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I sighed. “So what do I do now?”
“Search my house. Come on, I’ll help you.”
Rhys and I looked in every room, drawer, and under every piece of furniture. No keys.
“I appreciate your/my/our ghost’s sense of humor, but I really need my keys. My spare set is in Fort Worth,” I said.
“Wait a sec. There’s one place we didn’t look.”
“Where?”
“My bedroom closet. Be right back.”
Rhys returned to the kitchen with a medium-sized box and set it on the island. When he took off the lid, I saw my car keys. They were lying on top of all of Rhys’s keepsakes of us.
“There you go,” he chuckled, handing my keys to me.
“This is unreal.”
“I think it’s great.”
I looked back down at the box, scanning its contents. “You’re so sentimental,” I said.
“You’re welcome to go through everything if you want.”
“You don’t mind?”
“No. Why would I?”
“It’s just…private.”
“Not when it comes to you.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. Then I started inspecting each item, one by one, taking trips back in time. When I reached the bottom of the box, I saw my pregnancy test and carefully picked it up. I kept staring at it, getting more and more choked up by the second.
“This brings it all back,” I said, looking at Rhys standing beside me.
He stroked my cheek with his fingertips. “I know.”
“Where do you think we’d be today if I hadn’t miscarried?”
“I think we’d be together, happily married, and probably with two or three kids. But I don’t know how accurate that is because you still dreamed about living and working in a big city.”
“If I hadn’t miscarried, I don’t think that dream would’ve ever entered my mind. I never told you this, but I felt like I did something wrong to lose our baby.”
Rhys shook his head. “You didn’t, though. It was just nature taking its course.”
“Well, whatever it was, it did something to me. I remember thinking you deserved to be with someone who could give you children because I knew you wanted your own family.”
“I do, but if my family consists of just you and me, I’d be happy too. Riley, you are my everything. You are my forever, and you always will be.”
As I was leaving Cypress Hills to go back to Fort Worth, I was fine until I crossed over the bayou. Once I had, my tears flowed. I was feeling things so intensely today. I knew it was because I’d shared another amazing weekend with Rhys, and then the morning sickness situation with Destinee at church and seeing my positive pregnancy test.
When I made it to my duplex, I texted Rhys to let him know. He sent back a red heart emoji and said he’d call me when he and Jackson were done tending the cows.
I didn’t feel like unpacking, so I stretched out across my bed, noticing the cramping that I’d started experiencing on my way home was getting worse to the point of nauseating me. Then, I felt the warmth between my legs and went to the bathroom.
Sitting on the toilet, looking at the blood in my panties, I realized my IUD was in the process of coming out. I needed to see my gynecologist, but it was Sunday, and her office was closed. I was going to have to tough this out until tomorrow. An hour and a half later and running a fever, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to and drove myself to the hospital near my duplex.
