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A single tear slipped down Laura’s cheek and she angrily swiped it away. “You’re so right,” she said, realizing that he’d put into words what she’d been feeling for so long but couldn’t articulate.
“It’s so true. So many people kept trying to tell me I should be grateful. Dean and even my sister said I should be thankful I lost the baby.”
“No,” Mark said, shaking his head vehemently. “Don’t ever let anybody tell you to be grateful for losing a baby. Babies are wonderful. They’re miracles, and the loss of a baby should never be a relief. Never.”
“But, the father was married. I’d…” I’d broken one of the Ten Commandments. I’d sinned and committed adultery and brought this all on myself.
“It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. You lost a baby, for goodness’ sake. It doesn’t matter how you got that baby.” Mark shook his head. He glanced at her. “Want to talk about it? What happened? I mean, I’m a great listener when I’m not being grumpy.”
Laura smiled. “You are grumpy a lot.”
“Hey.” He gave her a playful shove. “Listen, it’s good to talk about it, though. Get it out. Don’t hold it inside.”
Mark seemed so sincere, so open. Laura decided to give it a chance.
“Dean hated the idea of me being pregnant. He wanted…” She almost couldn’t say it. “He wanted me to get rid of the baby.”
“An abortion.” Mark’s tone lacked judgment.
Laura nodded. “I couldn’t do it. I mean, I thought about it. I did. Being a single mom and Dean not wanting the baby and not even wanting to admit his paternity, but…I just couldn’t do it. For me. I get that other people make different decisions and I am not judging them, but for me, this is what I decided.”
“I get it. Nothing about that decision is easy.”
Laura shook her head. “No. It’s not.” She glanced upward at the clear blue sky above them. A seagull swept by overhead. “At the twelfth week mark, the end of my first trimester, I went in for my regular checkup with my ob-gyn. She couldn’t find a heartbeat, and so she sent me to the hospital next door so they could run an ultrasound. She told me everything was probably fine. Not to worry. Not yet.”
Laura remembered that day. She’d felt concerned but not overly so. Miscarriage hadn’t even entered her mind. But when she got the ultrasound in the very quiet, dark place where she’d been taken, where the technician didn’t say a word, then she’d known something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“They didn’t find a heartbeat. It was awful.” So much more than awful. “My doctor told me the baby had died a week before, maybe even longer. The worst part was that I went all that time and I didn’t even know.”
Mark leaned into her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He said nothing, but she could feel the comfort in his embrace.
“The bleeding began a few days after that, but then it didn’t stop and I had to go to the hospital. I have this disorder, something or other, that the doctors said meant that they had trouble stopping the bleeding once the baby…well, detached.” She looked at him. “I nearly died. I got two blood transfusions.”
“That’s horrible. I didn’t even know that could happen,” he said.
“Neither did I.”
“I’m glad you didn’t die.” He squeezed her shoulders.
“Me, too.” She leaned into him.
“You know, it just proves my theory. Mothers are strong.”
Mother. The very word made her want to cry harder. “But I was never a…” She swallowed, not trusting herself to actually say the word out loud. “My baby was never born.”
Mark took a deep drag of water and then wiped the back of his mouth. “Doesn’t mean you weren’t a mother. Did you care for that baby inside your body while it was alive? Did you give up alcohol? Did you think about your baby?”
Laura nodded. She remembered how careful she’d been after she knew she was pregnant. No alcohol, not even a drop of caffeine—and she loved coffee. She’d eaten more green leafy vegetables and taken her prenatal vitamins religiously. She’d already been picking out names and trying to figure out where she’d put the crib in her cramped San Francisco apartment.
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. You were a mother. For that time. You cared about your baby. You put the baby first. That’s what mothers do.” He glanced at her with knowing, dark eyes. “That means you were a mother.”
