Because of Them (Because of Love #2)

Chapter Thirty-Two

AUDREY

A gentle hum fills the room, coaxing me awake, but I fight against the reflex to open my eyes. My head hurts. My body aches all over. My stomach feels light. No, numb. And there is a very odd sensation between my legs.

I try to turn over, but my body refuses to cooperate. A groan escapes my lips and I keep my eyes shut, trying to pretend I’m not awake.

Everything is wrong.

The sound of shuffled footsteps and whispers reverberate through my ears. So quiet, yet so loud. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, inadvertently forcing a tear to escape down my cheek, and turn my head away from the noise. Away from the square of bright light in the otherwise dim room.

Then a sob, from right beside me. A sound I’ve never heard but would know anywhere. Michael. He came back. And he is sobbing, holding my hand, head bowed so low over my arm I can feel his hair tumble over my chest.

“I’m okay,” I choke out. My throat burns and the words croak. And then through the foggy haze that is my brain, I remember. “The babies?”

“They’re okay. I just … I had to feed them. They are tiny, but they are okay. Some oxygen, some lights, but they fed and Sarah said that’s a really good sign. They’re okay.”

I don’t know who Sarah is or why she has met my babies before me. I groan, part from the pain that is starting to swell through me and part because it’s all wrong .

Because it was too early, because my babies aren’t by my side, because I can’t even remember them being born. And because when I needed him by my side, Michael was gone. I flinch my arm away from his touch. I can’t deal with this right now. I need my babies.

I sense movement in front of me, and open my eyes to see a woman in pink scrubs reading the chart next to my bed. She examines the bag of fluid still—gulp—connected to my wrist.

“How are you feeling, Audrey?”

What a stupid question. I don’t answer. Instead I moan, squeezing my eyes shut again, curling into myself and pulling the flimsy blanket up towards my neck.

“Fair. Can I check your blood pressure?”

I open my eyes to find her staring down at me with a gentle smile. The dark blue cuff in her hands. I dip my chin and remove one arm from the nest I’ve created.

She fastens the velcro strap and as it tightens on my arm I feel a firm squeeze in my chest. I’m still hyper aware of what’s missing, of everything that has gone wrong.

“Where are they?”

“They’re in the NICU. I can take you there as soon as we get a strong read on all your vitals. You gave us all a bit of a scare, Audrey.”

“I don’t care about me, I need to see them.”

The blood pressure cuff loosens rapidly and my arm tingles at the changing sensation. Removing the machine, the midwife allows her hand to linger on my arm. To my other side, I register the feeling of firm fingers trying to loop themselves through mine. I jerk my arm back and slink my hand under the covers. He doesn’t get to pick and choose when he wants to be with me.

“You should be with them.” I hiss the words over my shoulder, not fully turning to face him. His gentle breathing by my side screeches in my ears. It’s loud and obnoxious and it shouldn’t be, but it is. The two sides of my brain battle it out, knowing that he was with the babies and I cannot fault him for that, but at the same time feeling unwanted, uncared for, betrayed. He wasn’t there when I needed him, and okay he had two tiny, but incredibly valid reasons, but he wasn’t there. Now it feels like he made his choice, he should stick with it. It might even be easier that way. He withdraws his hand from my side, taking a step back until the cold air whisks between us.

Typing away at her tablet, the midwife turns to me. Sorrow lines her eyes despite the gentle upturn of her lips. “I’ll take you to them soon, but your blood pressure is still really low. We need to let your body recoup a little bit longer before we try to sit you up and move you about. I’m going to add another dose of pain medication to your bag and then we will see how you feel.”

My chest cracks, another giant wound to match the one across my belly.

“They’re sleeping right now.” Michael’s voice is tender and breathy. He fights to hold in a yawn but I hear the deep exhale that pushes out against his will.

“Why don’t you get a little more rest, and when they wake, we can see about getting you down there in a wheelchair?”

As the midwife leaves, Michael settles into the chair in the corner of the small room. “Do you want some light?”

“No.” It could be the middle of the night, for all I know. Hours passed like minutes in the delivery room, and then I slept for all that time.

“What do—”

“You weren’t there.” I cut him off, not needing his pointless small talk or distractions. “I was so scared, and you weren’t there.”

He leaps off the chair to my side, kneeling down until his face can rest on the pillow beside mine. “I was, I’m sorry. They pushed me out of the way, I kept trying to get closer to you but I couldn’t. I followed you into that room, but then our first tiny baby was crying and they just handed him to me, like I was supposed to know what I was doing. And then … I don’t even know Audrey … it all happened so fast, his brother was born and you were bleeding and they made me leave.” Tears stream down his face, but I want to slap him.

I want to tell him that I know it was scary because I was there. Because I thought I was dying and I couldn’t tell him I loved him and I was never going to meet my babies.

“Audrey, I wanted to stay with you, but I couldn’t. Because you had the best team of doctors working to save your life and I couldn’t leave our boys to be by themselves.”

“Boys?”

He sniffs. Stretching a hand up, he uses his thumb to wipe away the tear that had threatened to spill from my eyes. His fingers lace into my hair and he pushes forward to kiss my forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “There was probably a better way for me to tell you that.”

I nuzzle into his hand. “What are their names?”

“I was waiting for you. It was … rough … for a little while. They couldn’t tell me if you were going to be okay, I think because they just didn’t know. Your placenta tore a hole through your uterus and the doctor struggled to control the bleeding. You lost a lot of blood. You were out for … I don’t know, I lost count of the hours. But all I could do was wait. With our tiny boys on my chest, I just waited for you to be okay.”

“I need to see them.”

“I know, you will. I’ll go and check on them soon. But you need to rest.”

“What about Maisie?”

“She’s with Callum, he said she can stay as long as we need. He’ll bring her in when you are ready.”

Realising that Michael has everything somehow under control my eyelids grow heavy and I have to force myself to keep them open. “Stay with me, a little longer. Before you go back.”

Michael kisses my head again, then leans down until his forehead rests against mine. His eyes are the colour of chocolate in the dim lighting of the room, but they twinkle with deep joy. “I’ll stay with you always. I love you.”

He doesn’t stay, because when I wake again, Michael is gone. Again. But the wound doesn’t cut so deep this time because I know, deep in my gut where my babies once lived, that he is with them.

The room is blurry as I open my eyes. The pain in my stomach is intense, but also somehow dull and I’m able to sit myself up the tiniest bit so I can sip at the water beside my bed. The first mouthful glides down, cooling the sore, dry edges of my throat. I refill the tiny plastic cup and have a second gulp, then a third. I push to sit up further, but the odd feeling between my legs is back. I hadn’t thought earlier, but I know now what it is and I want it gone.

As though she can somehow sense I’m awake, the same midwife from earlier slips into the room. “Audrey,” she all but sings my name.

“Are you Sarah?” I ask, remembering the name Michael mentioned earlier.

She gives a little curtsey, “I wouldn’t have blamed you for not remembering. How are you feeling?”

“Better, I want to go see them. I tried to sit up but …” I gesture at the catheter between my legs. The word sits like a lump in my stomach and it’s hard enough to think about it, let alone actually say it. If I do, I might vomit up the water I just drank.

Sarah tips on her heels and rushes to check my chart. She taps at the tablet, swiping through notes. Reaching under the cabinet, she pulls out the blood pressure machine.

“We’ll check this again. If it’s all good, the next step would be to remove that and see how you go sitting. If your blood pressure stays stable, I can take you across the hall. Sound good?”

In lieu of answering, I reach my hand across to her. She smiles as the cuff inflates, and hums a little when it deflates and she jots down the number.

“This is going to be a little uncomfortable, you ready?” Sarah moves to the end of the bed and when I give her the okay, she goes about removing the catheter. Uncomfortable is one way of describing it. Humiliating would be another good one. But once I’ve regained some composure a lightness begins to spread through the room. I’m ready.

She helps me spin my legs off the bed, moving slowly and pausing with each step. Once I’m seated, albeit awkwardly because of the numbing pain through my core, she checks my blood pressure again.

“Okay,” she says with a satisfied smile. “You ready to meet your boys? You’ve got three bloody beautiful ones down there.”

Three? My heart skips enough beats that if I was still connected to the heart monitor it would have sounded like a novelty horn.

Sarah giggles. “Well, two little boys and one stunner of a man.” She gasps and slaps a hand across her face. Her cheeks turn red as she tries to hide her embarrassment. “That’s incredibly unprofessional of me, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, you should see him without the shirt on.” The memory chips away at the walls that had built around my heart.

“I have, he was doing skin on skin with the boys and …” She runs her hands across her face, trembling. “Sorry, I’m going to stop talking now. You’re very lucky.”

She skitters away to get the wheelchair from beside the door and when she turns to bring it back to me, the deep red in her cheeks has dissipated.

“I am,” I finally answer her as she rolls me towards the NICU. Even though I’m doing a pretty shit job of showing Michael that.