Read Life's Perfect Plan (The Life Series) Online

Authors: Sarah Goodman

Tags: #Contemporary

Life's Perfect Plan (The Life Series) (6 page)

BOOK: Life's Perfect Plan (The Life Series)
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Once I come back to the room, Ella has placed her in a gown and covered her up. The night nurse is starting an IV. I’ve prescribed a muscle relaxer, and I think with the state her body is in, she will just sleep. I don’t know if she is pregnant, but I want to treat her as if she is. “How long will she be out?” Ella asks as she gets a pillow for herself.

“Not sure, it could be a day or a week, it just depends on how her body takes in the medication. She was hit with a huge blow.” I say as I stare at Beth. I watch her breathe, and look at her pink lips that are just barely apart. I turn around and see Ella get cozy in a recliner chair. “Ella, what are you doing? Go home to your family.”

“Jacob she is my family. I can’t leave her, what if she wakes up?”

I walk to the recliner and squat so she and I are eye to eye. “I understand that, but you need to be with your family, and you need to let Kate know what has happened. I will stay here with her. I have no one to go home to. I promise, to take care of her. Go, home to Chris … please.”

With her eyebrows scrunched on her forehead and eyes narrowed onto mine, she softly says, “Why would you do that? You don’t even know her?”

“I know she means the world to you and that you can’t be in two places at once. So I will take care of her.”

She leans over and starts to cry. I pat her back, and whisper to her that things will work out. She stands up and grabs her purse. She walks over to Beth and kisses her forehead. “Thank you Jacob. I’m going to go call her parents and Kate. I will be by tomorrow.”

“Take your time Ella. Good Night.”

I walk behind her and close the door. I turn off the main light and turn on the bathroom light and leaving the door ajar. I sit in the recliner and stare at the beautiful angel that lies before me. My mother died 24 years ago, and there are times where I silently talk to her.
Please mom, embrace Beth’s husband with open arms up in heaven. Mom, help me get through this with her. Let me be the man and friend that she needs me to be to get her through this difficult time.
Within the hour my eyelids are heavy and sleep consumes me.

It isn’t until morning that the day nurse walks in. I walk over to the bed, and check her monitor noticing that she is still in a deep sleep. I ask her nurse to bring me a breakfast tray and to change her medication. I spend Sunday sitting in the recliner and watching Beth. That night her parents come by along with Kate and Ella. I meet her parents, Grace and Evan. I inform them what we are doing to her, and just hoping that we have given her embryos a chance for survival. I let them know that I can do an hCG count by the end of the week, but that it is still too early to know if she is really pregnant.

Monday I go back to work. I give Ella the week off so she can spend her days with Beth. I swing by when I am done with the office and I frequently visit with her when I am on call with the hospital. By Thursday I do blood work to see if her hCG levels are elevated. That afternoon I give Ella the results that indeed her hCG levels are elevated, but not enough to clarify that she is truly pregnant. I let her know though that at the rate her hCG levels are going that she will be truly pregnant by mid next week. Ella screams in cheers. She jumps up and down laughing hysterical.

That night I decreased her medication and hoping within the next 24 hours she will wake up. Ella has run to the cafeteria for a late dinner and I sit at the edge of her bed, just looking at her. She is truly beautiful and already glowing. There is some kind of pull towards her and I don’t know what it is, but I need to get to know her. I want to be here for her, she has had the worst thing imaginable happened to her, yet she hasn’t even walked in hell yet. I want to ease her ache, the gut wrenching ache that will shatter her heart. I want to be the person she relies on to get her through this whether she is pregnant or not. I can’t explain the feelings that have consumed me, but I need to have her.

 

 

There is light all around me as I slowly awake. I’m lying in a bed. The sun is pouring through the window, this is not my room, and that is not my window. Ella is sleeping in a chair
. “Holy shit! I’m in a hospital room, what the hell happened to me? Oh God tell me I didn’t miscarry.

I pull the sheets back, lift my hips up and pull my panties back looking to see if there is blood, or if I’m wearing one of those huge pads. There is nothing there. I am attached to an IV so I pull a pillow around that was behind my back and throw it in Ella’s lap. “Ella, wake up.” I sternly say to her.

She wakes up rubbing the sleep away from her face. Shit, she looks bad, what the hell has happened? As she is pulling herself up and stretching I remember, Grant … accident … DEAD! “Ella, please tell me it was a nightmare, please tell me he isn’t dead. Why the hell am I in this bed?”

“Beth, I am so sorry” is all she says as she crawls into bed with me and holds me. I start to cry, pulling her to me as I sob into her neck. “Shhh, Beth please don’t get upset. I have news to tell you. You have to promise me you won’t get upset. It’s not good for you.”

“Oh God, what is wrong? You’re scaring the shit out of me.”

“Beth,” she looks at me smiles with tears in her eyes, “you’re pregnant!”

“I … what?” What the hell is she talking about? I am sitting here, thinking. There is no way. I just had implantation done three days ago. It’s what … Sunday morning?

“Beth, you’re pregnant. They did a blood test last night. Your hCG levels are elevated for just having implantation.”

“Ella what is today? There is no way to find out this early.”

“Beth, its Friday.”

“What the fuck? How the hell is it Friday? My husband just died on Saturday night. What the hell happened to me?”

“Beth please don’t be mad, and know what I did, I did with the best intentions of keeping you pregnant. I didn’t want you to have another loss. I knew this was your last attempt to getting pregnant, especially with what has happened to Grant.” I start to cry for my husband, and then for the total clusterfuck that is going on in my head.

“Ella what happened?” I say quietly.

“Beth, I texted Kate when we were watching the whole mess with Grant. I told her to call Dr. Alexander. Knowing he had a shift at the hospital and tell him to get his ass here. She told him what was going on and that you might be pregnant. Once you started to panic and freak out, he gave you a heavy dose sedative to knock you out. We’ve kept you in the hospital, kept you hydrated, and rested. We needed to give your baby a chance to develop. Yesterday afternoon, Dr. Alexander came in wanted to get blood work done. Well, it shows that you are indeed pregnant. It’s a start to a healthy pregnancy, based on where your numbers are at. He will want more blood work today to make sure they are going up the way they need to.”

My jaw has hit the floor. I have so many emotions running through me, the loss of my husband, but the gain of a baby. I’m highly pissed with the universe, how the hell does this happen to someone? Grant was thirty. We were trying to start a family and live this next chapter of our lives together.

“El, what happened to Grant, do Cole and Anna know what is going on since I have been out … oh my god my dogs … El?”

“Honey, Kate has the dogs at her place. They are fine and the least of your worries. Cole and Anna knew what happened right after he passed. Keith had his partner go and pick them up to bring them to the hospital. They saw him minutes after you were asleep. They started to plan his memorial, if it’s ok with you they would like to do it tomorrow night? Ethan and your parents are here. They are staying at your house. They came in Sunday morning, and have been by to check on you.”

“Grant and the others were killed by a drunk driver on a motorcycle. Apparently, the rider swerved into the other lane, making a car weave in and out of the lane. Grant was traveling down the road with a pack of seven motorcyclists. The car swerved and hit the back riders, who were killed instantly. The front three were cut off by the second car that was traveling behind the first that tried to move out of the way for the drunk driver. Grant was part of the three riders. The front three bikers were thrown from their bikes and landed a long way from their bikes. Grant went flying into a group of outside tables and chairs. He shattered his pelvis, broke both legs, and his lower back. He ruptured his spleen and his right kidney. He had massive internal bleeding and a collapsed lung. He ended up going into cardiac arrest. He crashed in the ambulance. They brought him back, but once he got here there was nothing the doctors could do.”

“Oh my god” is all I can say over and over.

“Honey, one more thing.” I take in a breath and give her the look to keep on going. “All the bikers in that group have died. They were all friends of Grant’s, including Sean and Jack.”

“Oh my God, El! So you are telling me that Kelly’s husband is dead. This is horrifying. Those men were lawyers, accountants, husbands, and fathers. Kelly had a baby girl six months ago.” I lay my head back in an awkward position and realize that I am not the only person living this awful nightmare. Kelly’s child will never know her father …
Just like mine
. I weep. I don’t sob because I know that will get me going and isn’t good for the baby, but I let the tears run down my face.

“Beth, what do you want to do now that you are awake and you know what is going on?”

“I need to see Cole and Anna. I need to be with them. I need to tell them some clear and hopeful news. Grant was their only child. I need to give them hope during all this. Then I need to call Kelly. I want to go home, El. I need to go home. I have to prepare to say goodbye to my husband.”

A couple hours later I was released by the doctor on duty. He gave me medications and a list of instructions and release papers to sign. I was able to leave with Ella.

My parents, Grace and Evan, and my brother, Ethan, welcomed me home with open arms and more tears. With the little strength in me, I push them away and tell them I need to lie down. I walk into our room, it is so cold. Looking around the room it is foreign to me. It was just nine nights ago we made love in that bed. I can’t believe he has been gone for six days. I can’t believe that I have been sleeping away while everyone is grieving the loss of our loved one. I think of Cole and Anna, and that they lost their only child. I pick up the bed side table phone and start to dial their number. I need to see them. We need to talk.

“Hello.” Cole answers the phone is a raspy voice. I know he has been crying.

I start to cry. “Cole, hi it’s Beth. Umm I need to see you and Anna as soon as possible.”

“Well, Anna is sleeping right now. Her doctor gave her Xanax to cope. How about I wake her in a couple of hours and we can come by around seven tonight?”

“OK, I’ll see you around seven.” I hang up the phone in pure pain, my heart is beating so fast, my palms are wet; my pulse in my temples is bulging out. The phone call to my in-laws was pure hell. We have never talked, or ended a phone call like that, in all the years we’ve known each other.
What’s going to happen to our relationship now?

I get up to go to the bathroom. As I walk I pass his closest, I stand in the doorway, and stare at all his clothes and belongings. I charge right through and grab as much clothing as I can, plastering my face into his shirts. They smell of him. I take in his scent and the feel of his shirts against my face. I sob into the material and clench tighter to the clothing, hoping that the hangers and the shelving unit will hold my weight. Slowly I sink to the carpet pulling what clothes I can hold onto. I curl up and bawl my eyes out. Time stood still, I have no idea what to do, where to go, how to cope or move. I feel as if I am in some Twilight Zone episode, that this experience is just some horrible experiment. Grant will walk through that door at any minute pick me up and tell me that I had passed the worst experience of pain in my life.

I slowly start to drift off to sleep when I feel my body rise off the ground. When I open my burning eyes I see Ethan carrying me to my bed. “Ethan put me back, I need to smell him, that closest is all I have of him.”

“Shhh, Elizabeth, you are in no condition to sleep on the floor. Let me lie next to you until you fall back to sleep.” I don’t argue. I am way too weak to argue or say anything. He lays me on Grant’s side of the bed, and I take in his pillows. They still smell of him. I feel Ethan brush the hair away from my face and slowly brush my hair with his fingertips.

It’s been a couple of hours but seems like minutes, I am awakened by Anna rubbing her hands against my back telling me she is here. I roll over onto my back. I open my eyes and see a woman that has no life in her eyes. Her face is gray, she has dark circles under eyes, and the lines in her face are drooping down. Her once beautiful silver hair seems lifeless and just gray. I sit up as she sits down on the bed. We just hold each other. We don’t say a word. I don’t know how long we sit like this, but we finally separate when Cole walks into the room. I look at him and gasp. I’ve never really seen the similarities in Grant and Cole, but they look so much alike. Cole has short hair sprinkled with the salt and pepper look. I stand up to go and hug him and he puts his head on my shoulder and just cries. I feel Anna’s arms come around me. The three of us stand and cry.

BOOK: Life's Perfect Plan (The Life Series)
8.99Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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