If Forever Comes (18 page)

Her smile was almost sad as she looked at me.
With trembling fingers, she reached out and traced my bottom lip.
“That’s all I want, Christian. All I want is to forever be
yours.”

Christian ~ Early June, Four
Months Earlier

Wracked, broken sobs beat into my chest where
her face was buried. I stood at the side of the bed, bent over her
as I cradled her head in the crook of my arm. My other arm was
mashed between us, our hands clasped, clutching, searching for
anything to ease this pain.

My head spun with confusion. A disordered
chaos rained down like a raging storm, a flood sent to ruin and
destroy.

Elizabeth clamped down on my hand as she wept.
She pressed her face deeper into my shirt. Her mouth gaped open as
she cried out, “No.”

Dizziness swept through me. It amplified the
shock that clung like a torpid haze to my muddled mind. A sharp
stab of sickness twisted my gut, so strong it almost brought me to
my knees.

No
.

Elizabeth’s doctor’s voice broke through. “I
know you don’t want to do this, Elizabeth, but I need you to. Just
one little push, okay? All we need is one tiny push and it’ll all
be over.” Dr. Montieth coaxed her, the woman’s tone sympathetic as
she persuaded Elizabeth into succumbing to what she didn’t want to
do.

“I can’t,” Elizabeth wailed again. Her tears
soaked through my shirt as she wept against my chest. She squeezed
my hand so tightly it constricted the blood flow, her fingernails
cutting into the skin at the back of my hand.

I tightened my hold on her. I would give
anything to stop this. Would give up my life, would give up my
soul.

No
.

Desperately I searched inside myself for a way
to give her comfort. I wanted to tell her it would be all right. I
tried to say it, but the lie only wedged in my throat.

It wouldn’t be all right.

Instead I begged, “Shh…baby…shh,” through a
choked whisper at her ear, completely helpless. Utterly and
completely helpless. Powerless to do a goddamned thing but stand
here and watch our world fall apart.

“Yes, you can, Elizabeth. I need you to do
this for me,” Dr. Montieth prodded. Her voice was both soft and
firm.

Elizabeth screamed as her body gave in. She
cried out into my shirt that was drenched with her tears. I
clutched her by the back of her head, held her closer, let her sobs
tear and rend and destroy as they sliced though me.

Cold slipped through my veins as an anguished
stillness seized the room.

Breaths were held in the second my heart
broke.

God, I’d dreamed about this moment since the
second Elizabeth and I had stood in her bathroom with that test,
while joy had consumed us as we’d hoped for this future. Pages upon
pages had been dog-eared in that fucking book I kept on my
nightstand, the one I’d studied as if it were the Bible, so I’d be
familiar with every detail. I wanted to be prepared to support
Elizabeth, wanted to be prepared to welcome our little girl into
this world.

But I never could have been prepared for
this.

Absent were the cheers of encouragement.
Absent was the rally of support. There was no urgent thrill and
there was no joy radiating from these walls.

Instead, stifled air bore down from above,
smothering, suffocating, a silence so thick it echoed from the
cold, sterile floor.

It was penetrated only by the deep, agonized
cries that ripped from Elizabeth.

In it was chaos, mayhem in my mind. Because I
could make no sense of this.

Because it was senseless. Wrong.
Unimaginable.

Part of me didn’t want to see, the other
couldn’t look away. My hold was fierce as I clutched Elizabeth,
keeping her face hidden in my chest as if I could shield her from
the cruelty that played out before my eyes.

And there were no shrill cries that welcomed
her into this world.

There was just an unbearable stillness and the
most excruciating pain I’d ever experienced in my life.

On a disposable blue pad, Elizabeth’s doctor
held our lifeless child in her hands.

Blood stained her, covered her whole, this
little girl that already held my heart. My vision blurred. She was
so small. God, she was so small. So thin. The cord that was
supposed to have sustained her life, but had instead snubbed it
out, was still connected to her belly, still connected to
Elizabeth.

Vomit pooled, and I forced it down as I
stumbled through the fog that tumbled and whirled. Somewhere within
myself, I fought for coherency, screamed at myself to wake up,
because this had to be nightmare. There was no possible way that
this was real.

Through the haze, I blinked down at my baby
girl as they cut through her cord.

The nurse took her away while Dr. Montieth
continued to work on Elizabeth, to birth the aftermath of our
destruction.

And Elizabeth. She just cried. She just cried
and cried and wouldn’t stop, and I had no idea how to stop the
pain.

I kissed her on the crown of her head. “I love
you, Elizabeth,” I whispered into her hair.

She clung to me a little tighter.

I glanced at the clock. It was just after two
a.m.

It’d felt like seconds, like ages since this
morning when it’d started with the promise of our
future.

How had it ended this way?

Just like that.

Over.

Elizabeth had called me a little before noon.
I’d answered with a smile, laughing with Matthew as we picked up
our tuxes. But Elizabeth…the fear in her voice had struck me
silent. She’d whispered that she was sure something was wrong.
Hoping to assuage her fear, I told her not to worry and to call Dr.
Montieth. Still, something inside me had quaked.

I knew I should have been gentler with her
this morning, knew I’d been rough and demanding.

Knew if I’d hurt her I’d never forgive
myself.

Dr. Montieth had told her to drink some orange
juice, to lie down for a while and then to call her back if she
still didn’t feel Lillie move after half an hour.

That half hour had passed, and Elizabeth had
called me, frantic, begging me to come home. I was already on my
way.

We went into the emergency room where they
sent us up to the maternity floor. Dr. Montieth had met us. She’d
come into the room with the normal smile on her face. She had
laughed a little, teasing Elizabeth that she was always worrying,
her casual demeanor something that always set us both at
ease.

Until I saw her face.

I saw it, the grim set of her mouth as she
held that little probe at Elizabeth’s belly, as she searched and
searched and searched for a heartbeat that she told us later had
probably stopped beating during the night before.

She thought it was a cord accident, although
she said we couldn’t be one hundred percent certain.

But in the end, it didn’t matter because it
didn’t change the fact that our little girl was gone.

Dr. Montieth had given us our options.
Elizabeth could be induced or she could go home and wait for her
body to naturally go into labor. But the one option we wanted
wasn’t viable, the one that would give us the chance for this baby
to live.

Neither Elizabeth nor I could bear the idea of
going home and knowing that our child was gone.

And eight hours later, we were
here.

Broken.

Elizabeth continued to cry, and I tried to
breathe—tried to breathe for her as I hovered over her, hugging her
to me, but it felt impossible, because there wasn’t enough air for
the both of us. Not enough for any of us.

My head pounded, throbbed and splintered,
blinding, so severe I couldn’t see.

Finally, Dr. Montieth finished the torture,
but the torment had only begun.

Thirty minutes later, one of the nurses came
back in. I edged back and stood at the head of the bed to give her
room, so she could come to Elizabeth’s side. Sympathy was written
in every line on the woman’s face, her voice subdued as she bent
her knees and got to eye level with Elizabeth. “Would you like to
hold her now?”

Through her tears, Elizabeth frantically
nodded. “Yes.”

She’d already decided this. Elizabeth wanted
to see, to be given the chance to hold our baby girl.

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

A few moments later, she returned. Lillie was
completely wrapped in a blanket, her face covered. The nurse gently
laid her in Elizabeth’s arms.

An unrecognizable sound squeezed from
Elizabeth, a pain so intense, it ricocheted around the room,
reverberated off the walls, slammed into me. She cradled her on her
shoulder, rocked her as she cried out toward the ceiling, as she
cried out toward the heavens. It transformed into a desperate whine
as Elizabeth slowly began to unwrap her, as she kissed her face and
her fingers and her toes. Elizabeth felt her, touched her, a frenzy
taking over Elizabeth as she tried to memorize every inch of the
little girl we would never really know.

I moved to sit in a chair beside Elizabeth’s
bed. I rested my elbows on my thighs with my hands dangling between
my knees. I just gave Elizabeth time, because that was the only
thing I had to give.

Elizabeth’s mother came and went, touched my
cheek as she passed.

Hours passed, and the sun slowly rose on what
was supposed to be our wedding day.

And still I reeled, my thoughts unable to
catch up to this savage reality.

All off it… I dropped my head toward the
ground and buried my face in my hands. I could bear none of
it.

There was a soft knock at the door. It opened
so slowly, and I looked up just as my mother emerged. Tears stained
her cheeks, her vivid blue eyes dimmed with the same agony that
held my heart. She stood there, biting at her bottom lip as another
round of tears streamed down her face. Her attention locked onto
Elizabeth, who rocked the child, unwilling to let her
go.

She approached, almost cautious, and eased
down to sit on the edge of the bed. With her palm, she touched
Elizabeth’s face and drew it up to meet her own.

God, I had to look away. What was held in
Elizabeth’s expression tore me apart. She was shattered. Swollen,
dark bags hung beneath her eyes. Those eyes were red, glassy,
dazed, as if she couldn’t make sense of this any more than I could.
In all of it was agony.

Mom brushed her hair back and kissed her
forehead. “You brave, wonderful girl,” she said as she held
Elizabeth by the chin, sitting back as her head drifted to the
side. She never broke connection with the grief flowing from
Elizabeth’s gaze.

Finally she turned her attention to Lillie
and, with her palm, cupped her tiny head. “Look at her…she’s
beautiful.” Sorrow clotted her words, and she ran her thumb along
the span of her forehead. “I know you don’t need me to tell you
this, but don’t let anyone try to convince you this child is
anything less than your daughter.”

Mom unfolded an old blanket that she pulled
from a bag and draped it across our child. “This belongs to
her.”

Elizabeth choked over a sob.

I averted my gaze to the ceiling. God, this
was excruciating. Brutal.

Then she rose, touched her little hand, then
placed another kiss to Elizabeth’s head, let it linger like an
embrace.

She turned and kissed me in almost the same
way as she’d done Elizabeth, with actions that were full of
understanding, with sympathy that I wasn’t sure I could
bear.

Then she quietly slipped out of the
room.

Elizabeth’s sister, Sarah, came in with the
same result. Just more fucking sorrow heaped into this room that
was becoming harder and harder to bear.

I yanked at my hair, feeling like I was
seconds from losing my mind. I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t. I didn’t
want to. I wanted my daughter. I wanted Elizabeth to become my
wife. I wanted to make this right.