growing and thriving inside me, and now… now she’s gone. Shewasviable. Don’t tell me she wasn’t!”
Gwen pulls back in haste. “I was going to say that maybe she just wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes God loves a child so much he decides he doesn’t want to lose them in heaven, so he calls them home before they’re even born.”
I take small breaths as I cry. I close my eyes as my chest heaves. “I miss her. I want her back. I want her.” I grab hold of her arm as I whimper. “You know I wanted her, don’t you?”
Gwen nods. “Of course you did!”
