Chapter Thirty-Three
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“ Please .” I clench my fists, begging the police officer in front of me. “I just need to get back to my wife.”
“I’m trying to make sure I understand what happened?—”
“Sir, can I take a look at that cut on your face?”
I turn my attention from the police officer and her endless questions to a paramedic approaching with a look of sympathy. “How is she?” I ask. “Is she okay?”
He glances over his shoulder at the ambulance where Lydia was taken forever ago. She was up and walking when they got here, said somehow she didn’t feel hurt—thank God—but she was scared. They closed the doors to give her privacy at some point, but the longer she’s in there, the harder my heart pounds.
“My partner’s with her, don’t worry. She seems remarkably well, all things considered.” He glances at the two wrecked cars in the intersection, then reaches out and swabs my forehead with something that fucking stings.
At that moment, the back of the ambulance opens up and the female paramedic sticks her head out, waving us over. When we get there, they mutter back and forth to each other, but my eyes are glued to Lydia, lying on a gurney looking pale and no less afraid .
“Anton , ” she says when she sees me, a tear spilling down her cheek. I scan her again, looking for any new sign of pain or injury. Apart from looking disheveled, she somehow has fewer scrapes than me, but she’s clutching her hands to her stomach and the look on her face?—
“Hey. D-does something hurt?” I want to climb inside to be with her, but the other paramedic is moving around now, grabbing supplies, and I realize she’s prepping her arm to put in an IV. My eyes widen, but I’m afraid of getting in the way, so I grab my wife’s foot at the end of the gurney and squeeze.
“I—I don’t know,” Lydia says, still scared and confused. “They want to take me to the hospital.”
The paramedic next to me nods, sticking something to my forehead. When he’s satisfied with that, he starts packing up to leave. “She has some mild vaginal bleeding,” he says in a low voice. “ Not a lot, and she says there’s no pain, which is good. But we want to take her to Denver Health to get checked out.”
“Bleeding.” I let out a breath. More like a gasp. “Is the baby?—”
“They’ll be able to tell a lot more about what’s going on at the hospital,” he says, managing to sound both rushed and incredibly reassuring. “She doesn’t seem otherwise hurt, so it might be nothing.”
I nod stiffly. My shoulders won’t release. “Can I—I’ll go with her?”
The police officer comes over, clearing her throat. “Sir, I’m going to need your insurance info for when the tow truck gets here. And if you don’t mind, I do have a few more questions before I can complete my report.”
The paramedic gives me a compassionate nod. “I know this is stressful, but do you have another ride? We’d like to get her there as soon as possible.”
I glare at the officer, but Lydia’s pale, dazed expression makes me shut up and put on a brave face. “My brother’s on his way.” I keep my tone as even and confident as I can, but as I watch them place an oxygen mask over my wife’s face, it feels like my chest is coming apart. “Don’t worry, Lydia. I—I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
And then they’re closing the doors between us, and the ambulance turns its lights on, and they’re driving away, siren blaring through the night .
The police officer turns to me and opens her mouth.
“Excuse me.” I pull out my phone and turn away. Dial a number I’ve had forever and never called. She picks up on the fifth ring, sounding groggy.
“Hello?”
“Caprice.” My voice breaks. “Lydia—look, there was an accident, she?—”
“ What? ” she says, instantly awake. “Is she okay? What did you—where is she?”
My voice is shaking now. “They took her to Denver Health. Can you—I’m still here with the police?—”
Through the receiver, I hear a clatter, then some swearing, but she comes back and says, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Then hangs up without another word. I don’t even care, I’m just grateful Lydia won’t be alone.
“Okay, so I was able to get a statement from the other driver,” the officer says, going down her checklist when I finish. “Now I just need?—”
“Anton! Fuck, I got here as soon as I could.” My brother hollers from his car on the side of the road as I pocket the phone. “Is Lydia okay?”
“I don’t fucking know,” I say as he puts his arms around me, and that’s when my chest finally fissures. “They—they took her to the hospital.”
He’s still for a moment, bearing the weight of what I’ve said, holding me up. But when the police officer comes over and starts talking about her report again, he lets me sink gently to the ground to talk to her, going over to Lydia’s car to get our insurance information.
I follow him with my gaze, taking in the entire wreck for the first time—the other car, some kind of pickup truck, looks one hundred times worse than Lydia’s 4Runner, its front end crumpled beyond recognition. The driver hit us so hard, the force sent both vehicles across the entire intersection. We’re all lucky no one happened to be coming the other direction at that moment. The woman who was driving got out and was walking around, thanks to her airbag. But she was covered in glass and blood, and ultimately went to the hospital. Which is good, because if she was still here I’d be losing my shit in her face. But it’s just me, my brother, and the police in the glow of red and blue lights. The air thick with grief and uncertainty.
I let my head drop to my knees, trying to slow my hammering pulse, get my breathing under control. Because I’ve been here before. A different crash, in a different time, on a different road. We weren’t with my dad when it happened, but we’d driven past the accident, not knowing it was him. I remember looking out the window into the darkness and flashing lights, realizing the twisted metal used to be a car. Not long after we got home, the police showed up at our door. Then my mother quietly asked an officer to sit with Seth and me as she stepped out onto the front steps and broke down.
And now I’m here again, alone with my brother, with the police and flashing lights, still raw because we just lost our mom. And if anything happens to Lydia now, or to?—
I think of her hands clutched over her middle and my heart seizes. God, this is my fault, all of it. It was my idea to go to Ohio. I got her pregnant. I wanted to start a family.
If I hadn’t—we never would have been here.
And I sink even further as it hits me for the second time tonight—Lydia didn’t want this. She tried to tell me, so many ways, but I was only focused on myself. I didn’t hear.
So she went through with it— for me . Because that’s what she does.
The sex. The nausea. The fucking vitamins and food restrictions. The invasions on her body.
And then I made her go to Ohio to parade around for her mom because I thought any family was good family. Because I still couldn’t see .
I already had what was most important.
I rake one hand through my hair. If it wasn’t for me, we would’ve spent Thanksgiving at home with my brother, maybe Caprice. We would’ve eaten turkey sandwiches, Stove Top stuffing, and if I was feeling adventurous, I might’ve baked a pie. Today, we would have done some online shopping and taken Heartthrob to the park. Lydia could’ve used the time to relax, away from work. We could’ve worked on some of the homework from our sex therapist .
Instead of finding ourselves at this icy intersection, halfway between the airport and our home. With everything hanging in the balance.
If I had just listened.
“Hey, man,” Seth says, approaching quietly. And somehow, I am positive he knows. He must’ve heard all my thoughts. “I think they’ve got what they need here if you’re ready to go.”
I look up. I ought to leap—race for his car. But it’s like there’s a weight inside me, anchoring me to this curb.
He tries again, with a new edge of concern. “Come on, Anton. Let’s go catch up to Lydia, make sure she’s good.”
I shake my head, eyes burning.
Because either way, she won’t be.
“She—we don’t know if the baby’s okay.”
His fist tightens at his side, but he speaks in an even tone. “They’ll be able to tell at the hospital, right? So let’s go.”
I drop my head into my hands, making no effort to move. “I—I can’t.”
“Why not?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Because... I did this to her.”
His brow furrows. “I thought Lydia was driving.”
“ No —I knocked her up.”
Seth drops to his knees in front of me. “Anton, we’re talking about your wife possibly losing your fucking baby. Which, I’m pretty sure, also puts her life at risk. You have to go to her.”
My limbs feel like lead. My lungs. I can’t breathe.
“I want to!” I gasp for air. “But I don’t think she’ll want me there.”
“What? Why the fuck not ? ”
“Because she didn’t want the baby!” I roar, my whole face stinging. “She only went along with it because it’s what I wanted.” I choke. “And because I made her feel like she wasn’t enough.”
Seth sits back on his heels and stares at me, his face so haggard it crosses my mind he might be as worried as I am. “Look, Anton, I’ve known Lydia a long time. Since I was a sixteen-year-old kid. And I’m sorry, I know you love her, but sometimes you are so fucking wrong.”
“You don’t understand?—”
“Just shut up and listen.” He grips my knees. “You two went about this whole thing the stupidest way possible, as usual. I don’t doubt Lydia had reservations, or that she was scared. But I know her—she’s been a sister and a mother to me. And there is no way she would’ve gone along with this if she didn’t want a baby at all.”
I meet his eyes, and they’re hard and earnest. Because Seth only ever says what he truly believes. But there’s something else shining in his eyes—something I recognize immediately.
Fear.
He’s afraid for Lydia. For me. And for himself, because he loves her too. Because even though he spent the last five years caring for our mom, weathering her decline and dealing with her death like a fucking soldier, we still lost her.
And if we’ve learned anything over the course of our lives, it’s that there’s always more to lose.