Since I rarely travel for work, it should be exciting to get a paid trip to London. Alas, I have a lot of trouble enjoying any part of it. The hotel is actually pretty swank and has an amazing bar that I can’t enjoy. I try to people watch instead and munch on some appetizers. I last about twenty minutes before I give up and go to my room to rent hella-spendy movies that I don’t pay attention to.
The time difference is messing with me, so when I do sleep, it’s in strange fits at off times. When I have to meet up with my team and the local production people a couple of days after arriving, I am damn near running on empty. Thankfully, I manage. At least for the first few days.
As we sit in the editing suite on day four of the project going over feedback from the producers, I feel a sharp stab in my abdomen. I gasp, unable to control my reaction, and immediately cover the location of the pain with my hand.
Shelley turns and studies me.
“Are you okay?” she whispers.
Nigel and Alain are arguing over the location of a splice in a key scene and it’s quite obvious that they didn’t notice anything.
I inhale and exhale deeply before answering. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Tha—” I begin, but before I can finish, the stabbing returns, but worse. I’ve had bad cramps before, but this is ridiculous. “Oh, fuckity shit knobs!”
This finally gets the guys’ attention, as well as the lead editor on the project, George. “What in the bloody hell is going on?”
Shelley throws George a look over her shoulder and waves dismissively at him before turning back to me. “Honey,” she says, her native Alabamian accent making me smile, if ever so briefly, “you just went four kinds of pale and you’re beading crystals on your forehead.”
That’s her favorite phrase for sweating—she says it’s nicer. I find it strange, but she’s incredibly genuine, so I’ll take it from her.
“I… I can’t.” My words are stuck. I’m embarrassed and the unintended center of attention. Nobody likes strangers seeing them get sick or in a vulnerable position, but it slowly dawns on me that I may not have a choice. Something’s wrong. So that’s exactly what I say.
“Whatcha mean, hun?” Shelley asks.
“I need to go to hospital,” I say. Panic sucks the blood from my face when I realize what might be happening.
My mind immediately goes to Fox. Before anyone else. I want to call him and tell him and have him with me, even if just over the phone. That realization alone hurts more than the pain in my abdomen and the possibility that I’m losing this baby.
But I can’t call him. I’m unsure where we stand thanks to his shitty behavior and distance lately. He doesn’t seem to want to know anything about this pregnancy anymore. The thought makes me so sick to my stomach, so I push the idea out of my head for now.
A weight settles on my chest and somehow I’m shuttled into an ambulance. I leave behind a bloodied seat and my dignity.
When I get a hold of my mother many hours later, she cries with me. Heaving horrified sobs. She confesses she’s had two miscarriages in her life. I cry harder, feeling her pain magnified through my own. Ruben threatens from the background to put her on a plane within the hour, but I make her promise not to get on a plane. I can’t even imagine the cost of a last minute transatlantic flight from California. Not to mention, as soon as I’m physically able, I’ll be on a flight of my own heading home.
In the morning, I call Nora, but she doesn’t answer. I try to call Mom again, but I keep getting her voicemail. Ruben’s phone doesn’t even ring. It feels like they’re trying to make me call Fox, but I can’t. I call Cam but I’m so exhausted I have to cut it short. It’s all too much and a kind nurse slips me something so I can fall asleep. The rain outside sort of echoes my feelings, my thoughts. Particularly the thunder. Sleep hits me fast, but my dreams are strange and disturbing. I dream that I wake up and Nora is sitting next to my bed. I smile and then start crying.
“This dream is bullshit,” I say.
Nora starts laughing, but she has tears in her eyes.
“You’re not dreaming,” she says.
I cry harder. She pinches my arm, I jump and yell.
“Ow! How does it hurt that bad? Oh my God, are you really here?” My pitch skyrockets and my eyes fill with tears.
Nora nods and tips her head toward the door. I turn to see Mom standing in the doorway with flowers and a carafe of coffee. I don’t how she talked the cafeteria into giving her a whole carafe, but I love her even more now than I ever did. So much that I immediately break down into full-blown snot sobbing. Mom sets everything down, and pushes into the tiny, shitty hospital bed, and pulls me into her arms. I’m pretty sure I’ll never stop crying now. Nora pulls the side chair as close to the bed as she can get, leaning in to get in on the hugging and holding action. It’s uncomfortable and I’m overheating, but I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.
The next morning, I notice I feel a little lighter. Mom and Nora refused to leave me, though they did take shifts sleeping in the miraculously unoccupied bed in my “shared” room. So far, I managed to avoid answering my mom about why I didn’t want to call Fox and tell him about the miscarriage. But I had a feeling I would not be so lucky today. It was a miracle Nora hadn’t folded and given her every sordid detail.
“Coffee and biscuits, babe,” Mom chirps as she reenters the room. Then she stage-whispers, “Biscuits are what they call cookies.”
I shake my head and try to smile. My entire abdomen feels hollow. The accuracy of the thought is not lost on me, though I’m hyperfocused on how damn hungry I am. “Yes, Mom, I know.” I chuckle and reach for the proffered cup of caffeine goodness. “Did you not want real food?”
“This is England, Sweet Pea. They’re not exactly known for their food.”
Nora laughs from her makeshift bed in the chair. “Or at least for any good food.”
“Well,” Mom continues, “you’re being released today, so I figured we’d have a nice brunch once we leave. Or maybe room service at the hotel? I’m okay with that. You should probably still take it easy.”
I smile as I crunch on a biscuit. “I’m okay,” I say.
“So why don’t you call Fox?” she asks, innocently. “I’m sure he’d want to know.”
The cookie in my mouth loses all its flavor. “No, he wouldn’t,” I mumble, more to myself, but Radar Mom catches it.
“Oh no,” she growls like a mama bear. “Do I have to kick his ass? Tear him a new one? Rip his balls off?”
“Damn, Mags, that escalated quickly!” Nora says, though the pride and amusement in her voice is more obvious than not.
Mom winks at Nora. “I will call his mother again. Roz will join me in putting the smack down on his heinie!”
Nora and I exchange amused glances and our tittering quickly grows into minor hysterics. Mom watches us with that “you girls” look on her face.
“Sophie Ann, what happened? You didn’t give me much in the way of details when I, quote ‘stopped Roz from kicking his ass.’ Did you fall in love with him?”
Nora chokes on her own spit. I forgot to mention that Fox pretty much outed us a few weeks ago just before I found out I was pregnant.
“Nor, Mom knows the lowdown. Fox and I had Sunday brekkie over at her place and he blabbed. Not directly, but—”
“But I’m not an idiot. I was kind of wild in my day,” she says, and I can feel a “wild oats” story coming on. “I had a one-nighter with Rob Lowe, you know!”
The audience is split between “oohs” and “ewws.”
Nora perks. She lives for juicy gossip like this. “Oh! Tell me. Is it big? Or was it disappointing? Is he a grower? He didn’t seem to be packing.”
“Nora Bennett, you are dick obsessed.”
Y’all. That was my mother. My mother called my bestie “dick obsessed.” I know I just repeated myself, but I have to make sure people are paying attention. Now I need an oxygen treatment because I just randomly developed asthma. And incontinence, but mostly from laughing.
Despite the hilarious non sequitur, Mom is not railroaded off the Fox topic, though it is postponed until we get back to my hotel. Luckily the hotel is able to upgrade me to a suite due to Nora’s smooth talking, even if she did use my hospital stay as fodder for freebies. I’m not complaining. Regardless, the three of us will be much more comfortable this way.
We do end up ordering room service, as I can’t convince any part of myself to get cleaned up to the point that I will venture out in public for food. It’s bad enough I had to be seen by the cabbie.
I nibble on my burger and fries—chips, Mom made sure to clarify—as she re-approaches the question.
“What happened? Why isn’t Fox here?”
I can’t help that I wince at his name. It’s a very sore point for me right now. I miss Fox. And Flowerkraut. And Cat. We’d become like a little family unit. By accident. And I’ve lost them all. Next thing I know, Mom shoves me over on the sofa and pulls me into a very “mom” hug. By that I mean if I were small enough, she’d pull me into her lap. But I’m not. In fact, I’m almost four inches taller than her, so yeah, that’d probably be hella awkward. Nonetheless, I slouch valiantly so that I can be my momma’s baby girl. It’s comfort.
“He bailed,” I say finally. I hear Nora sigh. Mom does, too, but I hear the anger in hers. It’s her hackles raising. Ready to fight tooth and nail for her baby. It makes me smile, but then it makes me sad again. If I gave the word, Fox would have an army on his doorstep. It might only be an army of two, but if you knew my mom and Nora, you’d know it was enough.
“When?”
“The pee stick was still wet,” I say, and for whatever reason that forces a pathetic giggle out of me. “Wet pee stick.”
Mom rolls her eyes in a way I can practically hear it, and lightly smacks the back of my head. “What did he say?” she asks.
I didn’t want to repeat the “no more fucking” line, but I quickly describe his immediate cold shoulder and fast-as-fuck flee. She thinks for a minute before she speaks again.
“I think he just freaked out,” she says, a little too honest for what I wanted to hear. “You two have been getting busy and all that and now you don’t need him. He’s one of your best friends, your oldest friend. It would make sense if this kind of shift scared him.”
What she’s saying makes sense, and frankly, I’m irritated it’s so logical. Every muscle in my body locks up with the stress of it. Not because I feel bad for him, but because I’m angry. I sit up and glare at my mother.
“Thanks for the tip, Mom,” I snarl. “I guess I’ll just go call him now since he did nothing wrong!”
Standing, I stomp preteenishly across to the table where we left the extra food. I cross my arms, a chip-fry in my paw. I chomp on the end of it and huff as I chew.
“Baby,” she says, “I’m not saying what he did was right—I just thought you’d want some context, that’s all. And I could be wrong. Maybe he’s just an immature dickhead who wasn’t getting what he wanted anymore. I’m sorry that wasn’t the first thing I said.”
I maintain a pout for at least four more fries. “Yeah, I know,” I admit, speaking with my mouth full.
Mom closes her eyes and shakes her head.
“And I’m sure Mags is up for a proper arse kicking when we get back to California, right, Mom?” Nora chimes in, tipping back her beer.
Mom laughs, full and hearty. Just that look of sincere emotion on her face makes me smile. “You know it, Bennett!”
Despite the miraculous mood lift Mom and Nora provide, we don’t make a genuine holiday out of it. The brief stay in the hospital had left me numb and wondering if I’d smile again. Thankfully, neither one of them pushes me to accept things or feel something I don’t. They help distract me and relax with me for a couple of days before we all make the long trek back to Bodhi. We manage to get on the same flight, though my boss—the owner of the production company—heard about everything and insisted on upgrading me to one of those pods. I try to give it to my mom, but she won’t have it. Neither will the airline, apparently. And even in “premium comfort” that such an amazing first class experience provides, I don’t sleep a wink.
I’m getting closer to California, closer to Fox, and closer to confronting the fact that I am head over heels in love with the man. The man, the idiot, the sweetheart, the imbecile, the lazy ass, the comedian, the friend. All of him. Even the part that ran for the hills when he found out I was pregnant. That part hurts the most. I still love him even though I’ve never felt so abandoned. How the hell does that work?
I talk to Nora a couple of times during the flight when we meet at the bar. Seriously, this yacht with wings has a bar. An attended bar. Mom joins us as she has trouble sleeping on planes, too. The bartender-flight attendant overhears the gist of our conversations—well, you can’t not; bar on a plane or not, it’s still a plane and thereby compact—and slaps a bottle of wine on the counter.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” she says, “but I suffered three miscarriages after all medically assisted pregnancies. I know something about what you’re feeling.”
Mom grabs her hand and in a blink, every one of us is misty eyed. It’s like the worst kind of tear-jerking reality show or sappy TV movie you can possibly think of. The estrogen in this ten-by-ten cubic space could choke a man in one breath.
“Thank you,” I murmur, nodding and leaning over to hug her. I start to cry, but pull back before I can snot sob on her crisp and clean uniform.
She smiles. I notice her nametag says Ursula. “This bottle is on me,” she insists, pointing at us so that we know not to argue.
“Only if you will have one with us, Ursula,” I say. I imagine it’s awkward if people use your first name like you’re friends, but why else do you wear a name tag? Solely for customer tattling purposes?
She looks around. “I’m not supposed to, but I’ll risk it,” she says with a wink.
We toast to each other, to life, to being a woman. All that Kumbaya shit, I guess, but it feels nice anyway. Before we head back to our seats, Ursula pulls me aside.
“The fourth pregnancy,” she says quietly, “was twins. Phillip and Collin. They’re five now.”
I smile and another tear leaks out. I better suck down a bottle or seven of water. I’ve gotta be insanely dehydrated. “I’m so glad to hear that. Hug them for me. I know hugs from strangers are not creepy at all, ha ha, but since you have to give them for me, it’ll be okay.” Why do I speak out loud sometimes? It’s ridiculous.
She smiles awkwardly. “I will. Thank you.”
I still don’t manage any sleep but I feel less restless.