And the waiting was agonising.
Finally, when Alex was about to jump out of his skin, a doctor appeared and called his name.
“Hello, I’m Maggie.” Her expression was perennially kind. She had a soft easiness to her that spoke of many such conversations.
Alex nodded, his face ashen. Internally, he braced for bad news.
“Your wife will be fine.”
He expelled the breath he’d been holding; and he could have hugged the calm, gentle doctor. “Can I see her?”
Maggie shook her head. “I’m sorry, not yet.” Maggie held a hand out and indicated that he should follow her.
“What happened to her? What is it?”
“There’s no easy way to tell you this.” Her expression softened even further. If she employed any more sympathy, she would turn into a giant Hallmark card. Fear pulsed through him. It was bad news. The doctor was weighing up her words, summing him up for how much he could take.
“Tell me,” he commanded. He needed to know.
Maggie nodded. “I’m very sorry, Mr Petrides, but your wife lost the baby.”
Alex stopped in his tracks and stared at her. “What are you saying? She was pregnant?”
Maggie consulted her charts. “Indeed. Around eight or nine weeks along, I’d say.”
Alex closed his eyes on the wave of pain. For Sophie, and for him, and for the life they’d created, and lost. “Did she know?”
“I … I’m not sure,” Maggie said quizzically. “You didn’t?”
“No.” He squared his shoulders. “I must see her, please.”
“She’s still groggy from the anaesthetic.”
“I need to see her,” he re
sponded, his chest hurting, his arms aching.
Maggie looked at him for a moment and then nodded. “She mustn’t be tired out, though. She’s undergone a significant trauma and procedure, and her body is weak.”
“Doctor, why did she lose the baby?” He asked, just outside the door to Sophie’s room.
Maggie’s look was carefully blanked of emotion. She spoke slowly, to drum the meaning of her words into him. “There is no hard and fast explanation. Sometimes, it just happens. The important thing to remember is that it doesn’t mean you will not be able to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term.”
Alex’s gut clenched. He knew he wasn’t likely to get a second chance with Sophie. Even before this happened, she had been far too devastated by his actions to forgive him. And now? Everything was broken.
He pushed into Sophie’s room and then stopped in his tracks at the sight of her. So pale and weak, against the hospital issue pillows.
Her eyes were bleak when they landed on him, but she didn’t look away.
“I didn’t know.” She answered his unspoken question, and a sob tore from her. “I had no idea.”
Alex nodded. “That does not matter.” He moved to her, but when he put a hand on her head, she made a sound of disgust.
“Don’t touch me. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to look at you.” She turned away from him, and stared out of the window.
“I need to be with you.”
“Well, I need you not to be.”