Fairytale Lost (13 page)

She nipped his chin lightly with her teeth. “You’re right. That does sound arrogant, but okay,” she sighed in feigned acquiescence.

Emmalyn shot Lukas a tentative look.

“Okay?” he tentatively asked.

She nodded, and he whooped with joy. Suddenly, all the stress that had been pent up in her chest released, and she laughed with a happiness she didn’t think she had left in herself.

E
mmalyn and Lukas
argued for a week about where, when, and how they were going to get married. Lukas was adamant that he didn’t care, so long as it was done before the babies were born. Emmalyn was equally adamant that she did not want their wedding pictures to include her at eight months pregnant.

In the end, they settled on a courthouse wedding and a small reception, then a larger ceremony with all the bells and whistles she wanted later. There was no agreement on how long after
later
meant.

They did agree that though they wanted only their parents and Lukas’s brother at the courthouse, they wanted their friends to be at the after party, as Lukas had taken to calling it. Lukas was in charge of corralling Delma and making sure she made it to the courthouse on time. He promptly passed that duty on to his brother.

Everyone seemed excited about the wedding—except for Lukas’s dad. He begrudgingly accepted his role in it, but as always, he felt Lukas was making a huge mistake. Unfortunately, he’d had the misfortune to have voiced that opinion within earshot of Delma.

“Oh, so, my daughter’s not good enough for your boy,” she challenged. “Well let me tell you something. You’re not good enough for your boy. Ha! That’s right! I said it! If you hadn’t gotten in the way when they were together before, they’d have been married with three or four kids by now. But, no. What kind of father doesn’t want to see his kid happy? You miserable old coot!” Her finger and face were inches away from his. Lukas had never seen Delma this fired up about anything. “You better not ruin this for them, or so help me, I’ll tear you limb from limb.”

Lukas’s bark of laughter caught the attention of Delma’s ire. He immediately righted his face, but it was too late.

“And just what, pray tell, is so funny?”

“I…Emmalyn said that exact thing to me a few weeks ago. She sounded just like you. I can’t wait to tell her she sounds like her mother.”

Delma’s mouth twitched just enough to let Lukas know she wasn’t angry. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Things are better between my daughter and me, but she’ll snap your neck if you tell her that.”

Lukas looked confused. “Why? There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Oh, Lukas,” she said, sounding just like her daughter once more, “No girl wants to hear she’s turning into her mother. Don’t you know anything?”

T
he after party
was in full swing, and everyone was genuinely having a good time. Zavia and Isabel pulled the party together in such a short time that Lukas was genuinely surprised by everything they’d managed to do. Hosted in Zavia’s spacious back yard, the food, music, and guest list were perfect.

Lukas sat off to the side and was watching Emmalyn laugh and dance with Zavia’s son, Jared. His brother joined him on the deck stairs.

“She’s beautiful, man. I’m so glad you got your head out of your ass.”

Lukas didn’t take offense. “Me too.”

“Pop’ll come around eventually.”

“I honestly don’t care at this point. I’d love for my girls to know their grandfather, but if he can’t—” Lukas’s voice stopped abruptly.

“What?” Jaxon watched the color drain from Lukas’s face. “What’s wrong?” he asked to Lukas’s back.

Emmalyn had fallen down, and she wasn’t moving. Lukas ran over to her and dropped to his knees by her side. She was conscious, but her eyes looked crazy. She grabbed his hand.

“I think the babies are coming,” she moaned.

“Call an ambulance!” he yelled to no one and everyone. “Hold on Emmy. We’ll get you to the hospital.”

The tears fell from Emmalyn’s eyes. “It’s too early….” She screamed as another contraction tore through her. She squeezed his hand, and with a painful snap, she’d broken the bone.

“Emmalyn!”

“The pains started yesterday, but I thought they were Braxton Hicks pains, not actual contractions. The doctor said they were normal, but this is different,” she said breathlessly.

“Get her into the house,” Delma said. “Zee, where is a good place to wait for the ambulance?”

“Take her to the living room,” Zavia said. Scared to death, she took a step back as Lukas hoisted Emmalyn into his arms and turned to carry her into the house. Zavia covered her mouth to hold on to a scream as she saw the huge bloodstain Em left on the patio. Isabel grabbed on to her and began to cry.

“That’s not good. They need to get her to the hospital
now
!” Isabel whispered harshly.

Just as Zavia made her way to the living room, the sound of sirens could be heard approaching the house from a distance. She sent Jared and Robert out to the street to flag down the EMTs. They returned a few minutes later.

“What’s the situation?” asked one of the EMTs. Lukas repeated what Em had told him and about the blood stain on the patio. The EMT knelt down beside Emmalyn and began taking vitals. “Her pulse is weak,” he said over his shoulder to his partner. “We need to get her to the hospital.”

The two men worked to get Emmalyn on the gurney.

“How far along is she?” asked the second EMT.

“Thirty-six weeks,” Lukas replied. His knees gave out on him when he saw Emmalyn’s blood on the sofa cushions. His father and brother helped him stand.

“You need to ride with her, Lukas,” Delma pointed out. “And you need to hold it together. She can’t be any more scared than she is right now. Be her rock.”

Lukas nodded. He followed the EMTs and his new wife out of the house. It took him two tries to pull himself into the back of the ambulance.

L
ukas
, Emmalyn, two doctors, and a slew of nurses had been in the delivery room for almost three hours before the first baby was born. He’d expected hours and hours of labor, but this one came out surprisingly fast. The doctors were huddled over the baby, checking her over. Prematurely born babies could have so many issues, Lukas remembered from his and Em’s prenatal classes.

The shorter of the two doctors kept looking over his shoulder at Emmalyn and frowning. Lukas was just about ready to demand that they tell them what was wrong with his daughter when Emmalyn screamed, not the scream of someone in pain but a scared and frustrated scream. The sound stunned everyone in the room, including the baby, who began to cry in earnest.

Then, one of the machines began to beep angrily, followed by another. Emmalyn’s blood pressure was spiking. Lukas bent down and kissed his new wife on the forehead. It was hot yet clammy feeling. Lukas looked to the doctors hoping someone had an answer. One of the nurses came around to his side of the bed and tried to usher Lukas out of the room.

“I’m not leaving my wife,” he protested.

“Make sure they save the baby,” Emmalyn exhaled. She didn’t have much voice left and zero energy. “Whatever happens, make sure they save Gia.” The words ended on a moan and the sound of water splashing. She gripped his hand with a strength that surprised them both. Her eyes clouded over as wave after wave of pain tore through her. Her color drained.

“Emmalyn, I need you.” He didn’t want to say it aloud, but he’d sacrifice just about anyone to keep Em by his side.

“Swear it to me, Lukas. I need to know my girls will be okay, or all this will have been for nothing.”

“All of what?” Lukas looked at Emmalyn as if she’d lost her mind. Of course he would save Emmalyn. He’d love his kids, but he needed Em as much as he needed air or water. She was the strong one, the responsible one. He couldn’t raise two little girls by himself.

“Sir, we need to get your wife prepped for surgery. You need to leave so we can try to save her life.” The nurse forcefully pulled Lukas’s hand from Em’s deathgrip, pushing him toward the doors.

“For a little thing she was very strong,” he thought somewhere in his mind. Then the nurse’s words sank in and he rounded on her, causing the her to pause for the briefest of moments before pushing him out the door completely.

“Save her? What the fuck do you mean save her? Emmalyn!” As he stumbled out, he saw the puddle of blood on the floor beneath Emmalyn’s legs. Two security guards were waiting outside the room for him. They each grabbed an arm and pulled him away from his wife and daughters toward the waiting room where eight concerned family and friends waited. What was he going to say? His knees buckled, and nothing in him could stop the free fall.

“Lukas, what’s wrong?” Delma was on him before he hit the ground. He was in shock.

“Lukas, how is Emmy? Where are the babies?” This question came from Zavia.

He looked up at Delma and Zavia, saw the joy and hope in their eyes. It broke him. “I don’t know,” he croaked out. He wasn’t able to get air in his lungs. A strong slap to the face brought him out of his misery, and his anger to the surface.

“Damn it, Lukas, snap out of it. Where are Emmalyn and the babies?” Delma yelled.

“I. Don’t. Know,” Lukas ground out between clenched teeth. He staggered to his feet, walked over to the row of chairs, and slumped down into the first one he came to. He leaned over in the seat, his head cradled in his hands. He didn’t have the strength to fight the tears. “She’s lost a lot of blood. She birthed one of the twins, but the other wasn’t coming. Ava. She named her Ava. She asked me to make sure they saved Gia. The nurse…the nurse said they have to get Emmy to the OR to try to save her.”

Delma fainted. Brian and Isabel helped her up and over to a chair.

“Save her? Save Emmalyn you mean?” Isabel asked, jaw trembling from fighting the urge to cry out.

“That’s what they said,” Lukas replied. His chest ached as did his hand. He looked down and saw that his knuckles had swollen and were beginning to turn blue. Somewhere in his mind was a vague memory of Em squeezing his hand and snapping the bone.

No one spoke for what seemed to be an eternity. Delma had snapped awake, but merely cried softly on Brian’s shoulder. What could any of them say? There were no words of comfort for any of them.

A nurse came out after some time, holding a tiny pink bundle. “Mr. Upton? Would you like to hold your daughter?”

Lukas couldn’t move. Neither could Delma. The nurse looked at him in understanding. Zavia walked over to the nurse and peeked into the bundle. She barely backed away before the sobs hit.

“She looks just like Emmy,” was all she could get out before crying in earnest. She turned to her husband and buried her face against his shoulder. Robert held on to his wife as her grief washed over her.

“Please ask someone to give Mr. Upton and Mrs. Upton’s mother an update,” Robert asked softly. “The wait is killing them.”

The nurse nodded and stepped back into the area where the rooms were. She stopped at the door and turned back to Lukas. “Ava will be in the nursery when you’re ready, Mr. Upton.”

No one asked about the second baby. They didn’t think they needed to.

Another two hours passed before the short doctor, of the worried face and harried whispers, stepped into the waiting room. Lukas took one look at the man’s face and knew.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Upton. We weren’t able to save your wife or your second daughter, Gia. We realized too late that Gia’s umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. She was stillborn when we removed her after performing the emergency C-section. At your wife’s insistence, we did attempt to save Gia.

“Your wife had lost a lot of blood. It would appear that she had been bleeding for some time. Her body was very weak and couldn’t take the trauma. I take it she didn’t say anything to you about the trouble she’s been having?” He paused and looked around at the people in the room. “So much grief,” he thought.

“No. She didn’t say a word,” Lukas whispered. His brain had stopped functioning. All he needed now was for his heart to stop beating. “I can’t understand it. People have babies everyday.”

“I’m very sorry, sir. Your wife had gestational diabetes, which resulted in pre-eclampsia. At some point over the last few weeks, she developed eclampsia. The bleeding was a symptom of her elevated blood pressure. If she had checked herself into the hospital sooner, we could have possibly saved her and the second baby. Her doctor—“

Lukas cut him off with a roar and a new bout of tears. “She told me she’d had her last doctor’s appointment two weeks ago, and now we were just waiting for the babies to come. I didnt know, didn’t question it.”

The doctor sighed as he understood more about what happened. He hated this part of the job. “ I would bet your wife was told to have the babies earlier to reduce the strain on her body. Any doctor worth his degree would have recommended that.” He waited for Lukas to regain control of himself. The poor man was grief stricken and dumbfounded. He didn’t blame Lukas. Any man would have reacted the same to finding that his wife had sacrified herself to give the babies a better chance at survival. “Ava will be ready to be discharged in a couple of days. She’s basically a healthy baby girl, very lucky indeed. You will need to work with her on her breathing, and the nurses will explain exactly what needs to be done.”

“Can I see her?” Lukas asked as the doctor turned to go back to the maternity ward.

“Ava?”

“No. Emmalyn. Can I see her?”

The doctor nodded in understanding. “I’ll make the arrangements,” he replied.

The doctor turned and walked away from the broken man and the people who’d loved the woman he’d spent the last several hours trying to save. He couldn’t understand why the woman hadn’t told anyone about how sick she was. It should have been enough to cause anyone concern. The situation quickly zipped out of his mind as another round of alarms went off, signaling a new emergency.

L
ukas couldn’t look
at the woman lying on the bed and equate her with the woman he’d married earlier that day. And he absolutely couldn’t look into the small crib that sat to the bed’s immediate right. He slipped quietly into the room and sat at the foot of the bed, the stark silence of the room a testament to lack of life.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, Emmy. You’re supposed to be here. We’re supposed to do this together. You promised we’d be a family, and now you’re gone. What am I going to do?” he asked the silence in desperation. “I can’t take care of Ava without you.”