“So, you didn’t know you were pregnant when you left him?” Robert started walking again at a much slower pace.
She fell into step beside him. “No. We had only just started trying again a couple months ago. I didn’t expect it to happen so fast.”
Especially considering he probably slept with Tina as frequently as he did with me over the last few months.She certainly hadn’t minded the decrease in intimacy with Patrick. That had become as unpleasant as every other interaction with him.
“Do you mind telling me what happened with the other pregnancies?” Robert’s gentle voice pulled her from her musings.
“Nine months after we were married, Patrick’s dad insisted he wanted grandkids. So, Patrick made me go off the pill, even though I thought having a baby just because his dad wanted us to was a bad idea. I prayed I wouldn’t get pregnant, but a part of me hoped maybe a baby would mellow out Patrick.”
Robert snorted beside her, understanding that her hopes had been a foolish dream.
“It took us about five months to get pregnant. I had horrible morning sickness and could barely make it through work, let alone keep up with the cleaning, laundry...and the cooking.” A shudder rippled through her as she remembered Patrick’s anger the night she miscarried. She hugged herself.
Robert stopped walking and let out a low growl. “Let me guess, he beat you when you didn’t have dinner on the table by five.”
Jessie stopped, too. “It took little to set him off,” she whispered. Sucking in a deep breath, she steeled her emotions. “I was only eight weeks along when I miscarried after...one of Patrick’s rages. When I lost the baby, he said I wasn’t ready to be a mother yet if I couldn’t take care of myself and the house while I was pregnant.”
Robert sucked in a sharp breath.
She didn’t want to upset Robert, but she needed to get this out, so she pressed on. “I felt so guilty after I lost the baby.”
“Jess, you shouldn’t—”
She held up a hand. “I didn’t feel guilty because I didn’t think I’d be a good mother. I felt guilty because I didn’t want to be a mother.”
Robert’s brow furrowed as he frowned at her. She and Robert had made enough plans together before she left for New York that he knew she didn’t mean it.
Jessie lowered her eyes. “I loved that child in the few short weeks I carried it, but I didn’t want to bring it into an abusive environment.”
Letting out another growl, Robert shook his head. He bent and picked up a baseball-sized rock. He tossed it in the air a few times, catching it each time it fell, then he swung his arm back and let the rock fly. It soared through the air in a high arc before hitting a boulder thirty yards ahead of them with a sharp crack.
“Nice throw. Coach Wilson would be proud,” she said, thinking of Robert’s high school baseball coach.
“Yeah, except I was aiming for the boulder to the right of that one.” His face reddened as he mumbled the admission.
Jessie bit back a laugh as she judged the distance between the two boulders to be about ten feet. It looked like Providence’s all-star pitcher had lost his edge.
Had his skills deteriorated because of lack of practice, like hers? Or did he miss because his emotions clouded his judgment? She hated to see him upset because of the things she shared with him.
He started walking again, and she joined him, wondering if she should have kept this to herself. They walked in silence for several minutes before Robert spoke.
“What happened with the second pregnancy?”
“I lost that baby at twelve weeks.” The hitch in her voice betrayed the pain she felt at the loss of that child.
“Was ithisfault, again?” Robert’s voice was low, bordering on dangerous sounding.
“No, it was a genetic abnormality in the embryo's formation. It simply didn’t develop properly. When the doctor couldn’t detect a heartbeat at eight weeks, he said not to worry because it was still early. But at twelve weeks, there was still no heartbeat. He told me my body was getting ready to abort the pregnancy, and he sent me home to wait until it happened. If it didn’t happen within the week, I was supposed to go to the hospital so they could induce labor. Two days later, I started cramping. I don’t know if losing the baby upset Patrick as much as it did me, or if he just felt sorry for me, but he didn’t lay a hand on me for almost a month.”
Jessie sucked in a deep breath to fight the emotion that clawed at her throat. In the twelve weeks that she carried that baby, she loved it with her whole heart. Losing it had nearly killed her.
“I’m so sorry you went through that.” The sincerity in Robert’s voice brought tears to her eyes.
Did it cross his mind that if Jessie had never left, he would have been the father of her child, or rather children, and they would have shared that loss? Or maybe she wouldn’t have lost either baby, and she and Robert would be well on their way to having the family they’d always wanted.
Stop it. Stop pining over something you can never have. You walked away, remember?
She’d pined plenty over Robert, already. She’d never tell him, but she’d taken more than one beating because of him; every time Patrick caught her looking at Robert’s pictures, wishing things had turned out differently. Even after he’d burned the pictures of Robert, he still accused her of thinking about her former boyfriend. Truth was, she did often long to return to a happier time where she hadn’t lost Robert’s love.
