The group agreed and drank, except Amanda, who tried but just couldn’t. As she lowered her glass in defeat, Mia grabbed it from her. Mia grinned at her, telling the rest of the group, “Looks like it was too harsh for Mandy. You know she isn’t a vodka drinker.” Then she drank the entire thing, as if there was a little bit left. Her face grimaced at the taste.
Once the alcohol was gone, she watched her cousin laugh and chat with the rest of the group. Amanda wiped a tear away. Mia was her favorite, too.
“Hey, we have to get upstairs.” Ruth looked at the clock behind them. Since the summer, someone had put a battery in the thing, so it had the correct time for the first time in decades.
As the group disassembled, Amanda hugged her cousin as a thank you. As they walked up the stairs, Mia held her hand and squeezed it before letting her go since Amanda had to sit by Hue for this.
Knowing she was in love with Hue was hard. Sitting down next to the man who didn’t love her was even harder. The happiness she had woken up with was all but gone now. She just had to make it through the next hour or so.
She desperately wanted to touch him, to just look at him. She did neither. Just sitting watching Pastor Ruston talk had her stomach churning, and the longer she sat there, the worse it got. Was it Hue’s presence or something else entirely?
The service was short, and, as they stood in front of the entire church, she was glad she didn’t have to hold the baby. But she did have to look at her sweet little face. And she had to look at Hue’s handsome one and see that he wouldn’t look at her. His eyes weren’t on the baby but on the carpet below his feet. He didn’t want to be there either because he made sure his red tie was straight on his white shirt three times.
Once it was over, he surprised her by helping her to her seat and sat next to her again. This time closer, and his gray slacks touched her leg as they sat. At the feeling of his leg touching hers, the familiar sensations rushed through her body, ones she hadn’t felt since he had left her. Those sensations didn’t diminish her rolling stomach, though.
When the service was over, they went to the basement for lunch, but Amanda knew she wouldn’t be able to eat. Her stomach was almost in pain from the churning it had done during the service. Standing and moving around was making it worse and not better like she hoped. She needed to get home and lie down.
Pulling Tess aside, she asked if they could get pictures done so she could leave, explaining the stomach pains. She hoped her friend didn’t think she was just leaving because she was still depressed, that she wasn’t even trying to be a good godmother from the beginning.
Tess agreed reluctantly and mumbled a few words Amanda didn’t even recognize before getting the group together for pictures. As they stood together for Kit and her camera, smiling was nearly impossible with the steady dull pain. Though, as the camera flashed, it turned instantly into one hard pain—a pain that Amanda was well aware of the meaning. Because she had felt that pain before, too many times before.
Excusing herself, she rushed to the bathroom to get away from people and confirm what she already knew. In the small room, she forced herself not to cry because good godmothers don’t cry at baptisms.
After a quick check, she was glad she wasn’t bleeding yet. It was coming, though.
Since the church was only four blocks from her apartment, she decided she would walk home and get her car and head to Grand Forks. It would take longer to find someone to drive her home than to just walk back. She took deep breaths as she left the bathroom and headed straight for her coat, not looking around, focusing on her task. Then she was out the door before she had the coat on. There was no time.
Ice-cold wind overtook her immediately, but she forced herself to ignore it. Her concentration was on getting to her apartment. When she got there, she would have to go upstairs and get her keys. Though she had been waiting for this, she really wasn’t ready. Why had she not driven? Yes, had been easier to catch a ride, but she knew this was coming. Why hadn’t she been ready?
Pulling her coat closer to her body, she just wished it could have happened tomorrow, last week, last month, or four months ago. Not baptism day. Now she would have to remember the baby she lost the day she became Zia’s godmother. Forever.
Fighting back tears, she kept walking. Two blocks down, two to go.Just keep walking, Amanda, she demanded.Keep walking.
“What the hell are you doing, Nordskov? It’s fifteen below out, and you’ll have frostbite before you even get home.” Hue was in his pickup, slowly driving beside her. She hadn’t even heard him coming, but she didn’t care at this point. She needed to get home.
“Going home.” She didn’t turn to look at him. She was on a mission.
“I can see that. Get in the car.” He stopped his pickup.
“Got to get home.” She kept walking, ignoring him. Her focus was on her plan.
He sped away and slammed on his breaks a few yards in front of her. Getting out of the vehicle, he walked toward her, but she kept on her steady pace to her apartment. When he was three feet from her, another contraction hit, harder than the one she’d had by the cake. Instantly, she dropped to the ground with the pain. God, it hurt so much. The pain in her body, as well as the pain from her knowing this baby was dead, too. That it was over.
“Amanda?” Hue dropped to his knees by her. “What’s wrong? Mandy, talk to me.”
As the pain subsided, she started to get up, and he picked her up and ran her to his pickup. Putting her in the passenger seat, she curled into a ball, holding her stomach. The tears she had been unable to hold back were now streaming down her face, or maybe they had been there the entire time.
Slamming the door shut as he got in, he threw the pickup in gear. “Mandy, what’s wrong? Where to?”
“My place. I have to get my car and go to Grand Forks,” she said from her ball in his passenger seat.
“Hell no. I will take you if that’s where you need to go.” He slammed the gas pedal down as they flew past their apartment building. They must have been going close to fifty miles per hour through downtown.
“I can do it,” she protested, but they were already out of town.
“I am driving, Nordskov.”
“Don’t yell at me!” she yelled back.