Authors: Jaime Whitley
The rest of the party goes by as smoothly as it can. Just about everyone was trying to keep Ezra’s mind off Silas not being there. Everyone is just as pissed about Silas being MIA, but unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it until I hear from him.
Chapter 28
Silas
Sitting here, not being able to do anything is the worst. I’m completely worthless and I can’t do anything to change that. When Kristin called me freaking out, I didn’t know what to think. She was crying hysterically and all I could make out was
bleeding
and
baby
. I rushed right over to her house in a panic and when I got to her place, she was on the floor with her knees to her chest, complaining of cramping. I picked her up, put her in the car and brought her straight to the hospital, and here we are waiting.
The doctors brought her back immediately and took vials of blood and did an ultrasound. The doctor confirmed our fears and told us that Kristin was in fact, miscarrying. We are losing our baby, and there isn’t a damn thing either one of us can do except sit here and wait for this nightmare to be over.
They took her back for a D&C and now she is in recovery. She was so distraught, they had to sedate her. I haven’t left her side since they brought her back from the procedure. I can only remember one other time in my life where I cried like a little kid and that’s when I lost my mother. The loss of a child is truly devastating, and I don’t even know how to console Kristin. I’m just as lost as she is in all of this.
The sound of the door opening wakes me up from my sleep and I lift my head off the bed to see our nurse, Rachael, come in the room.
“I’m sorry, hon. I didn’t mean to wake you.” She heads over to take Kristin’s vitals.
“How is she doing?” I ask, rubbing my eyes trying to wake myself up. I have no idea what time it is or how long I’ve been here. They made me shut my phone off when I got here due to their no cell phone policy.
“Her vitals are looking good. I’ll keep monitoring them and the doctor will be in to check up on her once she wakes up.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Hoping I could be useful.
“Just hold her hand and be there for her when she wakes up. I see miscarriages a lot in my line of work and it never gets any easier. The best healing I’ve seen is the husband’s support. Just hold her hand and let her know how much you love her,” she’s smiling warmly at me.
“Oh, I’m not her husband. We used to date, but now we’re just friends.” I’m not really sure why I feel the need to clarify that. I will never see these people again after we leave here.
“Husband or friend, I can tell you care for her. You haven’t left her side since you’ve been here. Why don’t you try and get some sleep so you’re well rested when she wakes.”
“Before you leave, do you know what time it is?” She looks over to the far wall, and it isn’t until she points it out that I notice it’s there.
“It’s a little after midnight. Get some rest, she’s going to be out for a good while.” Rachael grabs Kristin’s chart and leaves the room.
“I know it’s against your policy, but do you think I can make a quick phone call?” I get her attention before she can shut the door behind her.
“Oh, honey, we don’t follow that rule here, make whatever calls you need to.” She closes the door, giving us our privacy.
I know I should call Lilly and explain what happened, but I know she will already be in bed and I don’t want to take the chance on waking her or Ezra. I suddenly feel sick all over again knowing that, once again, I let my family down. I seem to be doing that a lot today. I let Kristin down when I couldn’t do anything to help her from losing our baby and I let Ezra down by not being there for his birthday. I’m just an all around shitty father today. Not wanting to leave Kristin’s side, I walk over to the corner of the room and call Lucas. The phone rings once before he answers.
“Well well, look who finally decided to come out of hiding,” he answers.
“Cut the bullshit, Lucas,” I snap at him.
“Whoa man, no need to bite my head off. After all, I wasn’t the one absent from my son’s birthday party. I really hope you have a good reason for your disappearing act.” I can hear Kim in the background and all I could make out was
fucking asshole
. Yeah, I may be an asshole for missing my kid’s birthday party, but I wonder if she would be calling me that if she knew why.
“I wasn’t there because I had to take Kristin to the hospital.” Tears start to fill my eyes and I choke on the words that need to come out of my mouth next. “We lost our baby.” The words feel dirty as they leave my mouth and I wait for a response. There is nothing but silence on the phone, so I pull it away to make sure the call is still connected. When I see that it is, I put it back to my ear.
“Lucas? Are you there?”
“Yeah, man. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to be an asshole.” I can honestly tell in the tone of his voice he’s being sincere.
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
“Is there anything we can do for you?”
“Well, the hospital has a no cell phone rule. Apparently I’m the only one who didn’t know they don’t follow that one, so I’m just now getting to make calls.”
“Did you call Lilly yet?”
“Not yet, I know they are going to be sleeping. I ruined their day and I don’t want to ruin their night. I have to ask, how pissed is she?”
“Put it this way, if you two lived together you would wish you had an actual dog house to sleep in. But I mean, what do you expect? This was pretty huge, man. I know the decision had to be impossible choosing between two children and deciding which one you needed to be there for at the time, but I’m not going to lie, it’s bad.”
“Alright well, I’m going to hop off here and try to get some sleep. I have to call Lilly in the morning and I want to be well rested, so I can take the ass chewing she’s going to give me.”
“That’s right. Take it like a man and start thinking of a way to make it up to them.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know how she’s doing.” I hang up.
I walk back over to the chair that is next to Kristin’s bed and pull it out into a couch. She is still passed out and the only noise in the room is the beeping from the machine monitoring her vitals. I fold my arms, suddenly feeling cold and empty in this sterile room. Lucas confirmed what I already knew. I’m in deep shit. I feel like no matter what I do lately, nothing is right and I keep fucking it up. I could call Lilly tonight, but I think she needs time to cool down. Growing tired, I try to shut my brain off so I can get some rest. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I can feel my body giving into the exhaustion of the day and am out before I know it.
Chapter 29
Lilly
It’s mid-morning and I still haven’t heard from Silas. Kim had called me and filled me in on what’s going on. I feel awful about him losing his baby, but at the same time, I’m enraged with him for not even calling us. Obviously he had time to make a phone call, he just chose to call the wrong person.
Ezra woke up this morning asking for his dad and once again, I had to explain why Daddy wasn’t here. We had a big sleep over planned for them where they were going to camp out in the back yard. Just another thing he didn’t show up for. Megan wanted to take Ezra out for a little while to help keep his mind off his dad. She has always been a huge part of his life and I’m lucky she loves him just as much as I do. Trying to focus my anger elsewhere, I decide my house can use a good scrub down. I’m vacuuming the living room when the doorbell rings. I turn it off and walk over to the door. I open the door and immediately start to slam it shut when I see Silas on the other end of it. He manages to snake his foot in it, causing it to not shut all the way. I stare daggers at him and notice he looks like shit. I start to feel bad, but then I remember the little three-year-old and his eyes filled with tears as he cried himself to sleep last night. I try to kick his foot out and close the door, but he manages to get the door open all the way.
“Really, Lilly? You’re going to slam the door in my face? You know what happened, I know you do. Lucas told me Kim called you.” He’s standing his ground, making it impossible for me to close the door.
“Yes, I am. And it would be a lot easier if you moved out of my way.” I’m hoping he will take the hint, but he still doesn’t budge. Instead, he takes a couple steps in the house and closes the door behind him. He lifts his arm, reaching out to grab my hand and I take a step back. “You want to talk? Fine. But don’t think that I’m going to let you touch and tease your way into forgiveness. What you did was fucked up.” I walk to the living room and take a seat on the couch. Silas follows me in, taking a seat in the chair across from me. Smart man. I’m so angry with him. I really just want to punch him in the face for hurting us.
“You have every right to be mad. I would be pissed too, but--” I cut him off and hold up my hands for him to stop.
“No. No buts, Silas. Not when it comes to a three-year-old boy. Look I get--” and this time he cuts me off.
“Don’t you dare say you get it! Or you know what I’m going through, because you don’t,” he snaps at me, causing me to flinch at his harsh words. “You never had to deal with losing a child and the pain that comes with it. The only one who knows what I’m going through is Kristin.” His voice is now raised as he yells at me. This only pisses me off, if anyone should have the right to yell here it is definitely not him.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say. I was going to tell you that I get that things happen that we can’t control, but a phone call would have been nice. Fuck, I’d even settle for a text! Even if you had the nurse call me, that still would have been something. Instead, I get silence from you and a devastated son who is punching people at his birthday party because kids are telling him his daddy couldn’t care enough to be there.”
“Ezra hit someone?” I just stare at him because that’s not what’s important right now. “Okay, so I could have had someone call. Then what? Were you really going to drag Ezra away from his birthday party and bring him to the hospital?” He shifts in the seat.
“No, I would have told Ezra what was going on and let him make the decision. If he didn’t want to leave, I would have left early and let Megan take him home. I would’ve come to the hospital to be by your side.” I throw my hands out, getting frustrated more and more by the minute with him.
“Why would you leave his birthday party to be with me and Kristin? You have to secretly be happy this happened, because now she isn’t a thorn in your side.” I know it’s the grief talking and his words sting, but I refuse to let him make me the bad guy.
“Because Silas, I love you and we’re supposed to be a family. We may not be married, but we share a son and that will always make us one. I don’t know about you, but in my book, families support each other no matter what the circumstances are. And as for Kristin, I never considered her a thorn in my side. I have been the one pushing you to be supportive of her and behind you one hundred percent on this whole pregnancy. Had she not miscarried, she would be part of this crazy family of ours. So that’s why I would be there for the both of you. But you didn’t give me the chance. You didn’t even have the decency to let me know what was happening. You called Lucas first; not me. I think I’ve heard enough and I think it’s time for you to go.” I stand up now as the anger grows in me; there is no reasoning with him right now. I walk to the kitchen and grab myself a glass of water and hear the sound of the front door slamming shut, causing me to jump. It isn’t until then that I allow the hot tears that I’ve been holding back to fall down my face. I’m so angry with Silas and hurt by his words, and more importantly, the lack of apology. The sound of the front door opening startles me and I wipe the tears from my face and walk toward the door. I’ll be damned if Silas will see me crying over this.
“Hey, Mommy,” Ezra’s voice calls out. He’s back early, making me concerned that he and Megan had a problem while they were out.
“Hey, Bud, you’re back early. What a nice surprise.” I eye Megan as she walks up behind him.
“I saw Daddy outside and he said he’s sorry for missing my birthday. He said we’re going to have our own private party!” He’s excited, but I’m left wondering if it’s just going to be another let down. Well, at least he apologized to someone.
“Why don’t you go grab your crayons and we can color some pictures.” He wastes no time running off. “Well, at least he apologized to his son.” I walk past Megan, grabbing a beer from the fridge.
“Oh, don’t you worry. After Ezra came in, I let him have it and told him if his son wasn’t here I would make good on my promise right now.” She takes my beer from me. “What was he doing here?” I give her an ‘
are you serious’
look. “Right, that one’s obvious. I don’t know why I bothered asking. You didn’t let him off the hook did you?”
“No, I didn’t. But let’s talk about this later once Ezra goes to bed,” I tell her just as he comes in with his crayons and paper.
Chapter 30
Silas
Leaving Lilly’s house that day, I was furious with myself. I wanted to take back so many things I said to her, only I couldn’t. I’m letting the grief of the loss of my child come between Lilly and me. I tried to call her a couple times later that night, but her phone was off. I almost stopped by her house, but I knew she wouldn’t even open the door. If I wasn’t feeling like enough of an asshole already, Kristin had called me asking for Lilly’s number. When I asked her why she needed it, she said she wanted to thank Lilly and Ezra for the flowers they sent to the hospital. Talk about feeling like the douche of the year. Kristin said she felt horrible and part responsible for the situation I’m in and thought it would be best if we didn’t talk anymore. I didn’t argue with her, knowing it will make things easier to let my grief go and move on.
I’m meeting Lucas today for some miniature golf with the kids. I got to Lilly’s a little early in hopes that I could talk to her when I picked up Ezra, but she wasn’t there. She’s been avoiding me for a week now. Megan was there to see him off, and she wasn’t happy to see me at all. In fact, I kept my hands folded in front of me, guarding my goods, just in case she was feeling feisty. I get here before Lucas, and so I take this time to talk with Ezra as we wait outside the building.