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Chapter 148


Nothing seems to be the way that it used to
Everything seems shallow
God, give me truth in me
And tell me somebody’s watching over me
And that is all I’m praying, is that

Someday I will understand
In God’s whole plan
And what he’s done to me
Oh, but maybe
Someday I will breathe
And I’ll finally see
See it all in my baby…


At the sound of a key sliding into the lock on the front door, Claire put the TV on mute and waited, silently. She heard the doorknob turn and the door open and then Jamie’s footsteps in the entryway. Following his muffled footfalls up the carpeted steps to the main level of the house, she tensed and braced herself to confront him.

He appeared in the living room. “Hey,” was all he said, looking mildly surprised to see her up so early and sitting on what had served as his bed the two nights before last.

“Good morning,” she greeted him coolly. “Have fun with your friends last night?”

“Yeah,” he replied evenly. “Drank a little too much, so I just crashed on Ray’s couch for the night.”

“Well, you must have felt right at home then,” she quipped, with a wry smile.

He smirked. “Didn’t feel too different, no.” After a pause, he added, “Hope you didn’t wait up for me. I was gonna call, but I figured you would already be in bed. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“I didn’t,” she said curtly. “But since you’re here now, can we talk? Civilly? Like two married adults?”

Jamie surveyed her for a moment and then gave a short nod. He came further into the room and sat down on a chair. She switched off the TV and turned towards him.

“Listen. You made yourself pretty clear yesterday about what to do with the babies. You don’t want to do the reduction. Okay. They’re your children too, you’re my husband, and I wouldn’t do anything unless you and I were in agreement about it,” said Claire, and Jamie seemed to relax a little. “But,” she added, and she could see him tense up again, “I just hope that you’re willing to stick to your wedding vows, no matter what happens.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jamie asked defensively. “Of course I’m going to stick to my vows! What are you talking about??”

“I’m talking, mainly, about the part that goes ‘in sickness and in health…’ I need to know that you’re going to be there for me and for our babies if something goes wrong. You heard what Dr. Gray said the other day, about all the things that could happen if I go through with this pregnancy as is. I could get sick, really sick. If I go into congestive heart failure, I’m not going to be able to take care of three babies. I won’t have the energy. You’ll be in charge of changing their diapers, carrying them around in the night when they’re screaming, taking them to their check-ups with the pediatrician, and everything else I won’t be able to do.”

“I don’t see how you’ll be able to handle all of that yourself with triplets and still work, but you won’t be able to quit your job because I’ll probably be too sick to work, and we’ll need money for the costs of three children. We’ll probably have to hire a nanny to take care of the kids during the day, but that will be expensive. Plus, we’ll have my medical bills to worry about. I’ll be on meds, maybe home oxygen therapy, and I might be in and out of the hospital. If it gets bad enough that I need a transplant and am lucky enough to get one, I’ll be hospitalized for weeks, and even once I get out, I’ll be on medication for the rest of my life. Expensive medication. Of course, that’s if I get a transplant. If I don’t, I’ll eventually die, and then you’ll be in the clear, except for the funeral costs.”

“But then, of course, you’ll be raising triplets on your own. They might have medical bills of their own, if they’re born with health problems. A lot of preemies are, and like Dr. Gray said, it’s pretty doubtful I’ll be able to carry this pregnancy to term. They’ll be born early, and they’ll probably be in the hospital for weeks. Those will be some big bills. Then, when they get out, we still might have to pay for medicine for them and further treatments, if they have chronic problems. They might have severe learning disabilities, and then we’ll have to think about getting them tutors or sending them to special schools so that they can get the best education possible.”

“Even then, you’ll have to accept the fact that you might not have three perfect children. No child is perfect, of course, but with everything stacked against us, we can’t count on having three normal, healthy kids. I know that I’ll love them no matter what, but I just want to make sure you’ll be okay with the fact that they might not take after you, top of the class and stars of the soccer team. After all, you’re going to be a very important part of their lives. If something happens to me, you’ll be their only parent. They’re going to need your love and support. You won’t be able to just up and abandon them if you can’t handle taking care of them. And if you can’t, then… what’s the point? I don’t want to bring three children into this world, only to have them abandoned by their father. I need to know that, no matter what, you’re going to be there for them, and for me.”

Claire finished her speech and stared directly at her husband. She had expected him to interrupt her, to protest, to argue, to tell her she was being melodramatic, or to just walk out again. But he hadn’t. Jamie had been very quiet the entire time, and now that she had stopped talking and could really study him, she saw that he had gone very white. Silent, pale, and frozen, he looked almost like a corpse.

She knew she had gotten to him.

That had been her plan, of course. Scare tactics. She hadn’t been exaggerating with anything she had said; it was all a reality. Yet she knew Jamie didn’t want to hear it. He preferred to avoid talking about all the things that could go wrong and keep on living in his little bubble world, in which he and she would raise three perfect, happy, healthy children together. She liked the picture inside his bubble too, but it wasn’t a reality. It would be a miracle if their lives actually turned out that way.

The only way to get through to him, she had realized, was to lay it all out there for him, to be blunt and direct and make sure that he was really willing to take the risk. She knew he would hate hearing it, and she could tell he had, although he hadn’t stopped her. That was saying something.

It took almost a full minute for Jamie to respond, but finally, he spoke. “It’s not gonna be like that, Claire. We have to have faith. You can’t always take what doctors say as pure fact. Your doctor back in Tampa didn’t think all three embryos would even take, but they did. See, our babies are strong. They’re going to survive, and they’re going to be just fine. God wouldn’t have blessed us with three healthy embryos only to take them away. And you… you’re strong too. You’re stronger than any woman I know. You’ve made it through so much already, God wouldn’t let you get sick again with something you couldn’t beat. You just have to put your faith in Him.”

Claire was still staring at him. He was serious, she realized. He actually seemed to – or wanted desperately to – believe that they were somehow untouchable, that God wouldn’t let anything bad happen to their family. In a way, he reminded her of a reckless teenager who somehow thought, stubbornly, innocently, that he was invincible.

“Jamie…” She said his name softly. “It doesn’t work that way. I believe in God as much as you do, and I’ve prayed every night for this pregnancy to go well and for us to be blessed with healthy babies. But God doesn’t always answer our prayers. Bad things happen, no matter how much faith you have. When my cancer went into remission the first time, I thanked God, and I prayed that it would never come back, but it did.”

“Yeah, but you beat it. You’re cured now. See, God came through; He was just testing your faith.”

She shook her head slowly, and suddenly, she felt like crying. “What about the people who don’t beat it? Are you saying they die because they somehow have less faith than me? Because that’s bullshit, Jamie; that’s bullshit. I lost a friend to leukemia two-and-a-half years ago. He had the same damn disease as me, went through the same treatments, even had a bone marrow transplant, just like me. He was in remission for over four years before he relapsed. But the cancer came back. Talk about a blow. But even then, he kept fighting. He had faith. He thought he was going to recover and go back to fifth grade. Yeah, that’s right,” she added, when she saw Jamie’s eyes widen, “he was eleven years old. He was just a kid, an innocent kid, and God didn’t come through for him. Based on your logic, we should all be angry at God then, right? Casey and his family put their faith in Him, and He let them down.”

Jamie didn’t answer, though he seemed to be grasping for words.

“God doesn’t just give us whatever we want. I didn’t want Casey to die, and Casey certainly didn’t want to die, but he did. Why, I don’t know, but that’s just how life is. Bad things happen. That’s why we’re in the position we are now, because I got cancer, and the treatments for it made me sterile and fucked up my heart, so now I’m pregnant with three babies that I might not be able to carry. And it sucks, but if I hadn’t had the treatments, I’d be dead now. God wouldn’t have saved me, no matter how much faith I had. It would have gone against science; it would have been a miracle. And miracles don’t happen that often. We can’t count on a miracle here, Jamie; we have to be realistic. We have to trust the doctors. We can thank God all we want for the fact that I’m still here and pregnant with our children, but face it – without doctors, without modern medicine, that wouldn’t be the case.”

Jamie had no argument. He looked pale and defeated, as if he knew she was right, but didn’t want to accept it. “So what do you want to do?” he asked her finally, barely moving his lips as a mumbled the question. “You wanna have the abortion?”

“It’s not what I want to do,” she clarified, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. She had to be strong, or they’d never make it through this. “But I do think the reduction is the best option, for the health of the other two babies and me.”

He nodded wordlessly, staring down into his lap.

“What do you think?” Claire asked, after a long pause.

Jamie didn’t look up. From the side, she could see his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard. He seemed to be collecting his thoughts, choosing his words carefully. Finally, he answered her. “Alright,” he croaked. “If… if you think it’s best, then… alright.”

She watched him cautiously. “Are you sure?”

He glanced up, very briefly, and met her eyes. Then he looked away again. “I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t want you to be sick again,” he mumbled. “And I don’t want our kids to be sick either. So… so if you and the doctor and everyone thinks it’s for the best, then… okay. We’ll do what we have to.”

Claire had thought that once she had finally had this talk with him, once they had finally come to a mutual agreement, one way or the other, she would feel relieved. But she didn’t. Now that the decision had been made, she felt sick to her stomach.

She spent the next half hour in the bathroom. She threw up twice, choked down one of the morning sickness pills she had been prescribed, and then sat down on the closed toilet seat and cried.

Finally, when she had composed herself again, she went to the kitchen, turned over the little white card on the counter, and made the hardest phone call of her life.

***


Don’t you run too fast, my dear
Why don’t you stop?
Stop and listen to your tears
They’re all you’ve got
It’s in you
You see, somebody’s watching over you
And that is all I’m praying, is that

Someday, you will understand
In God’s whole plan
And what he does to you
Oh, but maybe
Someday, you will breathe
And you’ll finally see
See it all in your baby
See it all in your baby…


A few days later, Claire lay on a stainless steel table in a white room that seemed both cold and unforgiving. Jamie sat next to her in a hard-backed chair, looking at anything but her, while Dr. Gray stood on her other side, next to an ultrasound monitor and a surgical tray.

She had been on this same floor of the hospital two days ago for an ultrasound. A part of her had wished that something would have happened to one of the babies, that the heart would have stopped beating on its own, or that the fetus would show a serious abnormality that had not registered earlier. It would have spared her the guilt of what she was about to have done. But the ultrasound had shown three normal fetuses with three strong heartbeats, and she had dissolved into tears again once the technician left her alone.

She and Jamie had talked to one of the hospital’s counselors, or rather, she had talked, while Jamie sat, silent and sullen. The counselor seemed slightly alarmed by his behavior, but assured Claire that she was doing the right thing, the best thing for her own health and for her other children. Her words, though meant to be reassuring, had not made Claire feel any better about it.

Yet, here she was, lying on this table with the knowledge that once she got up from it, everything would be different. She would be the expectant mother of twins… not triplets. At the thought, tears threatened again, but she held them back, knowing she would never make it through this if she allowed herself to start crying before Dr. Gray even began the procedure.

She wished the obstetrician would just hurry up and get it over with, but Dr. Gray insisted on going over the process one more time with her. “I know you’ve heard this before, but I just want to review the procedure one last time before we get started,” said the doctor. “In a minute, I’m going to spray a local anesthetic on your belly, which will numb you up. Then I’ll insert a needle through your abdomen and into your uterus. The ultrasound will help me see where the needle is going. The monitor shows that one of the fetuses is slightly smaller than the other two and in a reachable position, so unless you have another preference, that is the one I’ll… reduce.”

It was a gentle way of wording it. Claire knew what she was really going to do. The needle she spoke of would be used to inject the chosen fetus with a chemical called potassium chloride, which would stop its heart. The thought made her stomach turn and her own heart start to race. Could she really do this? Could she really lie here, on this table, and let this doctor kill one of her babies?

“Can you tell the sexes yet?”

The sudden question, spoken in a male voice, caught Claire by surprise, and it took her a few seconds to realize that it had been Jamie who’d asked it. He was the only man in the room, but he had been very quiet the entire time. She looked over at him, then back at the doctor.

Dr. Gray shook her head. “Sorry, no. It’s too early. Male and female genitalia still look fairly similar at this stage, and we won’t be able to tell the difference on an ultrasound for at least another month.”

“Oh,” Jamie said shortly and looked away again. Claire frowned at him, wanting to ask why it really mattered, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to think too much about which baby had been selected for “reduction.”

The smallest one, she realized. The runt. Out of nowhere, she thought of Charlotte’s Web, and how the farmer had wanted to kill Wilbur, the runty piglet, until his daughter had stopped him. As a little girl, she had always empathized with Fern, horrorstruck at the thought of killing a little baby pig just because he was smaller than all the rest. And now Dr. Gray was telling her she was going to aim for the smallest fetus, as if that was supposed to make her feel better about her choice.

Despite her best efforts to control it, a tear slipped from her eye. Dr. Gray saw it and stopped talking for a moment. She gave Claire a sympathetic smile, then reached down and patted her hand. “I know how hard this is,” she said. “Just remember, you’re doing this to protect the other two. This will give them the chance to grow bigger and be born healthy.”

Claire nodded listlessly, wiping her eyes. She glanced over at Jamie again, but he was staring blankly at the floor, looking almost catatonic. She wished he would take her hand, touch her shoulder, give her some sign that they had made the right decision, but he did not seem to want to touch her or even look at her. A part of her was surprised he had even come, though she had scheduled the procedure for evening on purpose, so that he wouldn’t have to miss a day at his new job. She had wanted him to be here with her for this, but now that they were, she was disappointed by the lack of support he was giving her. Just like with everything else she’d endured, she was going to have to get through this on her own.

“Are you ready?” Dr. Gray asked quietly, and Claire forced herself to nod again, knowing she could not find her voice to say yes. She would never be “ready” for this, yet she knew it had to be done. She and Jamie had made their decision, and now she just wanted the inevitable over with.

She flinched as Dr. Gray sprayed her stomach with the icy anesthetic solution, and the nurse that was assisting repositioned the ultrasound probe. “Now, I need you to stay absolutely still while I’m inserting the needle,” warned the doctor, as she picked the instrument up from the tray beside her. “Jamie, it might help if you held Claire’s hand through this…”

At her words, Jamie finally looked over. His skin was pale and clammy, and when he saw the long needle in the doctor’s hand, his face went completely white. When he did not reach for her hand, Claire reached for his. He reluctantly let her take his hand; it was cold and limp. She gripped it tightly and stared up at the ceiling, willing herself to lie still as Dr. Gray guided the needle to the right spot.

She felt pressure as the needle went in, but no pain. Not of the physical kind, anyway. Her flesh was numb and tingling; it was her soul that ached.

The emotional pain skyrocketed as Jamie suddenly ripped his hand out of hers and stood with such abruptness that his chair nearly toppled over. “I… I can’t watch this,” he said hoarsely, two seconds before he turned and fled the room.

“Jamie!” Claire cried after him, and the nurse quickly came forward and pressed her hand against Claire’s shoulder, holding her down.

“Don’t move,” Dr. Gray warned her, her voice calm, yet firm. “The needle’s in; you have to stay still.”

Claire bit down on her bottom lip as the tears started to flow from her eyes, her restraint gone. The nurse took her hand, holding it the way Jamie should have been as Dr. Gray went ahead with the injection.

The procedure itself took only a few minutes. Before Claire knew it, the pressure in her belly was gone, and the doctor was saying, “The needle’s out. You can relax now.”

The nurse patted her shoulder and added, “You did really well, hon,” but Claire didn’t feel she’d done well, and she couldn’t relax. Her heart was pounding with barely-controlled panic, as she thought of the poison that had just been injected into her baby. It was dying inside of her right now, and it was all her fault. She had signed the papers allowing it to be killed. Her baby… her own child…

She could hardly look at Dr. Gray, who stood staring at the ultrasound monitor. The monitor was turned away from Claire, so that she could not see the screen, and she was glad. She did not want to see what she knew Dr. Gray must be watching – the flickering heartbeat of the baby slow and finally stop. She closed her eyes, not wanting to catch the moment when the doctor’s expression changed, the moment when the steady movement on the monitor ceased.

Even with her eyes closed, when it happened, she knew. She heard the slight intake of breath, the brief pause, before Dr. Gray said quietly, “It’s over now.”

Overcome with grief, Claire squeezed her eyes even more tightly shut, forcing more tears out. She made no effort to wipe them away this time, letting them trickle down the sides of her face, leaving sticky, salty tearstains in their wake. The nurse kept patting her shoulder. “It’s okay,” she whispered soothingly. “I know this is hard, but you’ll be okay. You just need some time. It’s okay to cry; just let it out. That’s how you grieve.”

Claire didn’t need the nurse, a woman who was probably only a few years older than her, talking to her like she was a child, but she didn’t have the strength to tell her to back off.

“Claire, I’m going to let you rest,” Dr. Gray spoke up. “Try to relax; it’s not good for you or the babies to get too worked up. I’ll be back to see how you’re doing in an hour, and if you feel okay then, you can go home. But for now, just lie back and rest.”

Claire opened her eyes. “Will you see if my husband’s out there when you go?” she managed to ask, though her voice sounded choked.

“Of course. I’ll send Jamie back in if I see him,” Dr. Gray promised. She offered Claire a sympathetic smile and added, “What you’ve just been through is incredibly tough, as you know. Every parent reacts differently. He’s not the first dad I’ve seen run out of the room during a procedure.”

Claire was not comforted. She didn’t care how tough it had been on Jamie; she was the one who had had to lie here while the doctor put a needle in her body. Running out of the room wasn’t an option for her. She was furious at him for not staying with her, no matter how much it hurt him. Didn’t he realize she was hurting too? It had about killed her to have to make this decision, and his abandoning her at the very last second was like plunging a knife right into her heart. Fresh tears, angry tears, streamed from her eyes.

“It’s natural to get emotional after this kind of procedure,” said the nurse, in another attempt to console her, still rubbing her shoulder. “In fact, we worry more about the moms who don’t cry afterward.”

Numb, thought Claire, those women probably feel numb. She wished she could feel as numb as the flesh of her stomach did, but her insides were raw with emotion. Grief, guilt, anger, regret – she felt it all. And when the door to the room opened a few minutes later, and Jamie walked in, she felt relief. It was odd, but even though a part of her hated him for running out on her, she was glad he had come back.

“Jamie,” she whispered, and more tears spilled, as he came closer. He had been crying too, she could see; his blue eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. Somehow, the observation made her feel better. It helped to know that he was grieving too. That he could still feel.

“I’ll leave you two alone for awhile,” said the nurse, finally releasing Claire’s shoulder. “Here’s a call button; just press it if you need anything, hon.” She placed the device in Claire’s hand and left the room quickly.

Claire looked at Jamie, who was now standing next to her. He looked at the floor. “I talked to the doctor,” he said stiffly. “She said it’s… it’s done?” He glanced up to see Claire nod. Then he looked down again. “Are you mad at me?” he asked, after a pause.

Her anger returned in a rush. “You think?” she snapped. “How could you do that to me? How could you just leave??”

He refused to look at her. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I just couldn’t stand to be here when… ‘it’… happened.”

“Nice that you get that option, huh? I had to be here. You could have at least stayed for me,” she retorted bitterly. “I scheduled this for tonight just so you could be here. I didn’t expect to have you bail on me at the last second. But I should have, huh? ‘Cause that’s always what you do, Jamie. Whenever the going gets tough, you bail on me!”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I saw the needle, and I flipped out, okay? I didn’t want to see it happen.”

“You could have closed your eyes! All I wanted was for you to be here and hold my hand, and you couldn’t even do that! What kind of man are you? Are you that much of a pansy, or are you just selfish? I thought we were past this shit, Jamie! I thought you grew up! You sure can put on a good act sometimes, but when it comes down to it, it’s always the same old crap with you!” she cried.

He looked up at her, his cheeks red, his eyes bright with tears. “You know I love you, Claire,” he whispered. “It’s just… it’s a lot to handle sometimes. I’m not as used to it as you are.”

She stared at him in disgust. “Do I know that? You say you love me, but if you do, you need to love all of me. I’m sorry if my life is too much for you to handle, but you better get used to it, ‘cause this is it, babe. You know the saying ‘no pain, no gain’? That’s kind of how it works… I may be cured from my cancer, but all the treatments that saved my life had side effects, and not all of them are just the kind that go away once the treatment is over. I’m not ever going to be the perfect picture of health. I may have problems down the road that I’m not even anticipating right now. And if I do, you’re going to have to deal with them too, if you wanna stay married to me. You’re either there for me, or you’re not, and if you’re not…” She shook her head, the tears rising up again.

“I’m here for you now,” he insisted, and finally, he reached out and took her hand. “I’m sorry about before, but I’m here now.”

“Seems like I’ve heard that from you before,” she muttered angrily, looking away. “It’s always ‘I’m sorry,’ but you never change. How can you mean it, if you never change?”

“I’m trying,” Jamie said lamely.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t seem like it.” She yanked her hand out of his and turned her head away from him, seething. He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. She lay like that for the next forty-five minutes, her eyes streaming as the anesthetic wore off and her stomach started to cramp.

When Dr. Gray came back, she assured Claire that some minor cramping and discomfort was normal, but to come back if she experienced any bleeding. “You need to take it easy and rest at home for the next twenty-four hours. After that, you can resume normal activities. I need to see you back in a week for another ultrasound to check on the other babies,” said the doctor.

Claire left the hospital with a post-procedural instruction sheet and an appointment card for her follow-up ultrasound. She clutched both pieces of paper tightly in her lap as Jamie drove her home, barely saying a word. When they got to the house, she announced, “I’m gonna lay down,” and retreated to the bedroom. Minutes later, she heard Jamie’s footsteps pounding down to the basement. Muffled strains of the TV followed.

Sighing, she pulled off her shoes and lay down on the bed, curling into a little ball. Her hand drifted to her stomach, massaging it gently. There’s just two of you in there now, she thought sadly, and just when she thought she was all out of tears, more of them sprang to her eyes.

Had she made the right decision? She would always wonder and probably never know. It would forever be a case of “what if?” What if she had kept the triplet pregnancy? What would have happened? She would never know, now that she’d chosen to kill one of the babies.

Even as she mourned the one, she kept on rubbing her stomach, thinking of the other two, the two which still resided in her womb. She prayed they would both be healthy. If they turned out to be okay, then maybe she would be able to let go of the guilt. Maybe then she would feel, deep down, she had made the right decision. But until then, she would not know. And until then, the guilt would not go away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, turning onto her back, so that she could look up at the ceiling. “I’m so sorry…”


No moment will be more true
Than the moment I look at you

It’s in you
See, somebody’s watching over you
And that is all I’m praying, is that

Someday, you will understand
In God’s whole plan
And what he does to you
Oh, but maybe
Someday, you will breathe
And you’ll finally see
You’ll see it all in your baby
See it all in your baby…

- “Someday I Will Understand” by Britney Spears


***