4: 4
4
I had the driver turn around and take me to the hospital.
In the exam room, the doctor stared at the screen for a long time, then let out a soft sigh.
"Seven weeks pregnant."
"The fall caused bleeding. The embryo isn't in good shape either. It can't be saved."
I stared blankly at that blurry image.
So before I ever decided to leave, a child had quietly taken root inside me.
I never even had the chance to know he existed.
And already I had lost him.
The nurse handed me a surgical consent form.
"Let's do the D&C as soon as possible."
"It's best to have a family member come sign. Where's the baby's father?"
I held my phone, silent for a long time, then dialed Samuel James's number anyway.
He picked up only on the third ring.
Lavinia Swanson's weak voice drifted through the receiver, saying her chest still didn't feel right.
Samuel was coaxing her to take her medicine.
My throat went tight.
"Samuel, I'm at the hospital."
"That fall earlier made me miscarry."
"The doctor needs to operate, and it needs a family member to sign."
The line went quiet for a beat.
Then he laughed, cold and short.
"Veronica Henson, you'll make up something like a miscarriage just to get me to throw Lavinia out?"
"You only fell down two steps. Weren't you standing there just fine afterward?"
"Using something like this to fight for attention. Don't you think it's bad luck?"
I gripped the exam results hard.
"I'm not lying to you."
I took photos of the ultrasound and the diagnosis and sent them to him.
The message showed as delivered, but he wouldn't even open it to look.
"Enough."
"Lavinia's being stalked, and just now you scared her into another attack. Can't you be considerate for once?"
"Aren't you an independent woman?"
"If it really needs a signature, can't you sign it yourself?"
"Stop expecting me to drop everything and come coax you at every little thing."
The call cut off.
The nurse stood beside me, the pity in her eyes almost impossible to hide.
"Do you want to try reaching another family member?"
I lowered my head and, in the line for the family member's signature, wrote out my own name, stroke by stroke.
"No need."
"I don't have any family."
When the cold instruments went into my body, I didn't cry.
I just looked up at the surgical light and thought of that downpour back in college.
Samuel had tilted the whole umbrella toward me, letting half of himself get soaked rather than let me catch a chill.
Back then he said, as long as I needed him, he would always show up.
But now, I lay on an operating table losing our child.
While he stayed by another woman, mocking me for using a miscarriage to fight for attention.
After the surgery, I stayed alone in the hospital for two nights.
Samuel didn't call again, not once.
He must have decided that if he just refused to play along, this attention-grabbing act of mine would end on its own.
The day I was discharged was also the day I left.
I went to get the documents I'd left at the house, only to find the door lock's code had already been changed.
I rang the bell for a long time.
The one who finally answered was Samuel, his voice impatient.
"Now what?"
"My passport's still inside."
"Have Lavinia bring it out for me. I'm leaving tonight."
He was silent for two seconds.
"You're still threatening me?"
"Veronica Henson, you've been making a scene for three days. That should be enough."
I looked at the tightly shut door.
"I'm not making a scene."
"I only came to get my own things."
Samuel seemed enraged by how calm I was, his tone turning cold all at once.
"Fine. If you want to go, go."
"But if you leave today, then never come back."
"I won't coax you the way I used to anymore."
A few minutes later, building management brought down a paper bag holding my passport and documents.
From start to finish, Samuel never once opened the door to look at me.
I held the paper bag and stood for a long time in front of that door we'd lived behind for five years.
Then I said, softly: "All right."
Two hours later, I boarded a flight overseas.
As the plane climbed into the clouds, I took out my SIM card and dropped it into the cleaning bag on the seatback in front of me.
The familiar city shrank fast into a blur of lights.
No one could have guessed.
That line of Samuel's, never come back.
In the end, it would come true.
