“Oh, you’re here, Liv.” Her gaze skims over me as she extends the phone. “Dean is on the phone. He said he couldn’t reach you on your cell.”
“Thanks. I… I’m sorry, I have a migraine.” I start to take the phone from her, then realize I’ll have to return it after speaking to Dean. “Um, could you please tell Dean I’ll call him right back on my cell?”
Joanna puts the phone to her ear as she heads back downstairs. I close the door, press the speed-dial button, and sit on the edge of the bed.
I can’t tell Dean over the phone. I can’t risk him panicking and trying to get back here in the middle of a blizzard. I take a few breaths as the phone rings.
“Liv?”
“Hi.”
“Where’ve you been? I left three messages.”
“Sorry. My phone was off, and I… I left it in the bedroom by mistake.”
“Oh. What’d you do today?”
My chest aches. “Um, just some shopping. Started another book. So no flights today or tomorrow?”
“Not sure about tomorrow yet. I might be able to catch an evening flight or a red-eye if they get the roads cleared. Problem is that the storm moved into Chicago, so that messed up all the connections.” He sighs. “Anyway, it might be Thursday at the latest. I miss the hell out of you.”
“I miss you too.”
He lowers his voice an octave. “Want to tell me how much?”
A laugh chokes my throat. Oh, Dean.
“Actually, I… I have a little bit of a headache right now, and I’m kind of tired.”
“You didn’t overdo it, did you?”
“No, no. Just tired. I’m going to turn in early.” I struggle to put some lightness in my tone. “You’re on your own tonight, professor.”
“You’ll be in my dreams, beauty.”
I say goodbye and end the call before realizing I didn’t tell him I love him. I return a message from the hospital nurse. She tells me the blood test confirmed the miscarriage and that she’ll send the report to Dr. Nolan. Then I call Dr. Nolan to explain what happened and listen as she expresses her sympathies and gives me similar instructions to the ones I received in the emergency room.
I turn off the phone and go to take a shower. I close my eyes against the hot spray, not wanting to see the red swirls going down the drain. Then I pull on my nightgown, affix a maxi-pad to my underwear, and crawl into bed.
My sleep is broken, blistered with ugly thoughts, my abdomen twisting with cramps. I can’t stop the questions running like a speed train through my head.
What happened? What did I do wrong? Did I cause this? I wasn’t even sure I wanted a baby, so am I being punished now? Why? Why? Why?
Finally I manage to sleep a little toward dawn, then climb out of bed to take more ibuprofen and use the bathroom. As I’m sitting on the toilet, a huge clot slides out of me.
I grasp the edge of the bathroom counter, shivers erupting all over my skin. I wait a few minutes to calm down before risking a glance in the water.
My stomach seizes. Tears spill over. I fumble to flush the toilet, trying to make it quick, closing my eyes until the tank refills.
Breathe, Liv. That had to be the worst of it.
I fall back into bed and try to sleep through the pain. A few hours later, the cramps subside to the point where I can move. I force myself to dress and go downstairs, thinking Joanna must be wondering what happened to me.
Archer, however, is the only one in the kitchen. He’s making himself a sandwich. I realize it’s almost noon.
“She went shopping,” he says, when I ask about his mother. “Are you… uh, okay?”
I nod, simply because there is nothing else I can do.
“You want anything to eat?” Archer asks.
“Not really.”
“Should probably have something.” He puts a slice of bread in the toaster, then drops a teabag into a mug and heats it in the microwave.
I thank him as he puts a plate of toast and the tea in front of me. He takes a soda from the fridge and sits down with his sandwich.
“You… you haven’t asked me what happened,” I say, after managing to eat a small bite of toast.
He shrugs. “Figure it’s none of my business.”
We’re both silent. He eats the sandwich. I take a few sips of tea and try to eat more toast. Part of me wants to go back upstairs and cry again, but another part of me doesn’t want to be alone with my jagged thoughts.
“So, Dean says you were in LA,” I remark.
“Yeah. Did some work down there.”
“I lived in West Hollywood for a while when I was a kid.” I take another sip of tea. “My mother was trying to get some acting jobs.”
“I had a girlfriend who wanted to act. She never got anywhere.”
“Neither did my mother. She was in a cereal commercial when she was five, but she had a tough time after that.”
“She still there?” he asks.
“I don’t know where she is.” The words are already out before I realize I just told him the truth.
“You ever try to find out?” he asks.
“No. We had a tough relationship. I wouldn’t even know where to start looking for her.” I study him for a moment. “What kind of work were you doing?”