Chapter Fourteen
Pru
I’ve just laid Scarlett down in the bassinet when Hack walks back into the nursery. He looks around the room and sees Addy lying on the bottom bunk with her eyes on the television set, while Cam sleeps her arms. Trix and Gidget both left about an hour ago, saying they were gonna go eat dinner. They asked me to go, and Addy offered to stay and watch the kids, but I’m still not ready to be that far away from Scarlett.
“Keep an eye on Scarlett,” Hack orders Addy before grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the door. “We need to talk.”
Something’s wrong, but I’m not gonna ask what it is in front of Addy. I tug at my arm a bit, and he releases it. Then, I follow along behind him. He doesn’t say another word until he pulls me into our room.
After the door is shut, he looks at me and asks, “Did you know you were pregnant before I left?”
“No, I didn’t find out ‘til nearly a month later,” I tell him honestly. “I probably wouldn’t have known then, but I passed out at work. When it took a few minutes for me to come to, my boss called an ambulance. I found out I was pregnant from the doctor at the hospital.”
“How is that even possible?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
I know what he’s getting at, even though he isn’t coming right out and asking. He wants to know how Scarlett is already a month old, when it hasn’t even been nine months since we had sex the first time. A part of me wants to be angry that he would question Scarlett’s paternity, but my brain is quick to remind me that it is a logical question.
“My periods have always been messed up. It’s not uncommon for me to miss one altogether,” I say with a shrug, then tell him something I hid from him when we were dating. “I was diagnosed with endometriosis before I was twenty. A year later, the doctor told me I also had polycystic ovarian syndrome. Irregular periods are common with both diseases.”
For some reason, Hack becomes even tenser. “Are these diseases serious? Can they be treated?”
“Both can be serious and can lead to a lot of other illnesses. The biggest issue is infertility. Well, that obviously wasn’t an issue for me.” I try to make light of the situation.
“Yeah, that’s obvious.” The look on Hack’s face lets me know now is not the time for jokes.
Clearing my throat, I keep talking. “Endometriosis causes a lot of pain, at least, it did for me. My doctor prescribed birth control pills to help control the symptoms. I was only on them for five months when I got a blood clot in my lung. It was a side-effect of the pill, so the doctor took me off them.”
That much he knew. Well, he knew part of it. I told him I couldn’t take birth control, back when we were dating. He promised to take care of me, always wearing a condom. Those condoms give him another reason to question Scarlett’s paternity.
My next words slip out before I even realize they are passing my lips. “I promise, Scarlett is your daughter. There is no way she can be anyone else’s. I wasn’t lying when I told you there hadn’t been anyone else in my bed for a very long time. We can get a paternity test done. It won’t offend me at all.”
I don’t even realize I’m crying until Hack reaches up and wipes a tear off my face. “I believe you, but you’ve gotta tell me how she is already a month old.”
“I was already past my first trimester when I found out I was pregnant,” I say, pulling away from him to walk across the room. “At first, things were going okay. My blood pressure was elevated, but not so high that the doctor was concerned.”
I’m quiet long enough that Hack urges me to continue. “Then what happened?”
“When I was at twenty-seven weeks, I passed out at school. Unlike my boss, the school didn’t wait to call 911.” I close my eyes, trying to forget the fear I felt that day. “I’m lucky they didn’t. I was still out when the ambulance got me to the hospital. My blood pressure was through the roof, and my kidneys weren’t functioning correctly.”
I take a deep breath and continue. “When I finally came to, the doctor told me I had pre-eclampsia. The possibility of losing Scarlett was high, and there was even a chance of me dying. He said I needed to be on complete bedrest, but that wasn’t possible. I had no one to help me, and I had bills to pay.”
I’m in Hack’s arms before the last word leaves my mouth. “Fuck, baby. I left you to that. I left you to deal with it on your own.”
I ignore his words, unable to absolve him of his sin. “I was as careful as I could be. I quit school and only worked three days a week, and even then only four-hour shifts. I stayed lying down as much as I could.”
“You shouldn’t have had to work at all,” he tells me in voice filled with emotion. “I should have been there taking care of you.”
“I promised myself that the money you left would never be used. Only whores take money for sex,” I say between sobs. “But those last few weeks, I couldn’t even stand up without feeling like I was going to pass out. I had to use it, had to.”
His arms tighten around me, causing my nearly healed incision to ache. “You are not a whore, Pru.”
I nod, trying to force myself to agree with him. “One morning, I woke up with a pounding headache. It felt like my brain was getting ready to explode. It was so bad, I couldn’t even move. Luckily, I always kept my phone nearby. I called 911 and just barely got my name and address out before everything went black.”
That had been the scariest day of my life. The minute I woke up, I knew something was terribly wrong. By the time I had called 911, I was sure I was going to die. When the blackness started to close in on me, I wasn’t afraid of death. My last thought was a prayer for God to please save my baby.
“I woke up the next day in a hospital bed. The doctor had performed an emergency C-section. Scarlett was nearly seven weeks early,” I explain, still sobbing. “We are lucky. She’s such a strong little girl. There are so many things that could have gone wrong. The chances of birth defects are higher with preemies. Even though the doctor gave me shots to help her lungs develop, she could have been born unable to breathe on her own. Scarlett could have died before she was even born.”
“I’m sorry, so fucking sorry,” he whispers against the top of my head. “I’ll never be able to make it up to you, but I’ll spend every day I have left on this earth trying.”
After a few minutes of crying on his shoulder, I remove myself from his arms and step back. I turn around and go into the bathroom without saying another word. I need to be alone, need a minute to get myself together. I shut the door and lock it, leaning my head against the wood, and continue to cry.
After a few minutes of falling apart, I turn around and grab some toilet paper to blow my nose. When that is done, I walk to the sink and splash my face with cold water. The water feels good on my heated face, so I do it again and again. Maybe if I do it enough, it can wash away the memories.
By the time I walk out of the bathroom, Hack is pacing back and forth across the room. His gaze jerks to mine, and he says, “You never answered my other question.”
“What question?” I’m not sure what more I can tell him. I’ve bared my heart, told him of the worst day in my life.
“I asked you if there was a cure for the diseases you have. I know birth control pills are a no-go for you, but is there anything else?” he asks, still pacing.
“I don’t have to worry about any of that anymore,” I reply, looking anywhere and everywhere but at him.
“What do you mean, you don’t have to worry about it? If there’s medicine that you need to be taking, I’ll pay for it. I’m here now. I know you don’t like to accept help, but fuck, Pru. If you need me, I’m here,” he states as if he is willing to do anything for me.
He’s asking for something that I really don’t want to tell him about right now. The information he is looking for is too hard to talk about. Hell, it’s something that I don’t even like thinking about when I’m alone. But the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes has me wanting to share my pain with him.
“There was a complication during the C-section. Something happened with my womb that forced the doctor to do a hysterectomy. I no longer have to worry about the diseases, because I no longer have the parts they affect,” I explain as simply as possible.
Hack stops pacing and looks at me. “Hysterectomy?”
The word comes out as a question, so I give him the answer he needs. “I will never be able to have any more children, but that’s okay. I have Scarlett, and she’s all I’ll ever need.”