I stared open-mouthed at the man dressed in pale blue scrubs standing opposite me in the waiting room. His dark hair was cropped short, his right hand held self-consciously in front of his abdomen. Squinting, I saw the telltale splatter of blood he was trying to conceal beneath it.
"I’m sorry to have to tell you that we’ve had to perform an emergency hysterectomy."
"You can’t be serious!" Davis exclaimed from beside me.
I’d forgotten he was even there, though we’d been waiting together in the small, dimly lit room for almost an hour, ever since Katherine had been whisked away.
I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I’d hoped, of course. What grandmother doesn’t want to be there for the birth of her first grandchild? I’d thrown out hints, some subtle, some patently obvious, but Katherine had said she just wanted Davis. She didn’t want to be fussed over, and I had planned to respect that, but when she’d had a sudden contraction in my dining room during Sunday lunch and stood up, her waters breaking over my hand-woven Tibetan rug – a gift she had sent me from her travels abroad – Davis had flown into a panic about being over the limit and I’d grabbed my keys and taken control. I meant to just drop them off at the maternity ward and drive away, but when it came to it, I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave her.
"Why?" I choked. "Why would you do that?"
The obstetrician held my gaze bravely, his eyes filled with empathy yet wholly unapologetic. "To save her life."
I spun to Davis, barely able to hold myself back from launching at him, my anger directed entirely towards the man who’d kept me from my daughter when she needed me most. He’d refused to allow me into the delivery room, sending me off to wait alone and anxious in the hospital café. He’d said Katherine wanted privacy, and though she’d been in no fit state to send me away herself, I had seen the way her face had tightened, her desire for me to leave. It had always been that way between us. Me trying to get closer, her pulling back. Even now, in her most vulnerable moment, she couldn’t let me in. But she shouldn’t have had to go through something as frightening as giving birth without me by her side; Davis should have realised that. He should have spoken up so I could be there too.
I fixed him with a penetrating stare. "You said she was just having a C-section! That the baby was stuck, in distress. You never even mentioned the possibility that they would rip out her womb, for Christ’s sake!"
Davis made a wounded sound and cleared his throat. "Hazel, stop. Please. I didn’t know. How could I have?"
The surgeon gave a sombre nod and I spun to glare at him. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "This wasn’t a planned outcome. Sometimes things go wrong, and in Katherine’s case, unfortunately they did. She had a massive haemorrhage during the Caesarean section. We needed to control the bleeding."
"So you just went ahead and did it? Without even asking us? Her husband? Her mother? You should have come to us first!" I said, my voice shrill and reedy. There was a swelling in my chest like a balloon on the verge of bursting. Katherine had dreamed of having five children since she was barely walking herself. She wanted a house full of laughter and love and noise, and now, because of the actions of this so-called surgeon, that would never happen. I glanced at Davis, trying to read his blank face, frustrated by his silence.
The surgeon cleared his throat. "In an ideal situation, someone would have come to talk to you. But there was no time. I had to make a choice between your daughter losing her womb or losing her life. I chose the former, and I’m sure you’ll agree it was for the best."
"Will she live?" Davis whispered. "Is she going to be okay?"
"I believe she will. She’s stable now. We’ve managed to get the bleeding under control. I’m truly sorry," he said, his eyes meeting mine, softening at last. "I know it’s not what you were expecting to hear. It’s going to take some adjustment, especially for your daughter. But she’s alive, and today, that was the best outcome we could hope for."
I felt myself sway as I absorbed his words, the horrible realisation that I might have lost her. My stomach tightened beneath my floral-patterned shirt and for a moment I felt like I might be sick. I closed my eyes, my hand reaching out for the wall as I breathed deeply, trying to pull myself together.
"Hazel, are you all right?"
I opened my eyes, blinking as I saw Davis’s expression, which was filled with a level of concern I was unaccustomed to from him. "I… Yes, sorry, I’m okay. Just came over a bit funny." I straightened up, wiping the cold sweat from my palms against the navy-blue linen of my trousers.
Davis nodded, his lips pursed, then turned away from me. "Can I see her?" he asked, his hands fluttering lightly around his hips, his feet already moving towards the door.
"Not yet. She’s heavily sedated in recovery, but you’ll be able to go in when she’s awake."
"And the baby?" I whispered, looking towards Davis. He paused, taken aback by my question. I realised he hadn’t asked about his child, only his wife, and wondered if it was because he had already assumed the worst. "What about the baby?" I said, filled with a sudden urgency.
The surgeon’s face morphed into a curiously blank expression, and I felt my blood run cold.
"Tell me," I insisted. "Did Katherine’s baby survive?"
"Hazel," Davis said, shaking his head. "I need to speak to the doctor alone. Katherine would want me to."
My eyes widened as I realised what he meant. "You want me to leave? When I don’t know if my grandchild is dead or alive? You can’t seriously expect me to do that?"
He stared at me, his lips pressed tightly together. "Just give me a short while, okay?" He stepped forward, placing his hand lightly on my forearm, waiting for me to look him in the eye. "Please, Hazel. Today has been long and draining for all of us. I’m sorry but I can’t have you here for this conversation, not without Katherine knowing what’s happened first."
The surgeon folded his arms, waiting patiently for me to surrender to Davis’s wishes. I felt the familiar hurt that had become such a habit with me since Katherine had met Davis. That hollow abandonment that came from being excluded from their lives, their secrets, of which there seemed to be so many. I would have argued that Katherine would want me here – she’d want me to be the one to break the news to her, if there was indeed news to break, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t true. She would shut me out, as she always had. She’d want Davis. Not me.
"Go for a walk, Hazel. Grab a bite to eat. I’ll call you when you can come and see Katherine. I’m sure she’ll appreciate your support."
I bit my tongue, holding back the venom that bubbled beneath the surface, the bitter resentment that threatened to overflow, poisoning everything around me. But I couldn’t let it out, not if I wanted to be included in whatever came next. I would have to accept my meagre role, or have nothing at all.
I bent down to the coffee table, grasping the strap of my handbag tightly, my palm soaked with sweat again, my heartbeat resonating in my ears. I gave a short nod, not meeting either of their pitying glances, and turned towards the door. "I have my phone on loud. Call me the minute I can come and see her."
"Of course," Davis agreed.
I cast one last look at the surgeon, hoping to see a sign letting me know my grandchild was safe. A wink. A subtle nod. Anything to bring this unbearable wait to an end. He must understand how hard it was, the not knowing. But he was bound by the rules of confidentiality. He stared back, giving nothing away, and with a heavy sigh I opened the door and stepped out into the harsh lights of the corridor, blinking back stinging tears as I pulled the door closed behind me.
Light seeped through my sticky eyelids, bright and unwelcome. I turned my head to one side and felt warm, comforting hands touching my face, my arm. "She’s coming round." The voice was gentle yet unfamiliar, and it caused a jolt of fear as all at once I remembered where I was, what I was doing there. Struggling to open my eyes, I blinked against the light, grabbing for the rail on the side of the bed, trying to pull myself up.
"Hey now, it’s okay, Katherine. You’re safe. Just lie back. You’ve had surgery, but you’re okay."
"Wh-Wh…" I attempted to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate, my tongue like sandpaper, a dry mass of jelly stuck to the roof of my mouth. Without needing to ask, the nurse slid a hand beneath the back of my head and pressed a plastic tumbler of lukewarm water to my parched lips. I sipped it gratefully, letting the liquid wash around my mouth, reawakening the cells, then swallowed, licking my lower lip, and let her guide my head back to the stack of pillows. Focusing on her face, I found kind dark eyes watching me, her round cheeks homely somehow. "Thank you," I managed, though it came out slurred.
"You just let me know if you need any more. The anaesthetic can make you feel very groggy."
"Ba… the bab…" I realised I couldn’t finish the question, and it was only partly to do with a dry mouth and the after-effects of the drugs. The last thing I could remember was Davis’s terrified eyes staring after me as I was wheeled out of the labour room in a flurry of activity. Shouts and instructions had flown above my head as the realisation that my natural birth with the soft lighting and the sounds of the forest CD was over, and my life was now in the hands of strangers.
Was this nurse giving me the soft, gentle voice because she was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear? I should know, shouldn’t I? If my babies were alive, I’d be able to sense it. Feel the pull towards them. I couldn’t feel a thing. Not even pain. A strange sense of numbness engulfed my whole body. Was that right? Normal?
The nurse placed a hand on my forearm and I held my breath, nodding for her to speak.
Instead, she turned away, busying herself with a stack of papers attached to a clipboard. My hand reached for her, brushing her sleeve, and she turned to me. "Rest, Katherine. You’ve had a difficult time of it. Your husband is on his way to see you."
"But…"
She shook her head. "Don’t try to talk, sweetie. Not yet. You’ll find your words a little slurred for a while. It’ll all come back to you soon."
She patted my hand and subtly unfurled my fingers from the sleeve of her uniform. I stared at her, certain that she was deliberately misunderstanding me. And there could only be one reason for her to do that. Why else would she keep silent?
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to conjure up some memory of what had happened to me. I could picture my mum’s face as Davis left her at the entrance to the maternity ward, the longing in her eyes that I’d pretended not to notice. It had felt wrong to push her aside, but there was no way around it. It had been impossible to hide my pregnancy from her, but we’d kept the fact that I was carrying twins a secret.
I was sure it was down to my being an only child, her having nobody else to direct her attention towards, but she’d always been intense, in a well-meaning, slightly claustrophobic fashion. It had been bearable, for the most part, throughout my childhood. But since my dad had died ten years ago, she’d upped the dial to full-scale smothering. She was the type of person who googled symptoms and shared birth horror stories over the dinner table. Being pregnant was fuel to her fire, a constant source of worry as she checked up on my caffeine intake and berated me for continuing to work.
Before I’d reached my second trimester, she had made me promise I wouldn’t have the home birth I’d set my heart on, as she knew a friend of a friend’s second cousin who’d supposedly bled out on the bathroom floor due to a delayed ambulance. She’d gone through my fridge, throwing out anything that could harm the baby, including chicken, which apparently was too risky because of salmonella.
I was sure it was her way of showing love, keeping me safe, but I knew she would be unbearable if she got wind of the news that I was having twins, and inevitably things would come to blows. Our relationship was difficult enough at the best of times; I didn’t want to do anything to add to the strain on it, so Davis and I had made the decision to keep our news to ourselves until after the babies were born. I’d envisaged her face as she came to visit one grandchild, only to be presented with two. A boy and a girl, they had said. One of each. The perfect start to the big family I’d always dreamed of.
Only now, it seemed that instead of the promised two, there were none. No babies. It couldn’t be true.
"Katherine," the nurse said, interrupting my thoughts. "Your husband is here to see you."
I opened my eyes to find her looking down at me with a crinkled, sympathetic expression. She stepped back and Davis took her place, his expression grim. Wordlessly, he slid a hand beneath the nape of my neck, angling my face to his, pressing his forehead against mine. I felt the hot spill of moisture as tears pooled in my eyes, trickling down my cheeks, relieved that he was with me.
"I’ll give you a moment," the nurse said uncomfortably. "I’m just filling out the handover sheet if you need me." She took a seat at a desk no more than ten feet away from us; the illusion of privacy rather than the real thing.
Davis pulled back to look me in the eye, and I was stunned to see his face wet, his own eyes glistening. I couldn’t remember ever having seen him cry before. "I thought I was going to lose you," he said, his voice uneven, thick with emotion. "I thought you weren’t coming back, but you did." He pressed a kiss to my dry mouth, his fingers digging painfully into the back of my head. "Thank God you did, Katherine."
I coughed, turning my face to one side, my throat hoarse. ‘The babies,’ I croaked. "What happened?"
"Oh, Katherine."
Please…"
He pursed his lips. "We have a son. A healthy baby boy."
I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Instead the silence stretched on, my imagination filling in the awful blanks.
"And?"
He didn’t answer.
"And?" I pressed, my throat raw as I choked out the word.
He shook his head, and I saw a look cross his face that made my chest seize, fear trickling through my veins like ice. He squeezed his eyes shut for the briefest of moments, but it was long enough for me to feel the world ripped out from beneath my feet. To see the truth he didn’t want to speak out loud. ‘No, darling,’ he murmured softly. "I’m so sorry. The baby girl… didn’t make it."
"Our daughter died?"
He nodded. "I’m so sorry," he repeated again, almost as if the loss was mine, not ours. "I know it’s a shock. A terrible shock. But you survived. You’re here. And we have a son." He stroked his fingertips across my jaw, sighing. "And he is beautiful. Just wait until you see him. He’s the spitting image of you, Katherine. So much dark hair, rosy pink lips… We have to count our blessings, don’t we?"
I stared at him, unable to form my thoughts into words, to grasp what he was saying. Finally I spoke. "Where is he? Where’s our son?"
"He’s with a nurse on the ward. Your mum is still here, downstairs in the café, but I didn’t know if you would want her to see him before you."
"Did you tell her? Does she know about…"
"No. I haven’t told her anything."
"Good. That’s good."
"Katherine, I—"
"I want to see him. I need to go now." I was filled with a sudden desperate need to hold my child. To see his face. To fill my mind with him rather than my loss. Because right now, all I could picture was a baby girl slipping from my grasp. The dream that had almost been realised but not quite.
I tried to get up and realised I couldn’t feel my legs.
"Whoa there!" the nurse said, jumping forward, placing a firm hand on my shoulder to keep me on my back. "You’ve had an epidural. You won’t be getting out of bed any time soon."
"I’m not in pain. I need to go. I have to get out of here now."
"And you can. These kind gentlemen are here to escort you back to the ward," she said, nodding towards the door, where two men had just entered. I shrank back, embarrassed at how weak I must look. I didn’t want to be wheeled through the hospital flat on my back with everyone looking at me. The thought of all those eyes on me, people muttering under their breath as they speculated about what had happened to me, filled me with dread. What if I saw someone I knew? What if they asked after the baby and I had to pretend my world hadn’t just been pulled out from under me? I hadn’t been near a mirror since first thing this morning, and I could feel my fringe sticking in clumps to my forehead, the dry patches around my mouth from where I’d dribbled during the surgery.
"Do I have to go back through the hospital like this?" I asked, grabbing the nurse’s wrist, pulling her close so I could whisper. "Can’t you take me a back way to the ward?"
"You look fine, sweetie," she said and smiled, mistaking my vulnerability for vanity. "A little pale, perhaps, but nothing awful. These gentlemen have seen far worse."
The closer of the two, a man of around sixty with a white Santa Claus beard and smiling eyes, gave me a reassuring nod. "Nothing to fuss about, sweetheart. It ain’t no fashion show."
"And your son is waiting to meet you," the nurse added.
Davis took hold of my hand. His was reassuringly warm and steady. I nodded my assent, relieved they were taking me to my son, and leaned back against the pillows, pulling the blue cotton blanket higher up my neck to conceal myself. I peered out as we began to move, a blast of cool air making me shiver as we left the warmth of the recovery ward behind, rattling along the long corridor. I dipped my head, hiding my face as visitors and patients stared at me, filled with an overwhelming desire to disappear.
I couldn’t move my legs, nor wiggle my toes. A sudden panic hit me that I might wet myself, or worse, and I would have no idea I’d even done it. It was a horrible feeling. I concentrated on the image of my son waiting for me as the porters guided my gurney into the lift.
The kind nurse had come with us, and a second nurse too, I realised as they shuffled past Davis to the far end of the lift. The two of them were chatting, relaying numbers back and forth, discussing medications. My mind worked sluggishly as I began to understand that they were discussing me. I must still be coming round from the after-effects of the general anaesthetic. The unsteady movement of the stretcher was making me dizzy and queasy, and I willed the journey to come to an end so I could get my bearings again.
Finally we came to a door I recognised, and the welcoming sound of babies crying and the low murmur of happy voices sent a warmth spreading through my chest that made me feel instantly guilty. How did this work? How was a mother supposed to delight in the anticipation of meeting one child whilst mourning the loss of another? It felt like I was spinning, like I didn’t know which way to turn, how to feel.
I slid the blanket down from my chin, my eyes wide as I kept watch for my son. The porters guided me into a side room, and there, cradling a bundle of blue and green material in her arms, was a red-haired nurse, an abundance of freckles covering every inch of visible skin. She didn’t smile as her eyes met mine. Instead she offered a deep nod of understanding, for which I was grateful. She waited for the porters to settle me on the hospital bed before approaching, then handed the bundle to Davis and backed away to give us some privacy.
Davis held the baby awkwardly, angling him towards me. "Our son. He’s been waiting to meet you, darling."
I reached over and slipped a finger into the mass of blankets, easing them down to better see his face. It was pink and healthy, his eyes closed, his tiny rosebud mouth pursed in sleep. "Oh!" I gasped.
He smiled. "I know. Shall I lie him down on the bed beside you? Is that okay?" he said, directing his question to the red-headed nurse.
"Of course. Here, let me help you." She moved around the bed, rearranging pillows. "It will be a while before you’re able to sit up, Katherine. But we’ll manage." She smiled, moving my arm, nodding for Davis to lower the baby into the safe little nook. He inched the bundle down slowly, and I felt my eyes well up as I caught a whiff of my son’s newborn skin, the top of his head intoxicating. His body was solid and real as he nestled into mine, and I pulled him closer, swallowing back a wave of indescribable emotion.
"Davis, I want to see her." The words came without warning, surprising even myself.
Davis was silent, his eyes darting from my face to the nurse. "I don’t think—"
"Davis, I have to," I said firmly, knowing instantly that it was what had to happen. "I have to hold her. To know that she’s real. I can’t just brush this away. We’ve lost a baby and I won’t be able to fully accept that she’s gone until I see her for myself."
"But you have him."
I shook my head. "He’s wonderful. Beautiful. But he can’t replace our daughter. It doesn’t work like that. You know that, Davis. You must know that."
He looked away, his hands coming up to cover his eyes, his shoulders drooping wearily.
"Did you see her?" I asked softly.
His head snapped up, and he grimaced as if I’d asked something gruesome. "No, Katherine, I didn’t, and I don’t want to. And neither do you. Not really. That image will be one you’ll never forget. Don’t put yourself through it. It will be something you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life."
I shook my head, looking down at my baby boy, trying to imagine his twin. "I don’t think it will. It can’t be any worse than the image I have in my mind already."
Davis looked at the nurse imploringly. "Make her see sense, Nurse. This can’t be healthy, can it?"
She gave an awkward shrug. "Actually, a lot of mums find it very helpful to have a proper goodbye. I was going to talk to you about this anyway, but since you’re asking, yes, we can bring your daughter to you. We have a photographer who works with us who can take pictures for you to remember her by."
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