The hospital had allowed Warren to sleep in a chair beside Susan’s bed, although he’d spent most of the night holding her hand whilst staring at the wall.
The extremely patient nurse who’d greeted him when he’d entered the ward repeated everything that she’d told him when he’d first arrived. With what he’d got from the school, and Susan’s testimony, Warren eventually pieced together what had happened.
Apparently, Susan had been feeling a little off-colour all day, with a slight temperature and stomach cramps. Nevertheless she’d taught a full day’s worth of lessons, and attended a meeting of department heads after school; all of the school’s cover supervisors were deployed teaching lessons for colleagues already absent and she didn’t want to pull anyone off a free period at such short notice to take her lessons.
It was shortly after that meeting that she’d suddenly been violently sick. After cleaning herself up in the staff bathroom, she’d used the toilet. It was then that she’d noted several spots of blood.
Trying not to panic, she’d gone to the reception desk to ask if somebody could call her a taxi; she still felt sick and didn’t trust herself to drive the several miles to the hospital. Despite Susan’s protestations, the school receptionist insisted on alerting the school nurse, who was listening to Susan still downplaying the event even as she fainted. Given Susan’s condition, the nurse decided to call for an ambulance and phone Warren.
By the time somebody tracked down Warren and he arrived at the hospital, the consultant had confirmed their worst fears. They were unable to detect a pulse for either baby. This early in the pregnancy, an emergency delivery was out of the question, and so with the aid of drugs, nature was helped on its way.
By late morning, Warren and Susan were no longer expectant parents.
Despite the traumatic events of the previous twelve hours and the slight bump on the head she’d received when she’d fainted, Susan was pronounced fit to go home by midday. The loss of a pregnancy this early on was sadly not an unusual event, the consultant had gently explained to them. Given the couple’s years of IVF attempts, they would run tests to see if a cause for the unexpected termination could be found, but as far as she could tell, Susan was fit and healthy. She recommended a few days’ rest to get over the shock and handed over some leaflets for charities that helped bereaved parents deal with their loss.
The journey home was tense. Warren knew his wife well enough to know that against all logic and medical opinion, she would be blaming herself. She’d done exactly the same when their early attempts at IVF had failed. He knew that they would need to discuss it, to bring their emotions to the fore, but he didn’t know how to start the conversation.
After pulling up outside their house, Warren walked around the car to open the passenger door, but Susan was already out. He knew precisely how things would unfold over the next few days: Susan would act as though nothing major had happened. She’d quote statistics about how common early miscarriages are and would point out that the shock to her body was not nearly as devastating as it seemed. A couple of days off to get over the turmoil, and then it was time to go back to work. In short, she was fine, and she would rather everyone stopped making a fuss.
Nevertheless, she allowed herself to be led into the living room. Warren knew that she wouldn’t contemplate going to bed at such an early hour. She turned on the TV, whilst Warren headed into the kitchen. There was nothing else he could do but boil the kettle and wait for Susan to come to him when she was ready.
Out of habit, he opened his email on his phone, but closed it again almost immediately. He couldn’t face the case with everything going through his head at the moment. He’d spoken to John Grayson late the previous night, telling him that Susan was unwell, and the DSI had stepped in to keep things running smoothly for the next few days. The man had many faults, but he would drop everything to support one of his officers having personal problems.
The rattle of the letter box and the flat thwack of letters on the doormat signalled the arrival of the post.
Warren padded to the door and picked up the pile of papers, leafing through them as he returned to the kitchen. A letter from Lloyds Bank exhorting him to apply for a loan he didn’t need, an envelope addressed ‘to the occupier’ inviting him to sign up to a new broadband provider, and the offer of a free evaluation from an estate agent made their way straight into the recycle bin.
The final envelope was pale blue, its size and shape suggesting a greeting card. Too early for Christmas or either of their birthdays – he turned it over. Addressed to both of them, the familiar spidery handwriting made his heart clench.
How were they going to tell Granddad Jack what had happened?