15 Summers Later

Chapter 31

In this moment, survival becomes our singular focus, a primal instinct that drives us to endure against the odds.

—Ghost Lake by Ava Howell Brooks

She was losing the baby.

She didn’t need to look to know that she was bleeding. She could feel the wetness between her legs and the cramps that rippled through her.

All day, she had been achy, her back sore and cramps hitting her at random moments. She had ignored them, never once imagining those might have been early indications she was miscarrying.

No. She fought the wail building inside her. No. Please, God. No.

“What’s wrong?” Nicole Gentry was at her side immediately. The ER nurse’s voice was calm but concerned.

Ava couldn’t answer. She could feel the tears leaking down her face as all her hopes and dreams were dying inside her.

She must have managed some sound. An instant later, Madi was at her side, crouching on the floor next to her.

“What’s wrong, Ava? Is it the baby?”

“I...I think so.” It was all she could say as shock and pain and grief roared in her chest.

“You’re pregnant?” Nicole looked shocked. “How far along?”

“Eight...eight weeks.”

“Have you been cramping?”

She nodded, pressing her hand against her abdomen. “All day. I thought...I thought maybe I had a stomach thing going on.”

Another cramp hit her hard, so intense she doubled over with a keening cry.

“Easy. Let’s get you into the bathroom. Madi, can you help?”

Her sister, who had been so angry with her, now appeared stricken. She reached her curled fingers down and helped lift Ava off the carpet. With Nicole on her other side, Ava managed to make it to the bathroom.

She didn’t want an audience, even her sister and one of their closest friends. “I’m okay from here,” she said to the other two women.

“Are you sure?” Nicole frowned.

Ava nodded. “Yes. Please. I... I’ll let you know if I need you.”

“There are pads under the sink if you need something,” Nicole said gently, squeezing her arm.

Madi hovered outside the door, her mouth twisted with fear and sorrow. Ava couldn’t deal with it right now. She couldn’t even handle her own raw grief and didn’t have space to take on anyone else’s.

She closed the bathroom door and stood for several moments, breathing through the physical pain and the deep emotional loss.

Finally, she looked and the thick clots of rusty blood staining her underwear, much more intense than any mild spotting, confirmed her suspicions.

She was losing the baby.

Bereft, shattered, she rocked back and forth, arms wrapped around her abdomen as if she could hold on to the pregnancy by force of will alone.

She let out a sob and then another one.

She thought the worst moment of her life had been when her sixteen-year-old self had been married off to a man older than her father. When he had kissed her, sloppy and wet, and touched her with his fat, horrible hands.

She had been wrong. This was so much worse.

That had been over in a few moments. This pain she knew would linger forever.

She had only known about the baby for a few weeks but its existence had been a shining light of hope in a cold, harsh world.

Cullen. She had to tell Cullen.

She sobbed again, burying her face in her hands.

She didn’t hear the bathroom door open and was only vaguely aware when her sister entered, when Madi knelt on the cold tile of the bathroom and wrapped her arms around her.

Her brave, amazing sister held her, rocked her for a long time as Ava rested her head against Madi’s shoulder and wept, huge, wrenching sobs that seemed to well up from the depths of her soul.

Later, when she had cleaned up as best she could and changed into a fresh, soft nightgown provided by Nicki, Ava clutched at the small comfort her sister had offered so generously, holding it to her heart.

“You can stay here tonight,” Madi said when they both emerged from the bathroom. “You’ll sleep in my room. I’ll call Grandma and let her know what’s going on.”

She nodded, feeling listless, wrung out.

“Ava, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I shouldn’t have...yelled at you.”

She shook her head forcefully. “This isn’t your fault, Madi. Don’t think that. It... I think it started last night.”

She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth to hold back the sob there. “I had some spotting and my back has been hurting since then. And today, I’ve been crampy on and off all day.”

“I’ve had patients describe it as the worst menstrual cramps of their lives.” Nicole’s eyes were drenched with compassion.

“Yes. That’s what it feels like.” She looked at the other woman. “Do you think I need to go to the ER?”

Nicole squeezed her arm. “Not unless you bleed heavily for several hours and it won’t stop.”

“Is there a way to reach Cullen?” Madi asked.

Ava closed her eyes, fighting sobs all over again as she felt keenly how her husband would grieve this loss as well. “No. They have a satellite phone, but he said it stopped working and they have to get another one. He’s supposed to be coming down tomorrow. I will...will wait to tell him then.”

She wiped at her eyes with the tissue Madi provided. The joy they both had felt about the pregnancy had been a tensile thread knotting her together with Cullen in the midst of their painful separation. Now that thread had been cut, how would her marriage possibly survive?

She didn’t know which hurt worse. The aching cramps in her womb or the fearful, anxious pain in her heart.