She’dsuggested that, and now, the idea was like fingernails on a blackboard to her. She couldn’t think of it without wincing.
The car slowed down in the ambulance bay outside the front of the hospital and Raf was moving before it had even fully ceased rolling, jumping out and running around to her side, reaching in and lifting her as he had at home, holding her against his chest. She glanced up at his face, his autocratic, tense face, and felt a swelling of emotion that undermined everything she’d just realized.
Their relationship was empty, and yet her heart was so full.
A sob escaped her before she could suppress it and his gaze fell to her face, the expression on his features one of abject sympathy and grief.
Raf had already been through this, and now here he was, experiencing the hell of a failed pregnancy all over again. Except, it couldn’t be that. She couldn’t let it. She wouldn’t lose this baby. She closed her eyes and prayed to every god she’d ever heard of, even when she knew there was nothing she could do now. This was her body’s choice.
“We need a doctor, immediately.”
“Yes sir, I’ve got some forms here, if you’d just?—,”
“No,” he said firmly. “You will take my—Elodie through to a doctor, right now, and when there is time, I will complete your paperwork.”
“I see, sir, it won’t take long, only for the payment, it needs to be?—,”
“I will buy this goddamn hospital if that makes a difference. Get a doctor, right now.”
The diminutive, older administrative officer was about to say something else, but a doctor appeared from behind the counter. “I can help,” she said. “What’s the problem?”
And Elodie blurted everything out, from her back pain to the cramping she’d felt while out walking, to the clamminess and finally, the bleeding. A moment later, she was being carried byRaf, behind a fast walking doctor, down a linoleum corridor with bright fluorescent lights, and into a private room.
“If you’ll set her down there, please,” the doctor said with a compassionate smile for Elodie. “Can you lift your top for me?”
Elodie’s fingers were trembling so much she could hardly reach it. Raf made an indiscernible sound and then, his hands, gentle and steady, were on her shirt, lifting it to just beneath her breasts, exposing her softly rounded stomach.
“This will be a little cold,” the doctor said, squirting gel on her abdomen.
Elodie couldn’t speak. She was numb, preparing for the worst. Raf, beside her, reached down and grabbed for her hand, squeezing it in his. She couldn’t look at him. Not when she knew the emotions she’d see on his face.
Her own were a complex mix of guilt and grief, of feeling she’d somehow failed him, and their little baby.
“You said you’re around eleven weeks?”
“On Tuesday,” Raf said. “She’ll be eleven weeks on Tuesday.”
Elodie closed her eyes then. His voice was husked raw, his detailed knowledge of their baby’s gestational age something she hadn’t really expected. But of course, he was an expert in this—that was why they were together. For the baby. Without it, they were nothing. Just two strangers, who’d slept together impulsively one night. Emptiness spread through her, the kind of pervasive nothing from which she didn’t know if she could ever recover.
“Okay. Let’s have a look and see what’s going on in here,” the doctor said, gently.
She pressed the wand to Elodie’s stomach, her gaze shifting to a thick, old-fashioned looking television. It was angled so Elodie couldn’t see, but the doctor was frowning.
Tears leaked silently from the corners of Elodie’s eyes.
Their baby was gone, she just knew it.
“Doctor?” Raf’s own voice was more imperious, demanding an immediate response.
She glanced at them, then back to the screen. Elodie’s heart was racing and then stopping altogether. Elodie sobbed.
“Stay still, please.” The doctor’s tone now was businesslike and crisp. Elodie couldn’t even look at Raf. She held her breath, held everything still, tried to keep hope in her heart even when her brain was busy trying to prepare her for the reality of what was about to come.
“You said you were pregnant, you keep referring to the baby,” she murmured, glancing from one to the other.
“Yes,” Raf said, finally, after a beat.
The doctor flicked something on the monitor and the most joyous noise Elodie had ever heard began to flood the room. Heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump.
