Authors: Ruth Clampett
Elle is gracious enough not to point out that as the pseudo-uncle, I have no claim on what happens with the baby.
“And if paternity is established he wants partial custody.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” I keep gunning the car’s engine I’m so full of fury. What will a clean-freak asshole do with a baby? It’s unbearable for me to think of him alone with the kid for ten minutes, let alone for days at a time.
“What am I going to do, Paul?”
“We’re going to fight it, that’s what!”
“I can’t ask you to take that on with me,” she says with the most strength I’ve heard in her voice since she called.
“You didn’t ask me. It’s what I want so let’s not even waste our energy talking about it. I’m all in.”
She cries harder and I can hear everything in her tears: she loves this baby and she’s afraid of the baby’s father. I have to protect her, and I’ll do anything to make sure the two of them are safe. It’s all that matters to me.
“Where are you? Are you almost home? What if he comes by here?” she whispers.
“Damn. I wish I were almost home. I’m still at least an hour or two away. Is there someone you can call?”
“No. You and your family are the only ones who know about it.”
“I’m calling Trisha.”
“What?” she asks, her voice laced with disbelief.
“Believe me, there is no one on Earth you want on your side in a crisis more than my sister. I don’t know if it’s the firefighter training or what, but she will stop at nothing to make sure you’re safe.”
“I don’t know,” Elle whispers.
“And her best friend is a top lawyer. Trust me. Okay?”
“I guess so.”
“He what the fuck, what?” Trisha barks into the phone.
“Exactly. He tells her he wants nothing to do with it and now he’s trying to take control.”
“Well, we aren’t putting up with that.”
I smile. I knew she’d be like this. My sister may not be good for much, but she counts for two people in the tough times. She didn’t even hesitate when I asked her to go check up on Elle until I make it back to L.A.
“And call Jeanine, will you?” I ask. Her best friend, Jeanine the lawyer, is tough as nails like Trisha. She helped me once when a girl I’d hooked up with started harassing me.
“As soon as we end this call,” she says, her tone all business.
I let out a breath of relief. “Good. I’ll call you to check up in an hour. Meanwhile call me if anything else comes up.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks, Trisha. I owe you.”
“Just get back safe,” she says.
The last thing I remember clearly before the bottom fell out was a call from Trisha when I was inching along the fucking 5 freeway due to an accident in Downey. My stomach was already churning but Trisha’s tone took everything down a notch darker.
“Did you know Elle’s been cramping since yesterday?”
“No. What does that mean?”
“Hard to say yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good. I’ve been trying to keep her calm but I just made her call her doctor. She’s on with her now.”
“Is something wrong with the baby?”
“I hope not.”
I don’t like her ambiguous answer. Why the fuck did today have to be the day I was in Orange County? I feel so hopeless. “What can I do?”
“Just keep your focus and get here as soon as possible. Meanwhile I’ve faxed the legal documents to Jeanine for her to review them. If I need to take Elle in to be checked I’ll let you know so you can meet us there.”
A surge of emotion wells up in me. Elle can’t lose the baby. She just can’t. “I’m going to kill that fucker for upsetting her,” I rage.
“Paul,” my sister snaps at me.
“I mean who the fuck does he think he is?”
“Paul!” she practically yells.
“What?”
“You need to calm your ass down, and for God’s sake don’t bring any of this anger home. She needs us calm and focused. You hear me?”
She’s right. I’ve never appreciated Trisha more. “Yeah. I’ll be calm for Elle. I promise.”
I’m still on the 5 approaching Griffith Park, and close to the 134 when I get a text from Trisha to meet them at a women’s clinic on Van Nuys Boulevard. She instructs me to call her once I park and she’ll meet me outside. I’m desperate for some shred of hope to hold on to and her text sure as hell didn’t give it to me.
When I finally park and get out of the car, my hands are trembling as I text Trisha. I’d been praying the entire last endless leg of my journey, but when I see the drawn look on Trisha’s face I realize that God must not have heard me.
She walks straight up to me and grabs my forearm. Her sad eyes look even darker with the mascara smears.
“It’s happening fast,” she says.
I swallow hard, forcing down the surge of despair. “She’s losing the baby.”
Trisha nods as her grip on my arm tightens.
I fold over, my palms push against my knees to keep me from toppling over. A sharp shudder runs through me.
“No.” I don’t even recognize my voice. It sounds like it’s been dragged against asphalt.
Her hand rests on my upper back. “I’m so sorry, Paul.”
I take a sharp breath at Trisha’s tenderness. The baby may not be my biological kid, but I realize that it isn’t just my parents who understand what Elle and her baby had come to mean to me.
I stand back up and look at Trisha. “Elle?”
“It’s hit her hard, Paul. That’s why I wanted to get to you before you see her. She needs you to be strong.”
“And there’s nothing they can do?”
Trisha shakes her head. “It’s common in early pregnancies, up to twenty percent miscarry. There are various reasons why it happens.”
My hands curl up into fists. “It’s because of that fucking Stephan.”
“The dad?”
I nod, feeling like my grimace is permanently etched across my face. I’ve never had a burning desire to see someone’s demise, but I have it now. If I didn’t know that Elle was inside this building and needed me, I’d probably go after him tonight.
Trisha sighs. “Well I’m sure all the stress he caused didn’t help anything, but these early miscarriages are usually caused by a chromosomal abnormality.”
I start to pace back and forth trying to get my bearings. I can’t even believe this is happening. Of all of the times I’ve thought of Elle and the baby, this scenario never crossed my mind.
“I don’t want to hear about any of that, Trisha. I just need to see her. Can you show me where she is?”
She turns and walks toward the door, and when she realizes I haven’t followed she stops and turns. There’s a measured look between us, as if she knows that once I see Elle my heart will be battered, but I need to pull myself together. I nod and walk toward her, as the fragments of the future I was reaching for fall behind me.
When I step into her private room the first thing I notice is the quiet stillness. There are no monitors beeping, no hopeful chatter of visiting family, just the silence of loss. Elle is turned on her side away from me and I try to imagine what I can possibly say to her.
I clear my throat as I approach her. When I reach her side of the bed, her arms are crossed over her chest and her eyes pressed shut. She looks like a battleworn soldier who lost the war.
I lean over and press my lips against her forehead. “I’m here, Elle,” I whisper.
Her eyes blink open and she looks completely broken as our gazes meet. She presses her hand over her mouth. “I lost the baby, Paul,” she cries as tears slide down her face.
“Shhh, I know.” I take her hand in mine and hold it firmly. “I’m so sorry, Elle. I wish I’d been here.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t say that. You’ve been here all along for us, more than anyone, and you’re here for me now.”
I nod. “I am. And I’m not going anywhere. I want to help you get through this.”
She closes her eyes again. “I have no idea how to do that. I feel like I’ve lost a part of me . . . it’s like every dream I had for my baby and our future together will haunt me the rest of my life.”
I think about the dreams I had, too . . . maybe they were fantasies, but they felt real to me. My favorite was imagining the three of us at the beach, Elle holding the kid’s right hand, and me the left, while we swing the little one over the ocean swirling around our feet.
Without letting go of her hand, I reach behind me and drag the chair as close to her bed as possible. We let the silence and pain wrap tightly around us. All I can do is hold onto her hand while she cries, knowing these tears are the beginning of a river we will wade through. There’s no other way.
After a few intense minutes the tears slow down and she closes her eyes. I rest my head on the mattress next to her thigh. The weight of defeat is swallowing me and I frantically blink back my own tears. I need to be tough for her, but it’s hard, damn it, when I feel broken too. Elle seems to sense my spirit falling and without opening her eyes, she gently places her open hand on my head.
It’s in this intimate moment that the door opens and Trisha sticks her head inside.
“Sorry. Elle? They’re ready. Do you still—”
Elle doesn’t wait for the rest of the question. “Yes,” she says.
Trisha gestures for me to join her. “Come on Paul, we’ll wait down the hall.”
I try to hide my confusion and concern from Elle, figuring whatever she’s made her mind up about I need to trust.
I lean into her. “I’ll be out there. Tell them to let me know when I can come back to you.”
She nods. “I will.”
I slide down into the waiting room couch and press my hand over my eyes. These fucking florescent lights are making me edgy. The last thing I need right now is everything in this bleak place brightly lit and defined when my mind is so dark.
Trisha lets out a long sigh as she sits down next to me.
“So what’s happening in there?” I ask.
“It’s called a D and C. It’s finishing what nature started. At least she won’t have to deal with possibly a few weeks of bleeding after this.”
I press my lips together. The mystery of women and what they have to deal with has never felt more overwhelming to me. I know Elle is resilient, but everyone has their breaking point. I need to be ready in case this is hers.
Chapter Sixteen
TABLE FOR TWO
G
rief is a shadow that clings to you especially in the quiet darkness. You can run but that fucker is attached to your heels looming behind you, ready to swallow you up.
Grief is also the language Elle and I speak now, it’s the language of no words just the hollow echo of her empty belly as we sit side-by-side on her couch, watching mindless comedies to fill the evening hours.
Once she’s back at work, I check on her every afternoon as she moves from one meeting to another. She seems busier than ever and she finally shares with me that she’s been pushing hard to pick up more clients so her schedule is always packed.
I get it, but it doesn’t keep me from worrying about her. The night I took her home from the clinic is now just a fuzzy collection of the fragmented actions—Elle leaning against me as she signed off on paperwork, carefully loading her in my car like she was a porcelain doll, and tucking her into her bed at home while making sure she took her pain meds. My care was all I had to offer so I did the best I could, even sleeping on her couch so I could check on her throughout the night.
She was asleep, when in a wave of rage and despair, I pulled a number of items out of her purse. With my phone I took a picture of the hospital paperwork with the miscarriage diagnosis, procedures and charges. Then I opened up her phone to recent calls, scrolling down until I found that motherfucking Viking’s name. I copied his phone number onto the text I’d written, attached the photo, and hit send.
Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to send a text threatening him if he ever contacts Elle again, but at least he has hard proof that the baby he was suddenly trying to claim, lost its chance at life that night. As much as I wanted to track him down and beat the shit out of him, far more than that was the determination to make sure Elle didn’t have to deal with him again in her sorrow.
That text and other emotional parts of that night I’ve filed away in my brain but they sneak up on me at unexpected times, temporarily stopping me in my tracks. I’m sure it happens with Elle, but she does her best to hide it from me. Knowing her, she thinks I’ve put up with too much already. Maybe she hasn’t realized yet that when it comes to her there’s no
too much
for me.
I know we need to push ourselves if we’re going to get past this. After a few weeks I start testing her.
Hey, you want to go to that new restaurant on LaBrea?
Did you hear about the latest DeNiro film? It’s playing at the ArcLight and it’s supposed to be great.
Did you know they’re doing tours of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House again? Wouldn’t that be cool?
All of my suggestions are met with an unenthusiastic shrug. “Maybe later,” she says.
I decide to give it more time, but one evening she points out a picture in a magazine spread. “What do you think of this?”
I look over her shoulder. “The Getty Center garden? It blew my mind first time I went. I love the bold choices. It’s amazing that they allowed Robert Irwin to realize his vision.”
She smiles.
Damn I’ve missed that smile.
“Will you take me to see it?” she asks.
I push back a grin. I don’t want to risk her changing her mind by thinking I’m expecting too much. “Sure. How about Saturday morning?”
“I’d like that.”
She’s wearing a sundress and sandals when I pick her up at ten thirty. It feels like her mood is the lightest it’s been since before losing the baby. Perhaps she’s pushing herself to try to find her new normal. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she has sunglasses pushed on top of her head.
“Hey, pretty girl,” I say when she steps up to me for a hug.
“Hey, handsome.”
She plays with the radio as I drive, and I let her. She finally settles on an Ed Sheeran song and leans back in her seat with a smile. “It feels good to get out.”
“Well, wait until you see the garden.”