If Forever Comes (Take This Regret #2)(31)
Author: A.L. Jackson

It wouldn’t be all right.

Instead I begged, “Shh…baby…shh,” through a choked whisper at her ear, completely helpless. Utterly and completely helpless. Powerless to do a goddamned thing but stand here and watch our world fall apart.

“Yes, you can, Elizabeth. I need you to do this for me,” Dr. Montieth prodded. Her voice was both soft and firm.

Elizabeth screamed as her body gave in. She cried out into my shirt that was drenched with her tears. I clutched her by the back of her head, held her closer, let her sobs tear and rend and destroy as they sliced though me.

Cold slipped through my veins as an anguished stillness seized the room.

Breaths were held in the second my heart broke.

God, I’d dreamed about this moment since the second Elizabeth and I had stood in her bathroom with that test, while joy had consumed us as we’d hoped for this future. Pages upon pages had been dog-eared in that f**king book I kept on my nightstand, the one I’d studied as if it were the Bible, so I’d be familiar with every detail. I wanted to be prepared to support Elizabeth, wanted to be prepared to welcome our little girl into this world.

But I never could have been prepared for this.

Absent were the cheers of encouragement. Absent was the rally of support. There was no urgent thrill and there was no joy radiating from these walls.

Instead, stifled air bore down from above, smothering, suffocating, a silence so thick it echoed from the cold, sterile floor.

It was penetrated only by the deep, agonized cries that ripped from Elizabeth.

In it was chaos, mayhem in my mind. Because I could make no sense of this.

Because it was senseless. Wrong. Unimaginable.

Part of me didn’t want to see, the other couldn’t look away. My hold was fierce as I clutched Elizabeth, keeping her face hidden in my chest as if I could shield her from the cruelty that played out before my eyes.

And there were no shrill cries that welcomed her into this world.

There was just an unbearable stillness and the most excruciating pain I’d ever experienced in my life.

On a disposable blue pad, Elizabeth’s doctor held our lifeless child in her hands.

Blood stained her, covered her whole, this little girl that already held my heart. My vision blurred. She was so small. God, she was so small. So thin. The cord that was supposed to have sustained her life, but had instead snubbed it out, was still connected to her belly, still connected to Elizabeth.

Vomit pooled, and I forced it down as I stumbled through the fog that tumbled and whirled. Somewhere within myself, I fought for coherency, screamed at myself to wake up, because this had to be nightmare. There was no possible way that this was real.

Through the haze, I blinked down at my baby girl as they cut through her cord.

The nurse took her away while Dr. Montieth continued to work on Elizabeth, to birth the aftermath of our destruction.

And Elizabeth. She just cried. She just cried and cried and wouldn’t stop, and I had no idea how to stop the pain.

I kissed her on the crown of her head. “I love you, Elizabeth,” I whispered into her hair.

She clung to me a little tighter.

I glanced at the clock. It was just after two a.m.

It’d felt like seconds, like ages since this morning when it’d started with the promise of our future.

How had it ended this way?

Just like that.

Over.

Elizabeth had called me a little before noon. I’d answered with a smile, laughing with Matthew as we picked up our tuxes. But Elizabeth…the fear in her voice had struck me silent. She’d whispered that she was sure something was wrong. Hoping to assuage her fear, I told her not to worry and to call Dr. Montieth. Still, something inside me had quaked.

I knew I should have been gentler with her this morning, knew I’d been rough and demanding.

Knew if I’d hurt her I’d never forgive myself.

Dr. Montieth had told her to drink some orange juice, to lie down for a while and then to call her back if she still didn’t feel Lillie move after half an hour.

That half hour had passed, and Elizabeth had called me, frantic, begging me to come home. I was already on my way.

We went into the emergency room where they sent us up to the maternity floor. Dr. Montieth had met us. She’d come into the room with the normal smile on her face. She had laughed a little, teasing Elizabeth that she was always worrying, her casual demeanor something that always set us both at ease.

Until I saw her face.

I saw it, the grim set of her mouth as she held that little probe at Elizabeth’s belly, as she searched and searched and searched for a heartbeat that she told us later had probably stopped beating during the night before.

She thought it was a cord accident, although she said we couldn’t be one hundred percent certain.

But in the end, it didn’t matter because it didn’t change the fact that our little girl was gone.

Dr. Montieth had given us our options. Elizabeth could be induced or she could go home and wait for her body to naturally go into labor. But the one option we wanted wasn’t viable, the one that would give us the chance for this baby to live.

Neither Elizabeth nor I could bear the idea of going home and knowing that our child was gone.

And eight hours later, we were here.

Broken.

Elizabeth continued to cry, and I tried to breathe—tried to breathe for her as I hovered over her, hugging her to me, but it felt impossible, because there wasn’t enough air for the both of us. Not enough for any of us.

My head pounded, throbbed and splintered, blinding, so severe I couldn’t see.

Finally, Dr. Montieth finished the torture, but the torment had only begun.

Thirty minutes later, one of the nurses came back in. I edged back and stood at the head of the bed to give her room, so she could come to Elizabeth’s side. Sympathy was written in every line on the woman’s face, her voice subdued as she bent her knees and got to eye level with Elizabeth. “Would you like to hold her now?”

Through her tears, Elizabeth frantically nodded. “Yes.”

She’d already decided this. Elizabeth wanted to see, to be given the chance to hold our baby girl.

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

A few moments later, she returned. Lillie was completely wrapped in a blanket, her face covered. The nurse gently laid her in Elizabeth’s arms.

An unrecognizable sound squeezed from Elizabeth, a pain so intense, it ricocheted around the room, reverberated off the walls, slammed into me. She cradled her on her shoulder, rocked her as she cried out toward the ceiling, as she cried out toward the heavens. It transformed into a desperate whine as Elizabeth slowly began to unwrap her, as she kissed her face and her fingers and her toes. Elizabeth felt her, touched her, a frenzy taking over Elizabeth as she tried to memorize every inch of the little girl we would never really know.