Accepting His Terms (13 page)

“Funny that what started out as a playful thing, has turned into something neither of us wants to do without. I mean, basically, we are a vanilla couple, but this is one thing that works for us.”

“Well, who ever thought when I proposed to you that day in my office, you’d suggest we try it and that you’d agree to my terms? And who thought we’d fall head over heels for each other and get married within months of that awful day when Ronnie attacked you in the elevator? I was attracted to you, and I knew I wanted something with you, but at the time I had no idea that what I really wanted was marriage.”

“And make it work at that. Who ever would have imagined that we would get together and make it work? I was attracted to you, too, but I thought like every other woman in the office that I didn’t stand a chance. You were so mysterious when it came to your love life. No one could figure out if you even dated anyone,” she added.

He chuckled as he said, “So you all talked about my love life at the coffee pot? A lot of conversations take place there, don’t they? And it does work, by the way - us, I mean. We work.” He pulled her close and kissed her.

“Oh, yes, it does, we do.”

****

Two months later, a home pregnancy test confirmed that Jill was expecting. Jarrod was over the moon with excitement. He wanted to announce it to the world immediately.

“Hold on, slow down. I think we should wait until I’m a little farther along,” she suggested. “Let’s let it be our own little secret for a while. I don’t even want to tell our families yet.”

“I guess I am getting a little ahead of the game, but this is just so damn great!” he said as he agreed to wait.

The morning sickness was mild, and Jill was able to work without anyone suspecting anything. Things were fine, she scheduled an appointment to see her doctor, and work kept them both busy with the new project they were preparing to break ground on.

One afternoon, Jarrod and Bryan had driven up to the site. It was in a wooded area and they needed to check with the tree cutters to make sure they were cutting the right trees. Jill was feeling fine and thought nothing about the fact that Jarrod would be unreachable once he got to the site.

About mid-afternoon, Jill began to feel bad. She went to the bathroom and was dismayed to see a blood stain in her panties. Just as she was going back to her office to get her things to go home and lie down, she began experiencing severe cramps. She called out to Susie to help her. Susie and Jan both rushed to her.

“What’s wrong, sis?” Jan said.

“I need to get to the hospital. I… I’m pregnant and I’m spotting and cramping,” she said as Susie helped her to a chair.

“Oh my God, do I need to call Jarrod?” Jan asked frantically.

Susie spoke up, “Let’s get her in my car and get her to the ER. You can call him in the car.”

The two women helped Jill to the car. By now, the cramps were more severe, as Jill doubled over in pain. Jan tried several times to reach Jarrod and she also tried Bryan’s cell. She couldn’t get through to either one of them.

“I’ll bet they’re either out of range, or it’s too noisy with the tree cutting to hear their phones. Once we get her settled, I’ll drive up to the site and get him,” Susie offered. “You might want to call your mom to come be with the two of you until I can bring Jarrod here.”

As soon as the nurse took Jill back to a room, Susie left and Jan called her mother. Her mother arrived shortly afterward and Jan told her what had happened. A nurse soon told them they could go into Jill’s room.

“How is she?” Mrs. Lincoln asked.

“The doctor has ordered an ultrasound, but she’s barely two months along. I’m not sure he can do anything. I’m sorry, but we think she’s probably already lost the baby.”

“Does she know?” Jan asked.

“The doctor has told her,” the nurse replied kindly.

When Jan and her mother entered the cubicle, Jill was crying softly. She held out her arms to her mother. “Oh, Mama, I’ve lost my baby. And Jarrod doesn’t even know. He wasn’t even here with me.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m here and I’ll stay as long as you need me. Your friend from work has gone to find Jarrod.”

“He should have been here,” Jill said in a muffled voice as she sobbed.

“But he’s working, honey, he has no idea what’s going on. It’s not his fault,” Mrs. Lincoln tried to console her older daughter.

Because of Jill’s emotional state, the doctor ordered a sedative. “We’ll keep her here until her husband arrives. If she’s doing better, we’ll let him take her home tonight,” he told Jill’s mother as he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I wish there was more we could do.”

Jill finally slept after the nurse gave her the medication. Several hours later, while she was still asleep, Jarrod, Bryan, and Susie arrived. The same nurse immediately took Jarrod to Jill’s room. Her mother stood up and hugged him when he entered the room. “I’m so sorry, Jarrod.”

“Thanks, Sally, how is she?” he asked his mother-in-law.

“She didn’t take it well, especially the fact you weren’t here,” Sally explained sadly.

“Damn it. I never dreamed anything like this could happen. I didn’t give it a thought I would be unreachable at the site,” he said as she sat beside his wife’s bedside.

“You had no way of knowing. She’s just upset right now. I’m sure when she’s had some time to recover, she’ll realize that.”

As Jill stirred and rolled over, Jarrod took her hand. He laid his head down and sobbed as he said, “I’m so sorry, baby.”

Sally gently tapped him on the shoulder and said softy. “Jan and I are going to go so the two of you can be alone. Call me if you need anything. I’d be happy to come to the house and stay with her if you need me to.”

“Thanks. And, Jan, thanks for bringing her. Susie said the two of you brought her. She told me what happened at the office.”

“I’ll see you later,” Jan replied. “It’s going to be okay. You have each other. You’ll get through it together. I’ve always told Jill I admire the closeness the two of you share.”

“Oh, do you have your car here?” Sally suddenly asked.

“Yes, Susie had someone bring it, thank you,” Jarrod replied.

“We’ll go now, but remember, call if you need us.”

“I will, thank you both again for being here.”

****

A few hours later, the doctor told Jarrod he could take his wife home. As he helped her into the car, he told her again how sorry he was for not being there for her. When she didn’t answer him, his heart broke into a million tiny pieces. His precious Jill was withdrawing from him. Knowing her as well as he did, he sensed the difference when she refused to accept the comfort he offered. When they arrived at the house, she went straight to bed and cried herself back to sleep, with Jarrod by her side, suffering his own private grief, and wondering how he could ever make it up to her that he wasn’t there when she needed him the most. He grieved for the baby lost to them, and he grieved for the wife he felt was slipping away.

Chapter Sixteen

That night, Jarrod sat beside the bed for hours watching Jill sleep. It was a fitful night for her, as he noticed the many times she tossed and turned. Near dawn, he finally crawled into bed beside her and pulled her close. When he awoke a few hours later, she was sobbing quietly into her pillow and had moved out of his embrace.

“Baby, can I get you anything?” he asked softly.

When she didn’t answer, he pulled her close again.

She turned to him and said, “You weren’t there. I needed you and you weren’t there.”

“I would have been there if I’d known. Surely you understand that, don’t you?”

“But you weren’t there. I know you couldn’t be reached, but we should have thought of that. What kind of parents would we have been, anyway, if we didn’t think to make sure you could be reached at all times? What if our baby was here and he or she had been sick and I couldn’t reach you?”

“Sweetheart, you can’t think like that. From now on, we’ll make sure you can reach me. But you can’t say we won’t be good parents, because we will, we’ll be the best.”

“No, we won’t. God took our baby away from us because he knew we couldn’t do it.”

“Jill, you don’t mean that.” He tried to comfort her by placing butterfly kisses on her forehead and caressing her cheek.

“Don’t,” she said as she turned away from him.

“Baby, don’t do this. Don’t do it to yourself, don’t do it to me. I’m hurting, too. We need to comfort each other.”

“I… I need some coffee. Would you mind?” she asked.

“Of course, I don’t. You rest and I’ll bring you a cup when it’s ready. Jill, you need to stop beating yourself up over this. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not yours, not mine. These things happen. We can try again when you’re ready.”

“I can’t even think about that. Please just go and leave me alone.”

As he walked down the stairs to the kitchen, he shook his head. The phone rang as he was waiting for the coffee to brew and he answered it quickly so it wouldn’t disturb Jill upstairs in the bedroom.

“Hello,” he said.

“Jarrod, it’s Sally. How is she this morning?”

“Not doing well, I’m afraid. She says God took our baby from us because we won’t be good parents and that I should have been there. She is just not herself at all.”

“Try and get her to eat something, and I’ll stop by later. Jarrod, don’t take anything she says right now to heart. She’ll come around.”

He hung up the phone and fixed a tray with toast, juice, and coffee to take upstairs. When he got back to the bedroom, he saw that she was still lying quietly in the bed, staring at the ceiling.

“I brought you some breakfast. And your mom called. She said she’d stop by to see you later.”

“She doesn’t need to. There is nothing she can do. There is nothing anyone can do.”

Jarrod shook his head. “I think you need to sit up and eat something. Why don’t you go splash water on your face first? It’ll make you feel better.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I may not be good mother material, but I’m damn well capable of taking care of myself. I did just fine before I met you and I can sure as hell do it now.”

Taken aback by the sudden outburst from his normally sweet wife, he set the tray down, picked up his own cup of coffee, and left her alone.

As he made his way to the library, his thoughts went back to Jill. What could he do to bring her out of this? Because knowing her as well as he did, he knew if she didn’t snap out of it, she would slip further and further away from him and all who loved her.

Sitting down at his desk, he put his head in his hands and sobbed again. He was grieving and Jill was grieving, but they couldn’t grieve together. That in itself was enough to cause the man who was always in control of his emotions to falter. Today they needed each other more than ever, needed the bond they shared to pull them through this tragic loss, and that bond had somehow been severed. He had felt it when he had brought her home the night before. She was as lost to him right now as their baby was.

Finally, he finished his coffee and picked up the phone to call his parents at his beach house, where there were staying for the week. They had asked to use it while visiting friends in the area.

When his dad answered the phone, he faltered for just a minute before regaining his composure. “Dad, how are things down there?”

“Everything is fine, son. Is anything wrong? You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news. Something’s happened.”

“What is it? With the business, did you big deal fall through?”

“No, nothing like that,” he replied.

“What is it, Jarrod? Is it Jill?”

“Oh, Dad, yes, it’s Jill. We found out recently she was pregnant. We were over the moon, both of us. We’d decided to keep it a secret for a while, but yesterday Jill…she lost the baby.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. This is a pain I’d hoped you’d never have to bear.”

“There’s more. I was at the job site overseeing the tree cutting. My cell was out of range and I missed the call to go to the hospital. By the time Susie drove up to the site and I got back to town, it was too late. Jill can’t forgive me for not being there.”

“Oh, Jarrod, the poor girl is heartbroken. She’ll come around.”

“No, Dad, you don’t understand. Jill’s a very nervous person. She has her moods and her nervous habits. I’ve learned to read her like a book. I know exactly when she is in one of her funks and this is the worst I’ve ever seen. She is angry, withdrawn, she says our baby was taken from us because we wouldn’t have been good parents. If I was a good dad I would have made sure I could be reached in any emergency.”

“It’s the grief talking, give her some time. Just be there for her. And hard as it may be, don’t get angry in return.”

“I don’t know. I have a very bad feeling about this. Like I said, we’ve become so close, I can read her and I know her moods. This is completely different.”

“Let me put your mother on the phone. We’ll get things packed up here and head back in the morning. Again, I’m sorry, Jarrod.”

When his mother spoke to him, it was apparent that his dad had told her about the miscarriage. “Jarrod, honey, I’m so so sorry. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“Mom, I know this is a shock to you. Thank you for cutting your trip short.”

“Did you honestly think we wouldn’t? Honey, we’ll be there. Just take a few deep breaths and take care of your lovely wife.”

“That’s just it. I don’t think she wants me anywhere around her.”

“She may not right now. Just give her some time and space. I understand more than you know.”

“Mom, I need you here.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t think you’ve ever said that to me. You know I’ll be there just as soon as I can. Please take care of yourself and Jill until I get there.”

“Sally will be here in a little while. Maybe she can get through to Jill.”

“Jarrod, I know you don’t think things will get better right now and I know you’re at a loss and grieving, too. The pain will eventually lessen, it won’t ever completely go away, but it will get easier. Please just give it some time.”