I woke up from a five-week coma thinking my husband would take my hand and help me find my way back to life. Instead, he told me he wanted a divorce and that he had fallen in love with my sister while I was unconscious. I thought that would be the worst thing I ever survived. I was wrong.
I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, cutting myself out of my own wedding photos.
I had one picture where my husband, Marcus, was smiling at me like I was the only woman in the room. Cutting straight through the middle of us, I whispered, “How could you?” as if paper might answer where people hadn’t.
Then my phone rang.
My cousin Claire’s name flashed on the screen. I answered because she had become the only person in my family whose voice did not make me feel deserted.
“Betty,” she said, breathless. “Get in your car and come here right now.”
“The wedding venue,” she replied. “Come here immediately. Officers are here. Something crazy is happening and you won’t want to miss it.”
I froze with the scissors still in my hand. Then I heard the noise behind her. Raised voices. Music cut off mid-note. A woman crying in the background as though a very expensive day had gone terribly wrong.
“Claire… what is it?” I asked.
“Not over the phone, Bets. Just get here.”
Claire hung up. I dropped the scissors, grabbed my keys, and ran.
Traffic was thick enough to make a person believe in curses. I sat behind brake lights and let the last six months replay.
Six months earlier, I had been two months pregnant, driving home from work with one hand on my stomach. Then another car swerved into my lane. Metal screeched, glass burst, and the world went dark.
When I woke up, five weeks had passed.
The first thing I did was reach for my stomach. The second was start crying before anyone said a word. One of the doctors explained that the baby had not survived. Then she told me the damage to my uterus was severe and I would not be able to carry another child.
I turned my face into the pillow and cried harder.
Soon after, Marcus arrived with flowers. I threw my arms around him and cried into his shirt.
“Our baby,” I kept saying. “Marcus, our baby…”
He stood stiff, let me collapse against him for maybe 10 seconds, then eased me away. Then he smiled, and I knew something was wrong before he spoke because no decent man smiles like that in a room where his wife has just learned her child is gone.
The story doesn’t end here – it continues on the next page.
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