She pressed the palm of her hand to her stomach and tears filled her eyes. ‘Something’s wrong!’ She said it with more urgency. ‘I’m scared.’
* * *
It was awful.
Awful for him, but so much worse for his wife. All he could do was hold her hand and whisper to her in Italian as the proof of their loss slowly left her body. He kissed her and he held her, but Skye wasn’t really in the room with him. She was stoic and brave, but she had obviously divorced her mind from the horror of what they were experiencing.
Her eyes were empty, just like her womb, just like her soul and her hopes for the future. The future they had both imagined and hoped for.
She listened to the doctor, who came to assure Skye that sometimes these things ‘just happened’. She listened to the nurses as they kindly explained that lots of women miscarried early on in their pregnancies and later went on to have healthy babies. That she had an eighty percent likelihood of carrying to term ‘next time’. She listened as her heart was breaking and her body was emptying itself of the life that she had loved with all her heart.
And only when they were alone, and an unappetising dinner had been brought with a sweet cup of tea, did tears moisten her eyes.
‘Cara...’ Matteo crouched beside her, trying to draw her eyes in his direction. But she stared at the wall with eyes that were wet and distraught. ‘Talk to me.’
She couldn’t.
There were no words.
She reached for her tea and sipped it, happy when the boiling water scalded her tongue. Pleased that the pain meant she was alive again. That she could feel.
Because inside she was numb.
She was cold, she was empty and she was alone in a way that was so much worse than any other form of loneliness she’d ever known.
The fluorescent light overhead flickered, and with each dimming it made a crackling sound. Just a low, muted buzzing. Skye heard it as though she were in a void.
A silent sob racked her body, lifting it off the bed and dropping it back down again. She turned away from him then, not wanting him to see the anguish that contorted her features.
‘Bella, per favore...’ He groaned, reaching a hand up and laying it on her thigh. She didn’t pull away from him physically, but emotionally she was cutting every cord that had ever joined her to him. She was rejecting the intimacy and rejecting him, relegating him to a portion of her mind that was never to be looked at again.
‘I want to go home,’ she said after several long moments.
‘Of course. I’m sure that will happen soon. They probably just want to observe you a little longer, to be sure you are okay.’
‘Okay?’ she repeated with soft disbelief. Then, she nodded. Because he seemed to expect it. ‘I’m okay.’ She placed the plastic tea cup onto the table beside her, staring at the ripples in the drink’s surface.
Matteo’s frown was infinitesimal and he smothered it quickly before she could see it. Not that she was looking in his direction. Her face was averted with unwavering determination.
God, her face.
She was so pale. He pushed up and sat on the bed beside her, wincing as she flinched away from him.
‘Please.’ It was just a whisper. Her fingers caught at the blanket, pulling at it awkwardly. ‘I want to leave here.’
‘Lo so, lo so.’ He reached up and ran a hand gently over her hair; it was matted and still damp from the perspiration. ‘I am sure it won’t be long.’
She spun round to face him, dislodging his touch. ‘I need you to get me out of here. Now.’
The urgency of her heart communicated itself through her words. He stood immediately. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her in that moment. ‘I’m so sorry, Skye.’
‘Sorry?’ she whispered, her eyes enormous. ‘Why are you sorry? This was my fault, not yours.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘No. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. They told you that...’
‘I want to go home,’ she said with more urgency. ‘Please.’
He nodded, a single, terse movement. ‘I’ll speak to someone.’ His eyes clung to her as he moved to the door. ‘Just wait. A moment.’