“There’s really nothing to do for it.” Mrs. Casey shrugged. “They’re going to keep her overnight out of an abundance of caution, and Willow will need to rest for a little while once we bring her home, but the doctor said she wouldn’t have to be on full bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy. And there’s a possibility that the placenta will move on its own.”
I looked at Willow again, my forehead scrunched up in confusion. “It moves?” I wasn’t a pregnancy expert. Everything I knew about the process came from watching Willow, although I had glanced at a couple of the books that she’d left lying around. Still, I was aware of what the placenta was, and my understanding had been that it stayed in one place until after the baby was born.
A smile ghosted over Willow’s face. “As the uterus grows, the position of the placenta can change. Right now, mine is slightly over the cervix, or the opening where the baby will come out.” She was explaining it all patiently, as though I were her student. “It can trigger contractions, which was the pain I felt. And the bleeding comes from its proximity to the cervix. But the doctor says that it’s not unusual for the placenta to shift again, this time away from the cervix, during the third trimester. If that happens, then everything should be fine.”
“And if it doesn’t?” I asked, my voice tense.
“If it doesn’t move, which we’re not even going to consider or think about, then they would schedule a caesarian section to deliver the baby a few weeks early,” Mrs. Casey said calmly. “But we’re not going to worry about that tonight. Tonight, we’re just going to be grateful that Willow is fine, that the news was better than it might’ve been, and that both mother and baby are healthy.”
I nodded, feeling some of the terror and tension begin to unknot in my stomach. “Right, So that’s good.” I leveled a meaningful stare at Willow. “You scared the absolute shit out of me tonight. Don’t do that again.”
From his position, still leaning against the wall, Coach chuckled. “I said almost the exact same thing to her a couple minutes before you walked into the room, Lassiter.”
Willow closed her eyes and moved her head slowly back and forth on the pillow, her long hair forming a halo around her head. “Believe me, I don’t want to do it again. The next time I come to this hospital, I want it to be because I’m in labor and about to give birth.” She shuddered. “Preferably with all of the good drugs, because those few contractions I had? They hurt like hell.”
“That sounds like a good plan.” Mrs. Casey glanced at her husband. “John, how about you and I go see if we can find some coffee? I know the doctor said they were going to move Willow up to a room just for the night, but if I know anything about hospitals, that’s going to take a little while.”
Coach frowned at his wife. “You want coffee? Hospital coffee?” He sounded incredulous, as though she’d suggested drinking gasoline.
Mrs. Casey looked at him meaningfully. “Yes. Yes, I do. And so do you.”
“No, I don’t,” he disagreed. “I don’t drink coffee after five o’clock as a rule, and that’s only if it’s good stuff. What they brew here doesn’t qualify.”
“Be that as it may, we’re going to get some.”
Grumbling, Coach pushed himself off the wall and announced, “You stay here. I’ll go see if I can hunt some down for you.”
“No.” Mrs. Casey stood up. “I could use to stretch my legs a little, too. Now that Dean’s here to sit with Willow, I wouldn’t mind a walk.” She came around the end of the bed and hooked her arm through her husband’s. “We’ll be back in a few minutes sweetie. Do you want us to get you anything? Dean, how about you?”
Willow wrinkled her nose. “Thanks, but I have to agree with Daddy about hospital coffee. I think I’m good.”
“No, thanks, ma’am.” I shook my head. “But I appreciate it.”
All right, then.” Mrs. Casey patted Willow’s foot through the thin hospital blanket. “Try to behave yourself while we’re gone.” She gestured toward me with a jerk of her head. “And be nice to Dean. I think I took a few years off his life tonight.”
Once Coach and his wife had left the room, I dragged over a chair closer to Willow’s bedside and sat down. Without even hesitating, I took her small hand in both of mine and bowed my head over it.
“God, Will.” My voice was husky. “Your mother was right. I was terrified. I didn’t have any idea what was going on, and I just thought… the worst.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” A single tear trickled down Willow’s cheek. I reached over and brushed it away with my fingertip.
“Back when I first knew I was pregnant,” she began, her voice, shaky. “Back then, I used to—God, I know this is horrible. But I used to imagine, almost fantasize, about what it would be like if this just … ended. If I had a really heavy period that I could pretend was nothing more than that, even if I knew deep down that it was a miscarriage. I used to think that my life could just go back to what it was before I saw the positive pregnancy test.“ She drew in a long, ragged breath. “Tonight, when my dad was carrying me to the car, and I knew I was bleeding, and I felt that pain—” Willow bit her lip, and more tears begin streaming down her face. “I felt so horribly guilty. Here I’ve been feeling sorry for myself, thinking about making decisions for the future like it’s promised to me.” She opened her eyes and looked at me. “Right before this happened, my mom and dad and I were having—not quite an argument, but let’s say a heated debate about what I was going to do after May. Daddy’s still pushing for adoption, and Mom is still dead set against it. And I was sitting there, listening to them, thinking that I wished I didn’t ever have to make this decision, and then—" She patted her stomach. “Then this happened, and it changed how I felt about everything.”
“Don’t feel guilty,” I urged. “Nothing you were saying or thinking was responsible for the placenta thing.”
“Placenta previa,” Willow reminded me, one side of her mouth tipping up. “And I know you’re right. I’m not saying that it did. It just was—I don’t know, a wake-up call to me. I want to have a better attitude. I want to stop feeling sorry for poor, pitiful Willow. And I need to start thinking like an adult again. I need to start thinking like a parent.”
I nodded my head as if in agreement, but what she’d said ignited some uneasy feelings for me. Was I thinking like a parent? Or by failing to acknowledge my responsibility, was I being flagrantly irresponsible? I tried to imagine how the child she was carrying might react if he or she ever learned how I’d reacted to Willow’s pregnancy. Would the child resent me, or be hurt, or would he or she—
“Oh.” I frowned at Willow as something she had said earlier finally registered in my brain. “You said—you were talking about the ultrasound, and you called the baby aher.”
“Yeah,” Willow chuckled. “All of my insistence that I didn’t want to know the baby’s gender went out the window tonight. We’re definitely having a girl.” She ran her hand over her bump again, and I noticed the air of possessiveness, the difference in her expression. She’d always been very careful to refer to the baby she was carrying asitup until now. I had a feeling that tonight was going to change everything.
I hadn’t been wrong. It has been impossible to ignore the shift in how Willow spoke of the baby, of the difference in her overall attitude since that night. She was somehow less conflicted, more serene. More peaceful.
Unfortunately, my own feelings of guilt and worry had continued to plague me in the days since that night. The more settled Willow seemed, the less sure I was—of anything. I’d never been in love before. I’d also never experienced the feelings Willow inspired in me. Did that mean I was in love with her? Or was the fact that she was carrying my child triggering some kind of ancient possessive response, something that mimicked love?
I didn’t know, and as tempted as I’d been to blurt outI love youso many times, I’d also stopped myself because . . . what if it wasn’t true?
