Chapter 16

The next day, Parenthood, one of my favorite movies, was on a cable channel. I could definitely relate to the grandmother’s theory that a roller coaster was a metaphor for life. About the fifth time Keanu Reeves said Dude, Emma groaned. At first I thought I had imagined it. I pushed mute and held my breath. She did it again, softer than the first time.

“Emma,” I called gently. “Emma.” I said louder. Shaking her good arm, I pushed the call button and shouted, “Send somebody! She’s waking up!”

Seconds later, Dr. Lewis and one of Emma’s day nurses, Cheryl, jogged into the room.

“She groaned twice!”

Dr. Lewis forced me aside. “Emma, I’m Doctor Lewis. You’re in the hospital and you’re going to be fine. Can you open your eyes? Open your eyes, Emma.”

She groaned again. I looked at them to make sure they had heard her. They had.

“Oh, Emma! Open your eyes,” I pleaded, wringing my hands.

“Mmmm,” she moaned, her brow scrunched.

“Is she going to wake up, Doctor? Why won’t she open her eyes? Is she moaning because she’s in pain?”

They ignored me, focusing on Emma.

Cheryl took her pulse, Dr. Lewis checked her pupils.

Suddenly, Emma yawned a wide, tongue-fluttering yawn. Then Cheryl rubbed a chip of ice on Emma’s chapped lips and Emma licked the wetness! She was so close. Could she come all the way back?

When Emma’s eyes flew open, the emptiness in them made me step back, but the way her vacant eyes darted to every corner of the room made me want to ask if she could see. I could handle only one answer to that, so I couldn’t risk the question.

I stepped in front of Dr. Lewis and held Emma’s face between my hands. “Emma, look at me. Look at me!”

Finally, her gaze found mine. “Do you know who I am?”

“Am?” she croaked, partially echoing me.

“Emma?” I turned to look behind me, more alarmed about her response than my earlier fear of her being blind. Panic threatened to overtake me. “Doctor?”

Cheryl put her arm over my shoulder and walked me to the hall. “It can take days before a coma patient is completely lucid.”

I wiped tears away. “She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?” I felt weak. I needed to sit down or fall down.

Cheryl led me to a waiting room with yellow plastic chairs.

I hugged myself and rocked. My emotional pain was like the worst toothache known to man. “Please.” That’s as far as I got in my prayer. I didn’t know what else to say that God didn’t already know.

Cheryl brought me some water. I didn’t want it, but took it anyway. Maybe she knew I’d have to stop rocking or spill it all over me.

“Is there someone I can call?” she asked.

“Is she awake?”

Sympathetic eyes told me the answer was no.

“It takes time. Her body is fighting its way back, but it takes time. Do you want me to walk with you to the chapel perhaps?” Cheryl asked.

“Chapel? No, thanks. I—uh…” I sighed. Energy-depleted and speechless, I sat looking at the hard yellow chairs, the two payphones side by side and the one vending machine. I craved Mac. But no. If I called him, and if he came, I would only add misery to his life too.

* * *

Back at home, I did what I did most nights, researched everything I could about comas on the Internet. I gathered patients were rated on a point system and the fact that Emma was moving and talking, even though she was disoriented, was a good sign.

I listened to the news at eleven, the first half. When the sports came on, I took my shower. I didn’t enjoy sports highlights anymore because they reminded me of Dennis. When I stepped back into the bedroom with only my towel on, I immediately felt a chill. Picking up my flannel gown from the bed, I began to put it on before I checked the thermostat.

“Don’t bother.”

I swung around with my head trapped inside my gown. I cried out before I fought my head through the opening and was finally able to see him.

“Shut up. It’s me.” Dennis pushed me on the bed and covered my mouth with his hand.

My heart was pounding as if I’d run up five flights of stairs. “Get off me!” It was muffled, but he knew exactly what I had said.

“I’m not doing anything until you get control of yourself. Don’t yell and I’ll let you go.”

I screamed again. He straddled my chest, holding me down, keeping my mouth covered. I fought with everything I had.

He whispered close to my ear, “You’ll get tired eventually, but if you want to wrestle, I’ll get naked and we can have some real fun.”

Tears of frustration ran down the sides of my face. After a few more futile attempts to break free, I gave up.

“Good.” He scooped my breast free of my nightgown, squeezing an already pregnancy-tender nipple. I winced and attempted to squirm out from under him again.

With his hand still covering my mouth, he sucked hard on my nipple, then let it pop free, “That’s got to be an inch long. Damn. If I take my hand away, are you going to scream?”

I shook my head no, agreeing to keep quiet. He removed his hand from my mouth.

“Get off me,” I said.

“We need to talk, and I like having your full attention.”

His weight pressed against my stomach.

He said, “You mentioned money before. Two hundred thousand.”

“What? Plan B after killing me didn’t work?”

“Can you say broken record? Get it straight, Laurel. I never tried to kill you. You give me five hundred thousand and sign what my lawyer will draw up releasing me from paternal responsibility for all time, and we have a deal. I’ll be gone the next day.”

“I don’t have that kind of money. Are you crazy?”

“Sell your house or tap your IRA or something. You have a week.”

“A week?”

“Not my problem. This is a one-time offer. I hear Emma had a good day. When she comes around, I’ll say that in a weak moment I did what men do. Men don’t turn this down when it’s offered.”

He pushed my gown up. While he talked I tried to keep my legs closed against his probing hand.

“I’ll beg her for forgiveness, we’ll get married and she will help me pay child support times two for the next eighteen years and she’ll hate you for the rest of your life.

“I’ve barely touched you and you’re wet. Are you sure you’re not a slut, Laurel? Is there ever a time you don’t want it?”

I jerked and twisted again. I had to get free, but when I moved, he held both my wrists down again. We noticed the blood on his hand at the same time. He wiped it on the front of my gown, scrambling off me like he’d seen a rattlesnake.

I sat up in shock, wondering if I needed a sanitary napkin or bath towel and if I had enough time to get dressed before I drove to the emergency room.

“Get out!” I screeched at him. “I swear to God if you ever touch me again, I will kill you!”

He laughed. “Right. Hey, I’d take you to the hospital, but this is for the best. You’ll see.”

I threw the closest thing I could find, the CD remote, at his head and watched it shatter against the wall.

I tested the amount of flow with my gown, and it didn’t seem like a lot. I didn’t think I was miscarrying, but I sobbed, scared I might be. No cramping had to be a good sign. I pulled on my panties, stuffed paper towels in them, and threw on some sweats. I wanted to call Dr. Patel, but he’d only tell me to go to the emergency room. I’d get there and let them call him.

Panic rose a notch as I drove to the hospital. I remembered once when my mother had visited with a friend of hers. Her friend had come out of the bathroom saying she’d just lost her baby. I had been about nine then and couldn’t wait to check out the toilet to see where her baby went.

Tears fell like rain. I’d come this far, almost through my third month. I wanted my babies, despite who their father was. I couldn’t lose them now.

* * *

“I’m still in my first trimester and I’m bleeding.”

The emergency room intake person phoned for immediate help. I was on a gurney in five minutes. Fifteen minutes after that, the emergency room doctor snapped off his latex glove and depressed a foot petal on the metal can to the left of my stirrup.

He said, “The bleeding was minimal and it appears to have stopped. Any pain at all?”

“No.”

“No sense of pressure? Any cramping in your belly or back?”

“No. None.”

“I notice some bruising in the vaginal area and on your wrists.”

I averted my eyes. “I’m okay. You saw both babies on the sonogram and they’re fine?”

“Yes, they’re fine. The heartbeats are strong. Ms. Novak, were you sexually assaulted?”

“No.”

He took a few beats, maybe considering how hard to press. “Sometimes spotting is normal, but it should never be ignored, especially considering your age and the fact that you’re having twins. Bed rest is recommended for the next couple of days. You can get dressed now. The nurse will come back and speak with you in a few minutes.”

A few minutes turned into twenty, but my mind was incapable of holding another thought, neither Dennis’s cruelty nor his offer/threat for me to buy him out. I felt nothing but grateful the babies were okay.

“Okay, Miss Novak.” The nurse who had been with me during the doctor’s exam was a fresh-faced, energetic young Latino woman. “The doctor wants you to check with your OB/GYN tomorrow, just to make sure everything is okay. Can I have his or her name for our records?”

“Dr. Prajeet Patel.”

“You are to go straight home and get in the bed. Stay there for a couple of days if at all possible. You want the babies to have every advantage.” She peered at me closely. “You have bruising around your mouth.”

I tapped the tender puffiness around my lips. “Is it anything a little makeup won’t hide?”

“No, probably not. And you don’t wish to report any kind of assault, correct?”

“No, I wasn’t assaulted.” Of course I had been, but I had no desire to press charges and have to deal with the court system and Emma’s recovery at the same time.

“Even if it was someone you know…violence is unacceptable.”

She had to be all of twenty-two, lecturing me about what could be my preferred sex habits as far as she knew, but I knew better than to take my anger out on her.

“Thank you. Do I need to sign something?” I asked.

“Yes.” She handed me the clipboard. While I read over my discharge notes and signed them, she tore a sheet off another pad and gave it to me.

“Here’s a list of women’s shelters in the area. Just in case.”

I hesitated a moment, and then took it. “Just in case.”

“Is there someone I can call for you?”

“What?” Déjà vu took me back to the waiting room at Bayview.

“Is there someone you want me to call?”

I scratched my head and thought a second. Mac. I needed him. “No, I’m good.” I stood up and folded my list of shelters into my purse.

The security guard walked me to my car. I wanted to pay him to come with me until my burglar alarm was installed; I didn’t feel safe going back there tonight. What if Dennis came back?

But where could I go at quarter to one in the morning? I thought about the shelter list in my purse, but that would be way too depressing and I was already teetering on the brink. I’d go home to Takoma Park. Most of the repairs should be complete and I had been planning to drop by anyway to check on the progress.

After I let myself in, I walked from room to room, touching things for the last time, knowing this wasn’t my home anymore. My bedroom was stripped bare. I turned off the lights and went back to my car unable to force myself to spend the night. Though I’d list the house for sale tomorrow, it had nothing to do with Dennis’s latest affront and his plan to blackmail me. It was just that this phase of my life was over. Tonight it was back to the Holiday Inn.

I fell into my hotel bed feeling like a homeless wanderer and part-time dishrag. I dreamed about Mac and me watching the snow fall outside our window. Two little kids were building a snowman when a man in a black ski mask began chasing them. Startled awake, I glimpsed the time. Three forty-three A.M. It occurred to me that nothing in Dennis’s deal protected me from his changing his mind and coming back for more money. He could blackmail me with the threat to reveal everything to Emma from now until kingdom come.

I needed to be with Emma until the aftereffects of the fire were only a dim memory. Then I would tell her everything. But what should I do about Dennis in the meantime? Though I had repeated the same mental lap countless times, the answer still eluded me.

I fell to my knees, calling out to God. I hadn’t prayed for longer than two seconds in twenty years, and not on my knees in thirty. “I didn’t plan these babies, but I think You did. If You give me the chance, I will love them and teach them about Your love for them. Help me to know what I’m supposed to do, God. Help me to do it.”

I didn’t say anything else because God knew my heart. I listened because I wanted to know His. Maybe if I did, I’d find out how to stop making a mess of things.

I got up, stiff, not any wiser, but more at peace. I took a bath for the first time since the bed and breakfast inn. Enjoying the warm soak, I fell asleep in the water.

At seven I dialed 411 and got Mac’s home number.