Chapter 15
15
Wendy had been laying the groundwork to get a puppy for the past few weeks. It seemed like the perfect antidote to her increasingly empty nest, and she knew now which breed she wanted. From what she’d read, it would also be a good fit with Gary’s Border Terrier, Stan. The breed was supposed to be incredibly affectionate and very loyal to their favourite people. It was exactly what she needed, a little dog to depend on her, who she wouldn’t have to share with another household. Gary had questioned whether now was the right time for a second dog, considering their plans to get married, and the hope that they might be able to have an exotic honeymoon somewhere, but she could tell she was starting to win him round, and he’d begun to send her videos of dachshund puppies falling over their own feet and doing other impossibly cute things. She was just watching another video Gary had sent her, when her phone started to ring. It was Zara.
‘Oh Mum, thank God!’ Her voice was high and reedy, and even without seeing her face Wendy could tell she was close to tears.
‘Are you okay? What’s wrong?’ Fear prickled her skin, and she was already in flight or fight mode with the need to get to her youngest child.
‘Yes, no… It’s not me, it’s Chloe.’ Wendy’s immediate reaction was to sigh with relief; all the scary scenarios that had flitted through her mind in less than ten seconds had disappeared, but then she heard the panic that was still in Zara’s voice.
‘Mum? Mum? Are you there?’
‘Yes, darling, but if something is wrong with Chloe, why haven’t you called Dad?’
‘He’s not answering. He’s away on a golf trip with Uncle Tony and you know what it’s like when they’re playing, he won’t even look at his phone until he comes off the course. Mum, please, I know it’s weird me phoning you about Clo, but I think she’s really poorly and she won’t let me call an ambulance. She keeps crying because of the pain.’
‘Where does it hurt?’ Wendy felt as if her blood had gone cold, and she had a horrible feeling she knew what Zara was going to say before she said it.
‘Near the bottom of her bump and she’s been sick a few times too. I don’t know what to do, and she just keeps saying she wants Dad. I can’t do this on my own, Mum. I just can’t. Please. ’ Zara was pleading now, but she didn’t need to, Wendy had already snatched up her keys and she felt close to tears herself.
‘Okay sweetheart, I’m coming straight over now, but I want you to call the ambulance. Never mind what Chloe says, she needs medical help.’
‘Thank you, please be as quick as you can. I’m really scared.’
‘I know you are, sweetheart, but it’ll be okay. I’ll be there in ten minutes, I promise.’ Ending the call, Wendy dashed towards the front door. From what Chloe had said there was every chance this had something to do with either the pregnancy itself, or the cyst on her ovary, and Wendy had no idea how dangerous that might be to either Chloe or her unborn baby. All she knew was that she desperately wanted them both to be okay.
Zara was standing in the open doorway when Wendy pulled up outside Mike and Chloe’s house. Her face was almost as pale as the white shirt she was wearing, and her eyes were red rimmed and puffy.
‘I’m scared she’s dying; she can’t even stand up now and when I phoned for an ambulance they said it was probably a miscarriage, but they might take two hours to get here. They’ve got a backlog of jobs.’ Zara threw herself into her mother’s arms as Wendy reached her. ‘Don’t let her die, Mum, you’ve got to do something.’
‘If she’s as bad as you say, I’ll take her to the hospital myself.’ Wendy gently extricated herself from her daughter’s embrace. ‘But try not to worry. There are a lot of reasons she might be having pain and it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s losing the baby.’
‘I think that’s why Chloe doesn’t want to go to the hospital. If she gets there and they tell her she’s lost him, I don’t think she’ll cope.’ Zara shivered and Wendy nodded. Her daughter shouldn’t have had to witness this, and if Mike had answered his bloody phone neither of them would be here, but all they could do was their best to help Chloe until they could track him down.
‘I’ll speak to her and make her understand she needs to do this.’ Wendy took her daughter’s hand, and followed her down the hallway and into the sitting room where Chloe was curled up on the sofa, with her knees drawn up to her chest, still crying and in obvious pain. Something inside of Wendy stirred, and it was almost as if it was one of her own daughters lying there.
‘Oh sweetheart, what’s going on?’ Crouching by the sofa, Wendy pushed Chloe’s hair away from her forehead.
‘The pain is so bad, it’s feels like something is crushing my insides on the right-hand side of my groin. It started off as a dull ache, but it’s got worse and worse.’ She looked at Wendy, her eyes filled with fear. ‘I’m losing him, aren’t I?’
‘I really hope not, but we need to get you to hospital, so they can take a look at you both.’
‘I can’t bear to hear them tell me he’s gone.’ Chloe buried her face in the cushion and when Wendy put a hand on her shoulder, it felt rigid with tension.
‘It might not be that, it could be the cyst, and the sooner you get seen the better it’ll be for you and the baby. The ambulance will probably take a while, but I can drive you in.’ She kept her voice level and did the best she could to sound hopeful, but this amount of abdominal pain in a pregnant woman was terrifying to witness, and she could only begin to imagine how scary it was to experience.
Chloe turned to look at Wendy again. ‘Only if you promise you’ll stay with me until Mike arrives.’
‘I promise.’ It was an easy commitment to make in the end, and she told herself it was because she’d do the same for anyone in that kind of distress, even a total stranger. But the truth was she felt something more for Chloe than just passing sympathy. She wouldn’t have been able to define what that was if her life depended on it, but it was there all the same.
Chloe had been sick at least three times on the fifteen-minute journey to the hospital, and Wendy had questioned whether they should have waited for the ambulance, but once they were on the road she wasn’t going to stop driving. When she’d run upstairs to try and find Chloe some bits to take into the hospital, she’d asked Zara to phone the ambulance again for an update, and they’d said at least another hour. They couldn’t just sit around and wait. Wendy parked as close as she could to the entrance to A it was entirely reserved for what the pair of them were putting his fiancée through. ‘Well maybe you’d better try and find out where he is, because I’m with Chloe in the hospital. She’s in agony and she might be losing the baby. So, tell that selfish bastard you’re always so willing to defend to get his arse to St Piran’s now, or I swear to God I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
‘You’re joking.’ Tony sounded shocked, but Wendy still felt like punching him.
‘Even a moron like you must know I’m not joking about something like that.’ Wendy cut off the call before Tony could answer. The adrenaline that was pumping through her was making it feel as though her veins were closer to the surface than they had been before. She had no idea how she’d react if Mike suddenly turned up, but she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t be capable of murder.
Despite the warmth of the room, Wendy was still shivering as she grasped the hot chocolate between her hands. Stealing a glance across the room, she noticed Zara shiver too. Neither of them could relax and every time there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside, Wendy held her breath, but no one had come in yet. And then came the knock on the door.
‘How are you doing?’ Esther gave a half-smile as she walked into the room and it was all Wendy could do not to cry, but she gave a small shrug instead, and glanced towards her daughter.
‘We’re just worried about Chloe.’
‘She’s been sent for a scan and she’s on an IV because we’re concerned about dehydration and we also wanted to be able to give her stronger painkillers, but Chloe asked if you can go in there to be with her before they give her the results of the scan. I can stay with Zara if you want?’
‘No!’ Zara’s response seemed to echo in the room, and Wendy looked at her daughter. She had more right to be with Chloe than Wendy did, and if the news was bad, she was probably better placed to comfort her soon-to-be stepmother than Wendy was.
‘If Chloe’s okay with us both being there, I am too. I’ve tried to get hold of my ex-husband, because he’s the one who should really be here, but I haven’t had any luck.’
‘I think she’s going to need a friendly face.’ The downturn of Esther’s mouth would have said it all, even if Wendy hadn’t picked up on the implication of her words. Whatever the news was, it wasn’t going to be good.
Chloe had been moved into a private room after her scan. She was hooked up to an IV as Esther had said, but there was no foetal heart monitor and the last shred of hope that Wendy had been holding on to drifted away. Chloe was ashen and she flinched when they came into the room, like a dog that expected to be beaten.
‘Thank you for being here. I couldn’t look at the screen while they were scanning me and I told them I didn’t want to know what they’d seen until I had you with me, but I’m sure they’d have said if everything was okay.’ She whispered the words to Wendy, her eyes filling with tears as she spoke. Chloe shouldn’t have needed to be grateful to her partner’s ex-wife for being there in her hour of need, but Mike had left her with no choice. Wendy knew that might not make him the worst person in the world, but it made him the worst person in hers. She’d tried so hard not to hate him after the way their marriage had ended, for the girls’ sake if nothing else, but there was no denying how she felt about him now. She’d wasted so much time thinking that Mike leaving had destroyed their chances of having a perfect family life, and wishing that things could be different. When the truth was he’d been hellbent on destroying their chances of being a happy family right from the start. He was too selfish to put anyone but himself first; he’d let them down over and over, and yet she’d still spent years convincing herself that holding their family together was better for the girls than the alternative. What a fool she’d been, but she couldn’t bear that Mike was making a fool of Chloe too, and hatred wasn’t a strong enough word for him any more. She couldn’t focus on that right now, though; the energy those feelings took up was needed elsewhere.
‘It’s okay, sweetheart.’ Wendy had stopped seeing Chloe her rival in any way, and all she cared about now was that somehow she’d survive this. But looking at the fragile young woman, who’d already told her she had no one to rely on, she was terrified this might be the final straw. When Ravinder Parvid, one of the consultant obstetricians, came into the room and introduced herself, less than two minutes after Wendy and Zara had got there, her expression made Wendy’s heart feel as though it had hit the floor. Ravinder took a deep breath and then said the words none of them wanted to hear.
‘I’m so sorry.’ The wail that filled the air came from Chloe, but the pain in Wendy’s chest almost made it feel as though it had come from her. She held the younger woman’s hand, as Ravinder outlined the terrible results of the scan. The cyst on Chloe’s left ovary had suddenly increased dramatically in size, twisting it and cutting off the blood supply. They couldn’t be sure whether it had been a direct cause, but the blood supply to the placenta had been compromised and her baby had died. All of the young woman’s worst fears had come true and her anguish was unbearable. It was almost ten minutes before Ravinder could outline to Chloe what was going to happen next. It took that long for her to be able to stop sobbing, and Wendy held her the whole time, the front of her top soaked through with Chloe’s tears by the time she was able to cope with being told what would happen next.
‘Ovarian torsion requires emergency surgery and we’re preparing theatre for you now. We’re hoping we might be able to save your left ovary, but there’s a chance we may have to remove it if the blood supply has been cut off for too long.’
‘What about the baby? Will you take him out too?’ Chloe was gripping Wendy’s hand so tightly it hurt, but she was glad of the physical pain, it was almost a relief.
‘We wouldn’t if you weren’t already going under a general anaesthetic, but I think it would be best in this instance.’ Ravinder patted Chloe’s shoulder, and Wendy let go of the breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. The thought of Chloe having to give birth to her son after losing him was unbearable. Nothing could make this situation any better, but there were definitely things that could make it worse.
‘Will I be able to see him?’ The desperation in Chloe’s voice was breaking Wendy’s heart again and, when she stole a glance at Zara, her daughter was frantically wiping tears out of her eyes.
‘You will, but I think it would be best if we wait until afterwards for me to advise you whether I think it would be a good idea. I really am so sorry.’ Ravinder sounded like she meant every word, and as Chloe started crying again, it was echoed by Zara’s inability to stifle her own tears. This was agony for all of them, even Wendy. They had no idea where Mike was and she dreaded to think what he was doing. Now wasn’t the time to wonder whether Chloe would ever be able to forgive him, but one thing Wendy knew for certain was that she never would.