Shatter (True Believers #4)(41)
Author: Erin McCarthy

It wasn’t until her mother answered that all of my emotion came roaring back to life.

“Mommy?” Kylie said, voice shaky. “I lost the baby.”

Her face crumpled and she broke down in sobs and I had to leave. I couldn’t hear her pain. I couldn’t listen to how young and heartbroken she sounded, or see the agony on her face. My own sorrow appeared out of nowhere and I felt tears in my eyes. I grabbed blindly at the curtain, desperate to escape, muttering to the nurse, “I’ll be right back.”

The look of sympathy she gave me only made it worse and I walked out of the ER and straight outside to the cold parking lot. Dawn was breaking and I paced back and forth in front of the doors, making them open and shut as I tripped the sensors. I swiped at my eyes, angry. Sad.

So there was to be no Baby Charlie.

There was to be no piece of me and Kylie.

It hurt more than I could have ever imagined.

* * *

I took her home to my apartment, where there was no blood. I tugged off her clothes and mine and I took her into the shower with me. I held her under the warm stream of water, taking a washcloth to her skin as gently as possible to get rid of the stains. She just stood there, against me, face swollen, fingers shaking as she covered her br**sts, like she was cold. Getting out, I wrapped a towel around her and led her to my bed, holding her tight in my arms, because I didn’t know what else to do. What else to say.

She had been given a sleeping pill at the hospital, and it surprised me but within a few minutes of lying down, she had fallen into a restless sleep. I could hear Devon get up and start to move around the kitchen. I waited until I heard him leave before I carefully slipped out of bed and pulled on a clean pair of jeans. Grabbing my phone I went into the other room and dumped some coffee in the machine. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

I’d never given much thought to being a father until Kylie and her surprise news. Devon was right. Researchers, academics, a lot of us tended to wait until almost forty and even beyond to think about a family, children. I had relegated the thought to later, much later. But then I had warmed up to the idea, the concept of an infant alien but intriguing. I felt betrayed. Like fate had yanked my chain. What kind of a mind-fuck was that? Hey, take this, you’ll like it, and when you do . . . oh, never mind.

Except I didn’t believe in fate. I never had. Nothing happened for any particular reason other than one which could be explained by science, facts. Kylie didn’t miscarry because the joke was on me, she miscarried because there was a chromosomal abnormality in the fetus and her body had done as nature intended. But that sounded so harsh, so awful. Like we had failed somehow to create a perfect fetus and that her body was the host I had mused about, expelling the parasite. All of it sounded horrible to me, the science of procreation, and it didn’t account or explain how I could feel the way I did. Sure, I could argue that nature intended a male to bond with a female to ensure the survival of his offspring, and therefore his species. Logically, you could break it all down to DNA.

But sitting there, barefoot in the cold kitchen, coffee steaming up in front of my nose as I drank it, I couldn’t believe that the nebulous heart that everyone discussed was purely the result of animal instinct and the need to survive. This didn’t feel like instinct. This felt like pure emotion. Pain. That’s what it was.

A tight, angry despair.

Scrolling through my phone, I hit SEND on the last number that had been called.

“Kylie, honey, how are you?” her mom answered immediately, sounding anxious.

“It’s not Kylie, Mrs. Warner, it’s Jonathon Kadisch.”

“Oh! Hi, Jonathon. Is Kylie okay?”

“We’re back at my apartment and she’s sleeping. They gave her a sleeping pill at the hospital. I was wondering if you know Jessica’s phone number. We left Kylie’s phone at her place and I don’t know Jessica’s number. I wanted to call her and see if she can come here and stay with Kylie while I go take care of . . .” I wasn’t sure how to say it. “The bed and stuff at her place.”

There was no way I could take Kylie home with the bed looking like a crime scene. And I didn’t want to leave her alone in my apartment.

“I see.” Her voice was thoughtful. “I think it’s very sweet that you’re thinking about her, but maybe Kylie needs to see that, to help her process. She is stronger than she looks.”

Her response made me uncertain. She thought I was doing it wrong? She should know. She was Kylie’s mother, she knew her inside and out. I didn’t. “Are you sure?”

“I think so. Kylie is resilient but she does better if she’s not allowed to bury her head in the sand. I do have Jessica’s number, though, if you have class or work. I think you’re right not to leave her alone. She’ll probably have a lot of cramping today.”

She promised to text me the number and added, “We appreciate everything you’re doing for her, Jonathon. You’re obviously a good man.”

“Thanks. Of course.” I almost added that it was the least I could do, but I stopped myself. What did I mean by that? That the whole thing was my fault? That I was obligated to her? That our relationship was one of dependency and stoicism? The thought was so unappealing, I banished it immediately.

Dropping my phone on the table after we said good-bye, I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand. What now?

It was a greater question than I was prepared to answer. So I called Jessica.

Then I settled on a compromise between my own opinion and Kylie’s mother’s and I went to her apartment after Jessica showed up to sit with Kylie, who was still sleeping hard. Stepping inside, the air felt warm, hushed, an unpleasant smell in the air. The bed looked even more stark in the morning light than it had in the dark, the covers hanging half onto the floor, the pillows askew. The large dark stain.

Stripping the sheet off the bed, I carefully folded it over and over until it was the size of a piece of paper, and set it down on the counter of her kitchenette. Something told me she would want it.

Then I remade the bed methodically, with sheets I found in a little plastic storage container in the closet, whose drawers were filled with linens and towels. Under the bathroom sink I found air freshener and sprayed the shit out of the place.

With a final glance back at the room, I left quickly, needing to get out of there, convinced the smell of blood was still in my nostrils. It was merely an olfactory memory, of course, but it was giving me a headache, a pounding starting behind my eyes.