Infinite Love (34 page)

‘Dexi?’

‘Well, it sounds better than Lexug. What’s that on the floor?’

‘Your remaining box of J2O, figured you may want to celebrate.’

‘It’s not on the prescribed list,’ I reminded her.

‘Fuck the list,’ she laughed and I broke out into another happy smile.

I woke up to hear crying, I quickly checked my face wondering if I’d had a nightmare, but it wasn’t me.

‘Gabe? Are you ok?’

‘It’s me.’

‘Lexi? Where are you?’

‘Here,’ she sniffed and took my hand. I tried to focus my sleepy eyes and could just make her out, lying on top of the bed facing me.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Mia,’ she sobbed.

‘What? What is it? I squeezed her hand and reached over to stroke her forehead.

‘He … he didn’t come … he just … he rang me. He’s staying with …
her,
’ she howled.

‘Noooo,’ I gasped and pulled her into my arms.

‘What’s going on?’ came Gabe’s half asleep voice.

‘We have company. Please don’t make a fuss, she needs me. He’s changed his mind.’

‘Ok baby, I’ll go and sleep on the sofa and give you some space.’ He kissed the back of my neck.

‘Thank you,’ I whispered, as Lexi continued to sob in my arms.

‘Shit. I really didn’t see this coming,’ he sighed. I’d filled him in when I’d got home earlier and even he was happy that they’d finally admitted how they felt about each other.

‘No, me neither,’ I sighed as I gently rocked her.

‘You can’t ignore Doug forever, Mia,’ Gabe sighed as he pulled up at the hospital for my scan.

‘Why not? What he did was inexcusable.’

‘I agree, but in fairness Lexi did kind of spring it on him, he was all confused and made a bad decision.’

‘
Lexi’s
right for him,’ I muttered stubbornly.

‘I agree, but he’s scared of leaving Sarah just to have Lexi dump him again, and then he’s lost both of them.’

‘Well, he obviously doesn’t love Sarah, not if he’s still in love with Lexi.’

‘Mia, it’s not our place to interfere. You told me once I had to respect Lexi’s decision to dump Doug, now you have to respect his not to go back to her. Besides, you’re running a business, you can’t ignore one of your key employees.’

‘Then you manage Doug and I’ll manage Lexi. I’m too angry to deal with him at the moment.’

‘Fine,’ he sighed. ‘But you need to deal with this soon. I’m starting with Dad at the beginning of July so you only have four and a bit months to sort this out.’

‘I may need four and a half years.’

‘You’re supposed to be avoiding stress, baby.’

‘Sorry, I’m just really upset about it all.’

‘I know. Come on, we don’t want to be late.’ He took my hand and we walked into the waiting room and took a seat. He leaned over, kissed my cheek and rubbed my stomach. ‘How’s Junior doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ I laughed. ‘They don’t do much at that age other than make me pee, eat, sleep, cry and get heartburn.’

‘The heartburn’s from all the food you’ve been shovelled. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you sneaking out in the night for the peanut butter in the pantry,
and
I discovered the empty jar under the bed.’

‘Are you revolted by me?’ I asked as I put out my bottom lip.

‘No, I think it’s adorable. I’ve always loved that you have an appetite from time to time.’

‘This isn’t from time to time. It’s
all
the time.’

‘If you’re happy that’s all that matters,’ he smiled. I dropped my head on his shoulder and clutched my side and blew out a deep breath. ‘You’re telling Dr. Walker about these pains, Mia. I’m not happy that you’ve tried hiding them from me.’

‘You’d have worried, we discussed this in the car, please don’t make a fuss.’

‘Mr. and Mrs. Austin?’ Dr. Walker smiled as she held the door open for us and I took a deep breath as I sat down. ‘You’re nervous again, Mia?’

‘Yes.’

‘Understandable, but let’s do our blood tests again and send you down for a scan then you can come and have a chat with me. How have you been feeling?’

‘She’s been in pain and hasn’t told me.’ Gabe added before I had a chance to say anything.

‘What sort of pain?’

‘I think it’s my endometriosis. It feels like it, burning in my back and stomach and stabbing pains in my right side.’

‘Continual?’

‘The stabbing no, it comes from nowhere and cripples me for a few minutes and I’m still getting spot bleeding.’

‘Well, let’s get the tests done first and we can talk from there, ok?’ she smiled.

I lay on the examination table as Gabe held my hand tightly, the excitement all over his face. I wouldn’t be happy until it was done and I knew that everything was ok.

‘Hey, in a few minutes it will all be over and you can stop stressing,’ he whispered as he kissed my forehead, reading my mind.

‘Ok Mia, this will feel a bit cold,’ smiled the Jayne, the lady doing our ultrasound scan. I nodded, I’d had a few of these done with my condition and the pre IVF health checks. I breathed gently as she rolled the tracker across my stomach and scrunched up my face.

‘Does it hurt?’ Gabe asked as he stroked my hair with his free hand.

‘No, I just had to drink lots of water and I
really
need to pee.’

‘Sorry,’ smiled Jayne and turned back to the screen. I looked up at Gabe’s face as we heard the heartbeat echoing through the monitor. He looked so happy, it cheered me up a bit. I gripped his hand tighter and mattress under me too.

‘Is it going to be much longer? I don’t know how long I can hold it,’ I whimpered. We seemed to have been in here for ages, how long did it take?

‘I’m sorry. I just need Dr. Walker to come and check the scan. I won’t be a moment.’

‘Is something wrong?’ I asked.

‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

‘O God, something’s wrong, isn’t it? Please tell me.’

‘Mia, I’m sure everything’s fine,’ Gabe soothed as she headed out. ‘They’re just being thorough that’s all.’ I looked up at him, but could see he was just as concerned as I was.

‘I feel sick.’

‘Feel sick, or going to be sick?’

‘Going to be sick,’ I nodded as my mouth started to salivate. He looked around quickly and grabbed a cardboard urine collection bowl, helped me lift my head and I retched into it.

‘O God, Mia,’ he sighed and grabbed some of the blue rough paper towel off the scan trolley to wipe my mouth. We looked up as Jayne returned with Dr. Walker. ‘Sorry, Mia’s just been sick and I couldn’t find anything else,’ he advised Jayne, as Dr. Walker came to pick up the tracker.

‘Don’t worry, it happens.’

‘Dr. Walker, what’s wrong? Please tell me,’ I begged. I kept my eyes on her face.

‘I’m just double checking the results, we always do that if it’s not as clear as it should be,’ she smiled, but I could see something was wrong in her face. I closed my eyes as she started the scan again and focussed on not peeing, focussed on anything but looking at everyone’s worried faces and what it might mean.

I opened my eyes slowly, trying to remember where I was. It was virtually pitch black, the only light in the room came from the flashing display of the blood pressure monitor hooked up to my arm along with the intravenous drip. I could hear sobbing and felt my heart breaking. I hadn’t cried since we’d been told. I couldn’t cry, I was totally numb. Gabe was the opposite. He couldn’t turn his emotions off. He was really trying to help me, but I felt all alone.

Deep down I’d known along that something was wrong, as soon as I’d had light spotting, when my blood tests showed that my hCG levels weren’t rising as fast as they should have been, and then with the pains, but I’d tried to ignore that nagging worry. I’d had all the usual pregnancy symptoms, but Dr. Walker had told us that was the case with most ectopic pregnancies, mine being in my fallopian tube. Ordinarily they’d have simply terminated the pregnancy with medication, but I also had another ovarian cyst and the ovary itself had twisted, cutting off the blood supply. So, they’d had to go in and surgically remove it and had removed our baby at the same time. What was worse, if anything could possibly be worse, was I had to wait overnight for the operation. A whole night of knowing that our baby was still alive inside me, but was being killed in the morning. I tried to sit up to reach for the water, but knocked the cup in the dark and sent it flying.

‘Mia?’

‘I’m fine,’ I replied. ‘Go back to sleep.’

‘I can’t sleep,’ he sniffed and turned on the light. I closed my eyes. I hated this damn room. I thought we’d seen the last of this private twin room in Riverdale hospital after my last surgery and Gabe’s recovery, but no, here we were, back again. ‘You were thirsty?’

‘No.’

‘You were trying to reach the water, you knocked it over. Let me get it.’

‘I’m fine, please go back to sleep.’

‘God damn it Mia, let me fucking help you,’ he snapped. ‘I’m part of this too.’

‘I never said you weren’t. I’m just tired, I want to sleep.’

‘No you want to avoid me,
again
. You haven’t spoken about it, it’s not normal.’

‘Don’t tell me what’s normal,’ I yelled back. ‘Nothing’s fucking normal, nothing’s ever
fucking
normal.’

‘Mia,’ he sighed and came over to stand by me. I quickly looked the other way, I couldn’t bear the look of pain on his face, it was too much to handle.

‘Don’t,’ I whispered. ‘I just can’t deal with it at the moment. Please don’t ask me to.’

‘What about me? What if I want to deal with it?’

‘You can, I’m not stopping you. Go and talk to your dad or Sofia, Doug or Lexi, hell even my mum or sister.’

‘I want to talk to my wife.’

‘I can’t, Gabe. You want me to hold your hand, stroke your hair, or hug you, I will. Don’t ask me to talk,
please.
’

‘You can’t even bloody look at me. Do you blame me? Is this my fault? Is it because I didn’t know you were in pain and bleeding earlier? You do blame me, don’t you? You blame me because if I’d known I’d have brought you to hospital sooner, before we got so attached to it?’

‘
Junior
,’ I whispered. ‘Not “it.”’

‘Talk to me.’

‘No! Stop pushing me.’

‘Then drink some water, your lips look chapped, here, tilt your head, there’s a straw.’

‘Please Gabe,’ I sighed, ‘I just want to sleep.’ I jumped, then winced at the stretch in my stomach, as he hurled the cup across the room, water spraying all over the wardrobe.

‘Go to bloody sleep then, I sure as hell can’t,’ he yelled. I watched the water trickling down the wooden door as I heard him pulling his shoes on and then closed my eyes as the bright light from the corridor lit up the room, then I was plunged into darkness again as he slammed the door behind him. Complete darkness, inside and out.

I’d spent a week off Uni and work at home again, just like when I’d had my diagnosis two years ago, while my incisions healed. Lexi took the week off work to be with me between her counselling training sessions. Gabe and I were like virtual strangers. We slept on separate sides of the bed, he spent his nights swimming coaching, then at Greyson’s and his frees in the library. I’d tried to hold his hand, to cuddle up to him to give him some kind of support, but he said if I wouldn’t talk to him, then he didn’t want to be affectionate with me. Since that night in the hospital it was like we’d lost all ability to communicate. It was my fault, I knew it was. Even Mum had given up trying to get me to open up and she’d headed home yesterday, unable to take more time off work. Lexi had also run out of patience with my refusal to talk or cry too. She’d literally just yelled at me and I’d sat and listened, feeling nothing. I felt completely empty inside. She’d stormed out slamming the door and I’d laid down on the sofa, flicking through the TV channels, just going round and around and around.

It wasn’t like I wanted to be like this, I
wanted
to feel something, I wanted to cry, to grieve, to try and comprehend what I’d done to deserve such bad luck, but some internal emotion switch had been turned off and I didn’t know how to turn it on again. I held my stomach as I stood up, and let out a surprised ‘Huh.’ I was still doing that, an automatic reflex to protect Junior, but Junior wasn’t there anymore. Just three small incisions, some butterfly stitches and one less ovary. I grabbed a bottle of vodka, put the front door on the latch and went out onto the roof terrace. I sat on the floor, my back against the roof, as I looked out at the twinkling lights and glugged it. It didn’t take long to go to my head, I’d hardly eaten all week, not even the Jelly Belly’s Lexi had brought around for me. I giggled as I missed my mouth, the bottle smacking against my teeth, and poured vodka all down my front. It reminded me of Chelsea, me knocking her tooth out. Well, at least someone would be happy with the news that we’d failed, again. I tried to stand up, but felt seriously dizzy. Even drunk I knew standing up on the roof terrace wasn’t a good idea, so I crawled on my hands and knees clutching the vodka bottle as I made my way to the little door and heard Lexi frantically calling for me.

‘Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing?’ she gasped as she found me crawling down the small black stairs to the landing.

‘Vodka.’

‘You’re bloody drunk on the roof terrace? What’s wrong with you?’

‘Question of the …’ I hiccupped and giggled. ‘Day.’

‘O shit. Come on, let’s get you back inside. You need something to eat, plenty of water and then you’re going to bed.’

‘Don’t want to go to bed. I’m enjoying vodka.’

‘Sure you are, but you’ll drink yourself into a coma if you carry on.’

‘Coma’s good. Coma means no more nagging, no more endless stupid bloody questions that I don’t want to answer.’

‘O Mia,’ Lexi sighed. ‘I’m so sorry I reacted like that. I’m supposed to be all compassionate and let people talk in their own time, but it’s you. I can’t bear standing by seeing you like this. I wish I knew how to help you.’

‘Cranberry juice. This vodka burns on its own,’ I nodded as I let her haul me up and lead me to the pantry. She propped me up on the door frame as she looked around.