The Twelfth Child (Serendipity #1)(71)
She lashed out at the doctor with her arms and legs flailing. “Nobody is taking my baby away from me!” she screamed, “Nobody! Stay back or I’ll tear your heart out!” She heaved a carafe at the doctor and knocked a picture from the wall. She then knocked over a washbasin full of soapy water and toppled a tray of dishes to the floor. Eventually the ruckus grew so loud that four nurses were called to restrain her long enough for Doctor West to administer a sedative.
She was given sedative after sedative for the next two days, but each time she woke up, Abigail started in sobbing all over again. The nurses, women accustomed to dealing with people in pain, agreed that they had never seen a woman so distraught as Abigail. One after the other, they’d come into the room to massage her back, adjust her pillow, or slide a spoonful of Jell-O into her mouth. On the third afternoon, when Nurse Parker discovered a pool of blood on the sheet, Abigail was wheeled into the operating room without further delay.
After they’d taken the baby from her, Abigail didn’t speak a single word for five days. The doctors and nurses began to speculate that she’d suffered brain damage from prolonged exposure to such severe cold. On the sixth day, Abigail asked Nurse Bolinski if she’d be kind enough to call Gloria and see if she could come for a visit.
Despite their friendship, Abigail had never before mentioned that John slept in her bed, nor had she said a word about being pregnant. A thousand times she’d started to, but whenever the words came into her throat they turned sour, like bits of rancid food rising up. Now, Gloria, who had every right to say she’d warned against just such a thing, listened to the story without a word of reproach.
“I murdered my baby,” Abigail sobbed. “That’s what it comes right down to –”
“Hush,” Gloria said and held Abigail to her chest tenderly as she would hold Belinda. “Blaming yourself won’t bring that baby back. Sometimes awful things happen; nobody knows why.”
Abigail dropped back onto her pillow, “I know why,” she moaned tearfully. “That baby died because of me. Instead of thinking about her, I was thinking about myself. I killed my poor innocent baby, because I couldn’t stand the hurt of hearing John say he’d never intended to marry me.”
“He’s the one you ought to blame,” Gloria answered, but by that time Abigail had cemented the last brick into a wall around her heart with the guilt sealed inside.
Four days after Abigail came home from Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, she heard the scrape of a key unlocking the apartment door. It happened early in the evening, but she was already half-asleep and so believing it to be Gloria with yet another pot of soup, she didn’t bother to get up until she heard the footsteps, familiar footsteps, heavier than Gloria’s. Footsteps that stopped for a moment, then sounded in the hallway leading to the bedroom. Abigail bolted up and swung her feet to the floor but before she could reach for her bathrobe, John was standing in the doorway with a look of great concern. “Are you alright?” he asked, then without a moment’s hesitation crossed the room, sat beside her on the edge of the bed and took her hand in his. “I’ve been out of my head with worry,” he said.
“Worry?” Abigail echoed absently, “about me?”
“Of course, about you!” He gave a sigh of exasperation, “Not answering the telephone, was that your way of punishing me? Didn’t you read the letter? What more can I say?” He stood and began pacing the room like an expectant father. “I’ve apologized every way possible. I’ve said keep the baby. I promised we’d find a way to make it work. I don’t know how yet, but we will. I love you too much, Abigail. I love you too much to ever walk away.”
“It’s too late,” she answered, turning her eyes from his face.
“Aren’t you listening? I’ll be a father to the baby, whatever it takes.”
“It’s too late,” she repeated.
“Don’t say that,” he pleaded, “I’ve told you I’m sorry and I am – truly, from the bottom of my heart. The whole thing, you being pregnant, saying I ought to marry you, it came as such a surprise – I know I reacted badly. I’ll make amends. Get a divorce, if necessary.” When Abigail didn’t reply, he took hold of her shoulders and turned her face to his. “Please,” he begged, “don’t turn away from me, think of what we mean to each other, think of what it would mean to the baby, having both parents.”
“She’s gone,” Abigail said, her voice wavering on the edge of tears.
“What?”
“I killed our baby.”
“You had an abortion?” John gasped, but upon seeing the sadness in Abigail’s eyes, he, himself, answered the question. “No,” he said, “you’d never do that.”
Abigail spoke in a voice so melancholy it seemed to be that of a dead person. “God, forgive me,” she said, “I was so wrapped up in my own hurt that I didn’t stop to think about my baby. A baby, tiny as she was, couldn’t survive in that awful cold. She froze to death. Froze to death inside of me. The doctor wouldn’t say that’s what caused her to die, but I know.”
“Oh, Abigail,” John sighed. He wrapped his arms around her but it was like trying to embrace a curtain or a towel, a thing that hangs limp and lifeless. “We’ll start over,” he said. “It can be just as it was, me and you, together. Only this time I’ll be more considerate, I’ll find a way to make things right.”