Chapter 7 - The Miscarriage In March
The lock clicked behind Maya and Lily, and the suite went too quiet. The chandelier hum from downstairs didn't reach up here. All I could hear was the air conditioner and Marcelo breathing.
He didn't sit. He stood by the door with his hands in his pockets, looking at the belly on the chair between us like he didn't want to get close to it.
I sat on the edge of the vanity bench because my knees wouldn't hold me. My gown pulled tight across my real stomach, flat now under the lace. I kept smoothing it with my hands.
"It was March," I said. "Eleven weeks."
Marcelo didn't move. "Say it plain."
"I lost it. March fourteenth." My voice caught on the date. "I woke up bleeding and I drove myself to urgent care because you were in Chicago for the board dinner. They did the ultrasound and there was no heartbeat."
He closed his eyes for a second. "You told me the appointment went fine."
I nodded, because that was true. I had told him that. I had come home and heated up soup and told him the doctor said to rest.
"I was supposed to tell you that night," I said. "But your mother called while I was in the parking lot. About the gala pledge. About the maternity foundation announcement."
He frowned. "What does that have to do with this?"
"The Whitmore money," I said. "Three million, contingent on us. On the family image. A pregnant founder's wife on stage in the fall. You said it would secure the clinic wing."
He took his hands out of his pockets. "So you decided to lie."
I reached for my clutch on the vanity and my fingers shook so bad I dropped it. The clasp popped. Out came lipstick, mints, and the folded parking stub I had kept for three months. Yellowed at the edges. MERCY CLINIC GARAGE - 03/14 - $6.00 PAID.
I held it out to him. He didn't take it at first, then he did.
"I kept it," I said. "I don't know why. I couldn't throw it away."
He stared at the stub. "Elena."
"The visits after that weren't real," I said quickly, before I lost my nerve. "April and May. I kept the appointments on the calendar so you wouldn't ask questions. I sat in the parking lot and then I went to that costume shop off Route 9. The woman there helped me size up the padding. First small, then bigger. She thought it was for a play."
I pulled my phone out and opened the calendar. Little pink dots. OB - 10AM. OB - GROWTH CHECK. I turned the screen toward him.
He looked from the phone to the prop on the chair. "You staged doctor visits."
"Yes."
He finally sat down, not near me, on the arm of the couch. He put the stub on the coffee table and lined it up straight with the edge, like he needed something to be straight.
"Why didn't you tell me first?" he asked. His voice was low. Not yelling. That was worse. "Before the pledge. Before any of it. Why didn't you just tell me we lost the baby?"
I pressed my palm against my mouth. I could taste salt and foundation.
"Because you were so happy," I whispered. "And I thought if I told you, you'd look at me different. And if I told your mother, we'd lose everything you'd worked for. I thought I could carry it until fall and then say the baby came early and had complications. I thought I could fix it."
He looked up at me. "Fix it how?"
I didn't have an answer. The prop sat between us, slumped and empty, the Velcro strap curled on the chair cushion.
May you like
Outside the door, the hallway was silent. No Lily. No knock. Just us and what I'd done.
Marcelo stood again and rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay. I understand why you did it. I don't trust you right now. So tell me what we're going to do when we walk back downstairs."
