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Authors: Lisa Jackson, Nancy Bush
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prayed to the ceiling of the ambulance as the siren screamed, resounding. Please. Please!
She’d woken up in the hospital, her parents worn and raw, her mother’s eyes red-rimmed and teary as she sat in a bedside chair, a wadded tissue in her fingers. Her father, appearing to have aged a decade in the past ten hours, stood near his wife’s chair, a big steadying hand on Barbara’s shoulders.
“The baby?” she asked in a voice that sounded a million miles away. She felt empty inside, oddly at war with her own body as an IV leaked fluids into her wrist, and outside the private room, through a door slightly ajar, she saw a large, curved desk—the nurses’ station.
Her parents had looked at her and shaken their heads. Tears leaked from her mother’s eyes and her father’s lips pressed flat together.
Her prayers had gone unanswered and a somber-faced doctor only a few years older than she had explained that the force of the accident had caused her placenta to rupture. The baby could not be saved and Becca was “lucky” to have only sustained a broken clavicle, bruised ribs, and facial contusions from the flying glass.
Lucky? When my baby died?
Despair coiled over her heart. Becca’s parents took care of their distraught daughter, who refused to tell them the baby’s father’s name, though surely they could have guessed. She’d never introduced Hudson as her “boyfriend,” had usually gone out with a crowd that included several boys, as far as her mother and father were concerned, but surely they could guess.
They just never asked after the first initial weeks.
Her mother confided in her months later that “it really didn’t matter” who the boy was. Obviously Becca didn’t care enough about him to even give him a name or tell him about his child.
Becca had winced inside but held her ground, never once mentioning Hudson Walker. She recovered slowly, consumed with the worry that the accident might cause her to never be able to have children. Her collarbone finally mended, her ribs and face healed. She was assured that she was fine. That what had happened was just an unfortunate and tragic accident. There was no reason that she couldn’t have other children.
The police never located the driver of the truck, and as Becca had no image of the person behind the wheel, and no license number, and no local body shops had reported a truck coming in with the kind of damage it should have sustained in the accident, no citations were issued.
Never admitting to her “vision,” Becca went back to school winter term and tried to put the pain of losing her baby behind her. Hudson didn’t call, nor did she phone him. She thought about it, but told herself to let the past die. A few months later she moved into an apartment and continued her job in the law firm, never intending to make it a career. But time passed and Ben came to work at the firm and…and it felt like the years had suddenly telescoped, as if it could still be that fall when she and Hudson broke up and the automobile accident robbed her of her child.
She’d blocked most of the past. Blocked it on purpose. She’d never told Hudson about the pregnancy. Never really had a chance to toil over whether she should or shouldn’t before it was over. She’d forced herself to look forward, not back.
Eventually, she’d married Benjamin Sutcliff. They’d dated, grown close, married, and she’d hoped for a family, that, as it turned out, he didn’t want. But that section of her life was over, too.
And now this part of her past, the part with Hudson and Jessie, the part that she’d steadfastly buried and covered with concrete, had suddenly come to life, broken through all of her careful barricades and reared its painful head.
Now, unable to sleep, she shoved her hair from her eyes and snapped on the bedside light. She couldn’t, wouldn’t dwell on the past. If it took every ounce of grit she had, she wasn’t about to travel down the thorny path
She’d woken up in the hospital, her parents worn and raw, her mother’s eyes red-rimmed and teary as she sat in a bedside chair, a wadded tissue in her fingers. Her father, appearing to have aged a decade in the past ten hours, stood near his wife’s chair, a big steadying hand on Barbara’s shoulders.
“The baby?” she asked in a voice that sounded a million miles away. She felt empty inside, oddly at war with her own body as an IV leaked fluids into her wrist, and outside the private room, through a door slightly ajar, she saw a large, curved desk—the nurses’ station.
Her parents had looked at her and shaken their heads. Tears leaked from her mother’s eyes and her father’s lips pressed flat together.
Her prayers had gone unanswered and a somber-faced doctor only a few years older than she had explained that the force of the accident had caused her placenta to rupture. The baby could not be saved and Becca was “lucky” to have only sustained a broken clavicle, bruised ribs, and facial contusions from the flying glass.
Lucky? When my baby died?
Despair coiled over her heart. Becca’s parents took care of their distraught daughter, who refused to tell them the baby’s father’s name, though surely they could have guessed. She’d never introduced Hudson as her “boyfriend,” had usually gone out with a crowd that included several boys, as far as her mother and father were concerned, but surely they could guess.
They just never asked after the first initial weeks.
Her mother confided in her months later that “it really didn’t matter” who the boy was. Obviously Becca didn’t care enough about him to even give him a name or tell him about his child.
Becca had winced inside but held her ground, never once mentioning Hudson Walker. She recovered slowly, consumed with the worry that the accident might cause her to never be able to have children. Her collarbone finally mended, her ribs and face healed. She was assured that she was fine. That what had happened was just an unfortunate and tragic accident. There was no reason that she couldn’t have other children.
The police never located the driver of the truck, and as Becca had no image of the person behind the wheel, and no license number, and no local body shops had reported a truck coming in with the kind of damage it should have sustained in the accident, no citations were issued.
Never admitting to her “vision,” Becca went back to school winter term and tried to put the pain of losing her baby behind her. Hudson didn’t call, nor did she phone him. She thought about it, but told herself to let the past die. A few months later she moved into an apartment and continued her job in the law firm, never intending to make it a career. But time passed and Ben came to work at the firm and…and it felt like the years had suddenly telescoped, as if it could still be that fall when she and Hudson broke up and the automobile accident robbed her of her child.
She’d blocked most of the past. Blocked it on purpose. She’d never told Hudson about the pregnancy. Never really had a chance to toil over whether she should or shouldn’t before it was over. She’d forced herself to look forward, not back.
Eventually, she’d married Benjamin Sutcliff. They’d dated, grown close, married, and she’d hoped for a family, that, as it turned out, he didn’t want. But that section of her life was over, too.
And now this part of her past, the part with Hudson and Jessie, the part that she’d steadfastly buried and covered with concrete, had suddenly come to life, broken through all of her careful barricades and reared its painful head.
Now, unable to sleep, she shoved her hair from her eyes and snapped on the bedside light. She couldn’t, wouldn’t dwell on the past. If it took every ounce of grit she had, she wasn’t about to travel down the thorny path
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