16. Chapter Sixteen #2
Her mother’s thumb moved over her knuckles. “I remember.”
Wendy waited for the sound anyway. None came.
The doctor entered after the technician left. She pulled a chair close to the bed instead of standing over Wendy.
“I’m very sorry,” she said. “The ultrasound isn’t showing cardiac activity. The pregnancy has stopped developing, and the bleeding and cramping mean you’re experiencing an early pregnancy loss.”
Wendy looked back at the screen. “Check again.”
“We did.”
“Please.”
The doctor paused, then nodded. She looked through the images with Wendy watching every movement of her hand. At last, she turned back.
“I’m sorry. There’s no heartbeat.”
The words struck, but nothing inside Wendy seemed able to move around them.
“But there was…” Wendy mumbled.
“I know,” the doctor said.
“We heard it.”
She’d reached approximately ten weeks. Wendy had counted each one, had read what was forming and changing, had let herself believe that passing one small marker made the next safer. The number remained true while the future attached to it vanished.
Her mother bowed her head over Wendy’s hand.
The doctor waited. When Wendy still couldn’t speak, she said:
“This wasn’t caused by anything you did. Not work, stress, exercise, travel, food, or a choice you made. Early losses happen, most often because the pregnancy couldn’t keep developing normally. You didn’t cause this.”
Wendy heard every word and believed none of them enough.
“I drank coffee before I knew,” she said feebly. “I read about it after, and studies say a little coffee isn’t bad.”
“That didn’t cause it,” the doctor confirmed.
“I left my husband. I was upset all the time.”
“That didn’t cause it either.” The doctor’s voice stayed gentle and certain. “You could not have prevented this.”
A sound tore out of Wendy. Her mother leaned over her, and Wendy turned her face into her shoulder.
The baby was gone. The child she’d protected from pressure, publicity, Hunter’s joy, and her own uncertain marriage had disappeared inside the one place she’d believed she could keep safe.
When the doctor explained what would happen next, her mother listened.
Wendy caught only pieces. The loss was already in progress.
Her vital signs and blood work were stable.
She could go home after observation with medicine for pain, clear instructions about bleeding, and a follow-up appointment.
She should return at once for certain symptoms her mother wrote down because Wendy couldn’t focus.
“Do you want your father in here?” her mother asked when they were alone.
Wendy nodded.
Her father came in and stopped next to the bed. His eyes went first to Wendy, then to his wife, and he understood before either spoke.
“Dad,” Wendy whispered.
He bent over her. Wendy had always thought of him as solid enough to hold back anything that tried to reach his family. His arms closed around her with terrible care.
“I’ve got you,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ve got you.”
Wendy cried silently for a few long minutes, then her father stepped out so her mother could help her get dressed. Wendy told her she needed a moment, and her mother stepped out as well. Alone in the room, Wendy picked up her phone and called Lily.
Lily answered on the second ring. “Hey. Are you okay? It’s late.”
Wendy opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, let out a hard breath.
“The baby is gone,” she said.
Lily went silent for one breath. “Oh, Wendy.”
“There isn’t a heartbeat.”
“I’m here.” Lily’s voice broke, then steadied for Wendy. “I’m right here. You don’t have to say anything else.”
Wendy cried hard enough that pain pulled through her abdomen again. Lily didn’t tell her that she could try again. She didn’t say everything happened for a reason. She didn’t mention Hunter.
“Do you want me to come?” Lily asked.
Wendy wanted her. She wanted everyone she loved and no one at all.
“Stay with me now,” she said.
“As long as you need.”
Lily remained on the phone while the nurse returned, while her father brought Wendy’s coat, and her mother helped her to the car. Sometimes Lily spoke softly, sometimes all Wendy heard was her friend’s breathing and distant family sounds from a life still moving in Los Angeles.
They hung up when Wendy was back at her parents’ house.
Her mother took her into the bedroom and helped her into soft pajamas.
Her father placed water, crackers, the pain medicine, and the hospital instructions on the bedside table.
Neither parent told Wendy to sleep or be strong.
Her mother sat on one side of the bed, her father on the other, and they stayed until Wendy asked for the lights off.
The bleeding continued. So did the cramps. Grief didn’t make the physical part cleaner, and the physical part didn’t leave room to pretend the loss was an idea. Wendy’s body forced her to know it again and again.
Her parents cared for her without trying to hurry her toward being grateful, hopeful, or wise.
Her mother washed clothes and brought plain food.
Her father replaced the water by her bed and handled the follow-up call when Wendy couldn’t bear to describe what had happened.
Lily checked in by phone and video, sometimes talking, sometimes sitting with Wendy in silence.
With Wendy’s permission, Lily contacted the two therapists who’d referred her clients and arranged temporary coverage before their next scheduled sessions.
Wendy put the hospital wristband in the envelope with the ultrasound image and returned it to the top drawer of her studio desk. She couldn’t display it. She couldn’t throw it away.
The empty studio hurt in a new way. She’d imagined recording with a sleeping baby nearby.
She’d imagined Hunter visiting the finished tasting-room studio at Vesper Hill and lifting their child before a cry reached the microphone.
Those pictures had existed nowhere but inside her, yet losing them felt like losing rooms she’d already lived in.
One night, Wendy woke with both arms folded tightly across her body.
She wanted Hunter.
Not a public apology, not an explanation. She wanted the exact weight of his arms and the warm place under his jaw where her forehead fit. She wanted him to hold the grief because she was too tired to hold it by herself.
The longing frightened her less than it would’ve before.
Wanting comfort wasn’t forgiveness. Being shattered didn’t make reconciliation the solution. She still knew why she hadn’t told him about the pregnancy. She’d needed to know whether he would choose her before fatherhood made the choice for him.
Now the child was gone, and Hunter still didn’t know there had been anything to lose.
Several days after the hospital, Wendy returned to the studio desk. She watched Hunter’s video again. His face remained tired. His words remained plain.
She listened to “After This One.” Hunter admitted that he’d seen her podcast room become storage and looked away because her loss hadn’t felt urgent to him. Then she played “Load-Bearing” and heard him name the daily ways he’d built his life on work she performed without question or credit.
He didn’t know she was listening. He hadn’t known when she watched him at Vesper Hill. He hadn’t known about the baby when he canceled the tour, fired Billy, preserved her dream without claiming it, corrected the public lie, and asked strangers to leave her alone.
The loss wasn’t a reason to trust him.
Those choices were.
Wendy picked up her phone. Hunter’s blocked contact still displayed the photograph taken before fame had taught either of them how much could be lost. For a long moment, her thumb rested over it.
Then Wendy unblocked him. His name became an open line instead of a wall.
She typed, “I need to talk to you”, then deleted it. She typed, “Can you come?” and deleted that too.
At last, Wendy wrote the only thing she could bear to send.
Wendy: Are you still in Aria Springs?