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“Laura,” he said, and then stopped. What was he going to ask her? Are you okay?
She turned then, eyes brimming with tears, and he knew with a certainty that whatever had triggered this grief was still fresh. Before he could say any more, she dropped the cooler and sprinted away from him.
He felt a sudden urge to go after her, but then what? Maybe she wasn’t grieving. Maybe she was just a crazy person. Maybe he was projecting his own feelings on her. What did he know?
Still, he felt guilty. Guilty because somehow he’d made her cry. And guilty because he knew she suffered in some deep, damaged way that only someone who’d lost something truly dear to them would know. It didn’t sit right with him. He felt the need to make it up to her.
“Well, damn,” he muttered beneath his breath as he swiped up the cooler she’d dropped. “Now I’m going to have to do something nice.”
It went against his gruff, no-nonsense, let’s-not-spend-time-talking-about-our-feelings self. He’d never been a touchy-feely guy, but he couldn’t just let her suffer alone. He knew what that felt like.
* * *
LAURA FLED TO her condo and flung herself on the bed, angrily swiping the tears from her face. She hated that she’d become so weak, so completely unstable that a simple video of a baby and some bronzed baby shoes could so undo her in the moment.
It wasn’t right. She should be getting better, and yet, she just seemed to be getting worse. She was a walking sponge, just oozing tears all the time. She just wanted it to stop, all of it. St. Anthony’s was supposed to be the place where she got away from all the things that hurt her, where she could finally heal. After all, the island was named for the patron saint of lost things. And she’d never felt more lost in her whole life.
Why did this happen to her? Why had God seen fit to take her baby away before he could even be born? Why was she the only one mourning him?
But then again, she knew why. She’d been wrong, so very wrong, to be in love with Dean. This was God punishing her, she felt, for the mistake she made: falling in love with a married man.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Dean was a mistake. She knew that. But, the baby wasn’t. No matter what anybody said.
Her sister had told her that she’d have other babies. But Laura didn’t want another baby. She wanted the baby she lost. She glanced down at her flat belly, hidden beneath her flowing cover-up. Now it might never be full.
She wished she could talk to her mother. Get some measure of comfort, but her mother had died years ago.
Feeling lost and alone, her willpower crumbling, she grabbed her phone and dialed Dean’s work cell.
He answered on the second ring. “Hello?” he sounded harried, his voice low.
“Dean?” She hated how angry he sounded that she’d called, how disappointed. He used to always sound happy when he heard her voice. Now he always sounded like she was calling to deliver bad news.
“What are you doing calling me?” he whispered, his voice a furious, low buzz. Then, she realized that he must be at his house. The house he still shared with his wife.
“Dean. I’m sorry… I’m just…” Lost. Alone. Hurting. Wishing that you still loved me…or that you’d ever loved me at all. She hated all the desperate feelings that bubbled up, determined to break the surface. Dean sure had been happy to hear about the miscarriage. Ecstatic, even. Why did she think he’d comfort her now?
Dean sighed, a sound full of patronizing pity, and she felt even worse. “Look,” he said, voice softer. “I’ll try to call you when I get into work, okay?”
She heard shuffling in the background, and then a voice. His wife’s? She felt her stomach tighten with jealousy.
“I’ve got to go. I have to take my wife to the doctor,” he said, louder this time, in a voice that sounded too businesslike, and she knew that Angela was in the room. He was pretending to talk to someone at work.
“Is she all right?” Laura asked, cautious. After all, she wasn’t heartless.
“Well, we were going to tell everyone at the office this week, but she’s sixteen weeks pregnant.”
The words hit Laura like a ton of bricks. She felt all the wind knocked out of her lungs. Pregnant? His wife was…pregnant? Laura was speechless. Words failed her.
“Oh, yes, thanks,” Dean prattled on in a pretend conversation with a coworker who didn’t exist. Completely oblivious or not caring that he’d shattered what was left of her world. “I’ll check in with you when I’m back in the office. Thanks. Bye.”
And then he hung up, the line dead as she clutched her phone in her numb hand. Dean’s wife was pregnant. She was going to have a baby.
