Surrender: The Greek Affair Series Book One (27 page)

“Do you understand what is happening?”

She snaps out of her daze and concentrates on him.

“Sorry, doctor. I’m not sure what is happening, I’m in a daze.”

“Your body is trying to abort. That is the reason for all the bleeding. There is no way that you will be able to retain this pregnancy, and I would like to see you first thing tomorrow morning at the hospital, to clean you out and make all this go away.”

“So the baby is doomed?”

“Yes, you are aborting and from what you have told me you have been aborting from the time you concieved, there is no way we can save it, and if you choose otherwise. I can’t guarantee your personal health.”

“Whatever we have to do.” She mumbles with her head hanging as she is getting dressed. After the arrangements are made for the next day’s minor surgery, she can only think that she has a son to live for and she must stay alive and healthy. She is sad; but amazed that she has carried so long with so much bleeding, loss of weight and feeling so physically depleted. She feels numb, sad, and scared, all at once.

Her thoughts are reeling in all directions. She could have had Jason’s baby, if the pregnancy were normal. This seals all what she already knew, that she can never give him that. His baby would have had his green eyes and luscious lips. It would have been brought up in a loving environment, unlike her son’s upbringing that had little love going around in the house he had grown up in.

She could have had a second chance to do it right this time, to prove that she could be a good mother, and that she could nurture. But she knew that all these thoughts were confusing her now, more than she already was. One of her arguments with Jason was that she did not want to have anymore children, that she could not make him a father, so this should be ok, should it not? But no, it was not. She knew it was not. She knew that this happened to her so she could once and for all prove to him that she was not right for him. She had to stop twirling all of this in her brain. It was making it difficult to be lucid in her thoughts.

Once in the waiting room, she grabs Jason’s hand and pulls him outside. They get to the car and get in. Jason is waiting for her to speak. He looks at her and all he says is,

“Well?”

She looks at his sweet, caring face, confirming what she can’t give him. She looks into his green pools and all she can do is to put her hands on her face, bend over towards her knees, and the dam bursts as she mutters between sobs.

“I’m pregnant.” He moves closer and lifts her chin up and kisses her tears and asks tenderly.

“So why are you bleeding?”

“Because I’m aborting and I can’t keep it. I have to have myself cleaned out.”

“Shhhhhh moró mou, don’t worry as long as you’re well.”

She gently pushes him away. He pulls back sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, continues to look at her and waits to hear what she will say next. Hope is silent for a while, trying to control her sobbing. She keeps looking straight ahead, to avoid looking at him. She wraps her arms around herself and starts talking between sobs.

“I’m over three months and that’s why I have had such terrible periods. I’m so irresponsible. How did I let this happen? I did not realise how careless I was with my pill. I was late taking it only once. It was in those heady, early days we came together. But I took it. I took it on the same day. I did not miss a day.” She starts rocking and crying again. “I’ll never forgive myself for this. I’m so sorry
agαápi mou
, so sorry.”

He reaches out and pats her back, running his hand up and down. He is always aware not to crowd her while she is this upset. “Don’t start feeling guilty about this now. Don’t blame yourself. Half of the carelessness is mine.” He stops and waits, Hope continues to cry while digging into her handbag for tissues.

“I have to be at the hospital in the morning. Will you drive me and wait to take me home?”

He moves closer, pulls her towards him gently and embraces her. She allows him and she falls into his embrace, hiccupping from her crying. He soothes her hair and face with his hands, and with his mouth on her cheek, he says softly to her.

“Any other time I would have been angry with you, for even having to ask. We are in this together. We did this together and we will see it to the end together.”

They sit like this for a few minutes until Hope’s sobbing hiccups subside. She lets him go and sits back in her seat.

“Take me home. I want to have a shower.” He starts the car.

Hope has been in Jason’s embrace all night. He is holding on with all his love. He is breathing softly in her neck, where his face is tucked in. Hope lies with him but has very little sleep during the night. She falls in and out of dreaming and waking, not sure if she is asleep or not. Her eyes pop open and it’s 5 am. As she is fasting, she contemplates what to do. She does need to get up though, and clean herself.

She untangles Jason from her body and gets up quietly. She goes to the ensuite bathroom and proceeds to get undressed and get into the shower. She tries to let the water soothe her, but she starts crying uncontrollably, her body heaving. She puts her hands up against the cool tiles and bends her head as she sees the blood running down her inner thigh and she is overwhelmed with emotion. She cannot think clearly, and has lost the ability to understand why this happened; she knows that the doctor will make all this go away. But she also knows she is not crying for herself, but for Jason.

She knows she cannot do this again. She cannot give Jason children, and maybe the universe is telling her just this, with a pregnancy that refuses to take hold. It is also telling Jason the same thing, “this woman can never make you a father”. She hears the universe screaming at both of them and just then, the screen of the shower opens and Jason walks in. He stands behind her holding her with his strong arms wrapped around her, soothing her with his hands on her tummy.

“Are you in pain agápí mou (my love)?”

“No.”

“So, why are you crying?”

She turns around and holds on to him tightly, burying her face into his strong chest. He holds her and she mutters between her sobs, the water pounding on them.

“This is what I can’t give you. A family, and the universe is warning us.”

He soothes her back with his hands, kisses her on top of her head, and says softly to her.

“If that is what the universe is telling us, then we will abide. And did I ever tell you I needed a family from you?”

“You will one day. I won’t be able to live with myself.”

“Why? Have you committed a crime? What is this guilt thing you have about everything? It’s not always about you my love. There are circumstances and people in our lives that often guide our paths towards the forks we take.”

She says nothing. He reaches out for the soap and washcloth and begins washing her. He crouches and cleans her between her legs.

“I love you, even when you’re bleeding like this. Maybe even more.”

She looks down at his head and watches him wash her and once again she wonders why this man was thrown in to her thorny life.

“Now let’s get you out of here.”

“I’ll make you coffee, so I can at least smell it.”

They get dressed and Hope makes the coffee. Jason makes breakfast for himself, They are seated on the couch, with his arm around her shoulder, saying nothing and waiting for the time to come, so they can leave for the hospital.

***

It’s late afternoon, Hope has recovered substantially from the morning’s ordeal. Jason has been fussing around her all day.

“Sit down, for goodness sake. You’re making me dizzy.” She pulls his arm, as he walks past her, and as she is lounging on the couch. He sits next to her and is silent. Hope has been aware that he has been extra silent all day, has said very little, except to ask her about her needs. What does she want to eat and drink? Is she comfortable? Does she want to sleep? Is she ok on the couch? Does she want to go to bed, and so on, but nothing else. No conversation happens about anything else that they often talk about; life, politics, art, music, and more. He also seems to have lost his humour, has been very sombre all day, and has hardly cracked a smile.

“Sit next to me, tell me what’s eating you up.”

She gets into a sitting position, tucking her feet underneath her and he closes in on her resting his face onto her breasts. “Nothing is eating me up, I want to make you comfortable and I want you to forget your ordeal.”

“You have gone silent on me. Why?”

“I don’t want to talk about things that will make you unhappy and weird you out.”

“How can you weird me out? I’m already weirded out, is that even a word?” She giggles, “I have to be strong and get over this, and get healthy again. It’s up to me, and nothing to do with you. So talk to me.”

He kisses her cleavage lifting his head and their eyes make contact.

“What scares me the most, is you. Your insecurity about us is what makes me silent. After this experience, I figure you’re going to come up with more reasons why we should not be together, and yes, it makes me silent because I don’t know what to say and do anymore to prove to you that none of this matters; that only you matter.”

When Hope came home about midday after her small operation she snoozed for a while but most of the time she thought. She thought mostly about her health and the conversation she had had with her doctor in the recovery room. He told her that she had a fibroid and that he is investigating it, by removing some tissue. He would know the results of the biopsy on her post-operative consultation and would discuss the matter further.

She had not told Jason and was not sure if she should, but she knew in her heart that it was fair that he should know, as her health would have an impact on their relationship.

“I will not come up with an excuse, but I may be forced by circumstances to rethink my next move, at this stage.” Jason sits up abruptly waiting to hear more.

“What have you not told me?”

“The doctor took some tissue from the fibroid for further investigation and we’re waiting for results.”

“What?”

“I have a fibroid, which they are investigating. They are doing a biopsy.”

Jason’s face darkens, and looking at her, he is speechless.

“Say something.”

“And when were you going to tell me this?”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Hope, don’t do this to us! You know what I mean. Why didn’t you tell me straight away?”

She reaches out and touches his cheek with tenderness,

“It’s not “us”
moró mou
(my baby), it’s you. I don’t want to do this to you.”

He takes her hands and looks at her in silence for a few heartbeats; she could tell he was mulling something over in his brain. He bends over and kisses her tenderly on her mouth, then pulls back and looks at her again.

“Let’s not jump ahead.

Let’s wait for the results and then we can talk.”

They spend the next few days without talking about Hope’s health, or their relationship. They walk the streets, sit around cafes, go to the theatre, and listen to music, but most of all, love each other from the heart and soul, without the encumbrance of sex. They talk about their families; they open up to each other completely. And soon it is time to go to see the doctor and find out the results.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jason insists on going to the doctor with her, and being next to her when she gets the results. Hope tries to fight him but she knows she is going to lose this battle so she finds herself sitting next to him with the doctor opposite them. Jason holds her hand, wanting to make sure that there is no mistake about the nature of their relationship, and he knows how pathetically insecure that makes him look, but he doesn’t give a damn what others think of him.

The doctor starts to speak and Hope and Jason know from his first words, that the news is not good. Hope has a cancerous fibroid, and she hears the word ‘hysterectomy’. She hears ‘urgent’. But Hope does not freeze. Jason does! Jason is numbed by the news and even in this state, he knows he felt like this, not about the hysterectomy, but for the ‘urgent’ part. He becomes terrified for Hope’s health.

Hope is aware of her surroundings all the time. For some odd reason this is less heart wrenching than when she was told she was aborting Jason’s baby, so she finds the strength she knows she has, to talk with the doctor about all of her options.

She is calm and with all her faculties knows she has to get a handle on this.

Jason says no more, and allows her to continue the rest of the conversation with the doctor. Jason is looking at her, watching the strength that has surfaced from nowhere, and he once more understands why he loves this woman so much. She is beautiful, funny, creative, intelligent, sensitive, warm, sexy, and beneath that fragility of hers, a gigantic amount of strength was hiding.

He watches how she interacts with the doctor, asks the questions she needs to ask, waits for the answers, receiving the negative information with calm and composure. The only positive in this disaster is that if she gets her operation done immediately, there is hope.