She starts crying again and I feel like the raw flesh of my heart is being torn apart. “What Elle?”
“He’s demanding a paternity test. I just looked it up and the kind he’s demanding is very invasive, and there’s a chance of miscarriage from the procedure.”
“Well, fuck that. I won’t allow it!”
Elle is gracious enough not to point out that as the pseudo-uncle, I have no claim on what happens with the baby.
“And if paternity is established he wants partial custody.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” I keep gunning the car’s engine I’m so full of fury. What will a clean-freak asshole do with a baby? It’s unbearable for me to think of him alone with the kid for ten minutes, let alone for days at a time.
“What am I going to do, Paul?”
“We’re going to fight it, that’s what!”
“I can’t ask you to take that on with me,” she says with the most strength I’ve heard in her voice since she called.
“You didn’t ask me. It’s what I want so let’s not even waste our energy talking about it. I’m all in.”
She cries harder and I can hear everything in her tears: she loves this baby and she’s afraid of the baby’s father. I have to protect her, and I’ll do anything to make sure the two of them are safe. It’s all that matters to me.
“Where are you? Are you almost home? What if he comes by here?” she whispers.
“Damn. I wish I were almost home. I’m still at least an hour or two away. Is there someone you can call?”
“No. You and your family are the only ones who know about it.”
“I’m calling Trisha.”
“What?” she asks, her voice laced with disbelief.
“Believe me, there is no one on Earth you want on your side in a crisis more than my sister. I don’t know if it’s the firefighter training or what, but she will stop at nothing to make sure you’re safe.”
“I don’t know,” Elle whispers.
“And her best friend is a top lawyer. Trust me. Okay?”
“I guess so.”
“He what the fuck, what?” Trisha barks into the phone.
“Exactly. He tells her he wants nothing to do with it and now he’s trying to take control.”
“Well, we aren’t putting up with that.”
I smile. I knew she’d be like this. My sister may not be good for much, but she counts for two people in the tough times. She didn’t even hesitate when I asked her to go check up on Elle until I make it back to L.A.
“And call Jeanine, will you?” I ask. Her best friend, Jeanine the lawyer, is tough as nails like Trisha. She helped me once when a girl I’d hooked up with started harassing me.
“As soon as we end this call,” she says, her tone all business.
I let out a breath of relief. “Good. I’ll call you to check up in an hour. Meanwhile call me if anything else comes up.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks, Trisha. I owe you.”
“Just get back safe,” she says.
The last thing I remember clearly before the bottom fell out was a call from Trisha when I was inching along the fucking 5 freeway due to an accident in Downey. My stomach was already churning but Trisha’s tone took everything down a notch darker.
“Did you know Elle’s been cramping since yesterday?”
“No. What does that mean?”
“Hard to say yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good. I’ve been trying to keep her calm but I just made her call her doctor. She’s on with her now.”
“Is something wrong with the baby?”
“I hope not.”
I don’t like her ambiguous answer. Why the fuck did today have to be the day I was in Orange County? I feel so hopeless. “What can I do?”
“Just keep your focus and get here as soon as possible. Meanwhile I’ve faxed the legal documents to Jeanine for her to review them. If I need to take Elle in to be checked I’ll let you know so you can meet us there.”
A surge of emotion wells up in me. Elle can’t lose the baby. She just can’t. “I’m going to kill that fucker for upsetting her,” I rage.
“Paul,” my sister snaps at me.
“I mean who the fuck does he think he is?”
“Paul!” she practically yells.
“What?”
“You need to calm your ass down, and for God’s sake don’t bring any of this anger home. She needs us calm and focused. You hear me?”
She’s right. I’ve never appreciated Trisha more. “Yeah. I’ll be calm for Elle. I promise.”
I’m still on the 5 approaching Griffith Park, and close to the 134 when I get a text from Trisha to meet them at a women’s clinic on Van Nuys Boulevard. She instructs me to call her once I park and she’ll meet me outside. I’m desperate for some shred of hope to hold on to and her text sure as hell didn’t give it to me.
When I finally park and get out of the car, my hands are trembling as I text Trisha. I’d been praying the entire last endless leg of my journey, but when I see the drawn look on Trisha’s face I realize that God must not have heard me.
She walks straight up to me and grabs my forearm. Her sad eyes look even darker with the mascara smears.
“It’s happening fast,” she says.
I swallow hard, forcing down the surge of despair. “She’s losing the baby.”
Trisha nods as her grip on my arm tightens.
I fold over, my palms push against my knees to keep me from toppling over. A sharp shudder runs through me.
“No.” I don’t even recognize my voice. It sounds like it’s been dragged against asphalt.
Her hand rests on my upper back. “I’m so sorry, Paul.”
I take a sharp breath at Trisha’s tenderness. The baby may not be my biological kid, but I realize that it isn’t just my parents who understand what Elle and her baby had come to mean to me.
I stand back up and look at Trisha. “Elle?”
“It’s hit her hard, Paul. That’s why I wanted to get to you before you see her. She needs you to be strong.”
“And there’s nothing they can do?”
Trisha shakes her head. “It’s common in early pregnancies, up to twenty percent miscarry. There are various reasons why it happens.”
My hands curl up into fists. “It’s because of that fucking Stephan.”
“The dad?”
I nod, feeling like my grimace is permanently etched across my face. I’ve never had a burning desire to see someone’s demise, but I have it now. If I didn’t know that Elle was inside this building and needed me, I’d probably go after him tonight.
Trisha sighs. “Well I’m sure all the stress he caused didn’t help anything, but these early miscarriages are usually caused by a chromosomal abnormality.”
I start to pace back and forth trying to get my bearings. I can’t even believe this is happening. Of all of the times I’ve thought of Elle and the baby, this scenario never crossed my mind.
“I don’t want to hear about any of that, Trisha. I just need to see her. Can you show me where she is?”
She turns and walks toward the door, and when she realizes I haven’t followed she stops and turns. There’s a measured look between us, as if she knows that once I see Elle my heart will be battered, but I need to pull myself together. I nod and walk toward her, as the fragments of the future I was reaching for fall behind me.
When I step into her private room the first thing I notice is the quiet stillness. There are no monitors beeping, no hopeful chatter of visiting family, just the silence of loss. Elle is turned on her side away from me and I try to imagine what I can possibly say to her.
I clear my throat as I approach her. When I reach her side of the bed, her arms are crossed over her chest and her eyes pressed shut. She looks like a battleworn soldier who lost the war.
I lean over and press my lips against her forehead. “I’m here, Elle,” I whisper.
Her eyes blink open and she looks completely broken as our gazes meet. She presses her hand over her mouth. “I lost the baby, Paul,” she cries as tears slide down her face.
“Shhh, I know.” I take her hand in mine and hold it firmly. “I’m so sorry, Elle. I wish I’d been here.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t say that. You’ve been here all along for us, more than anyone, and you’re here for me now.”