White Orchids

“Come here honey!” Nicki called, trying to chase down her wild son.

He took off, running as quickly as he could away from her. She yelled to him over and over, but either he didn’t hear her or he chose to ignore her. Nicki picked up her speed and tried to catch up with him. He bolted across the street, and she held her breath, praying that no cars would come around the corner. After shooting glances to her left and right, she sprinted across the pavement, and nearly tripped when she focused her eyes ahead of her again. Her son was gone, and she was faced with a wall of trees, back in the familiar, harrowing woods.

I’m dreaming, she thought. This is just a dream.

As many times as she told herself that, she couldn’t wake herself up. There was no contact that could be made with her conscious self, and she began to feel panicky. Why couldn’t she wake up?

Defeated and afraid, Nicki sat cross legged on the damp grass. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe, the way Tyler had showed her to. Her breaths were coming in slow and shallow, and it felt as though she could never truly get enough air into her lungs, like they were squeezing for every last ounce of oxygen.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Nicki didn’t have to look to know who was speaking to her. It was the only recurring character in her nightmares; the strange woman who bore a frightening resemblance to her mother. She attempted to ignore the uneasy feeling that was growing more distinctive in her stomach and buried her face in her hands.

“You need to wake up,” the woman whispered, sounding less frightening than she had a moment ago.

She found the strength to uncover her eyes and look up, and gasped when she saw that she was no longer faced with the disturbing woman, but with her mother. A clean, white, nearly transparent figure of the woman who’d given birth to her. It wasn’t the mother she remembered. She lacked the unkempt hair, the sour smell of booze, and the bloated stomach of a lifelong alcoholic. This woman was beautiful and pure, and had a calming presence about her.

Her mother knelt in front of her and brushed the hair out of her face, suddenly bringing back the memories from when she was a small child. Tyler wasn’t the first person to do that to her. Her mother was.

“Nicki, you need to wake up,” she said softly, her voice filling Nicki with warmth and light.

“I tried. I can’t.”

“Try harder,” her mother demanded.

In a matter of seconds, her mother had vanished, and the woman had returned. Her face and hands were covered in blood, and it dripped from her dirty, torn clothing. The sight terrified Nicki, and she pushed herself off of the ground and began to run.

She glanced over her shoulder, searching for any sign of a pursuit. In a flash, she was sprawled across the ground. She shrieked in agony, she had stumbled over a rock and twisted her ankle. But the pain was coming from the wrong place; it felt as though claws were ripping through her stomach. Nausea filled her as the dread set in.

The baby.

** * * * *

Nicki inhaled a sharp, deep breath as she woke up, trying to shake off the horrible feeling she was left with after her nightmare. As she attempted to calm herself down, she noticed that something wasn’t right. The pain she had felt while she was asleep lingered. She clutched a hand to her cramping stomach.

“Tyler. Tyler wake up. Something’s wrong.”

She shook the arm that he had draped across her until he started to move around.

“What is it?” he groaned, lifting the hand that had fallen between her legs.

Behind her, he shot straight up. He removed himself from the couch and dashed across the room to turn on the light. The first thing she saw was his face turn a ghostly white. Then she noticed the blood that covered his hand.

She threw the blanket off and glanced down, feeling the bile rise in her throat when she was faced with the blood stained couch underneath her. As if in rhythm with her fears, an excruciating pain shot through her stomach, piercing her core. She let out a wail and Tyler rushed back to her side.

“What do we do?” he asked frantically.

“Hospital,” she choked, gripping her belly. “Ambulance.”

“No. No, it’s two in the morning. We’ll get there faster in the Maserati. Can you get up?”

Nicki used every ounce of her strength to try to lift herself off of the couch, and with a lot of help from Tyler, she got on her feet. He tossed the blanket over her shoulders and ran into the kitchen, appearing again seconds later with his keys in hand.

He rushed her out of the house and into the car, too worried to bother checking on Marshall before they left. Before he pulled out of the driveway, Tyler looked at her and placed a hand on her shaking knee.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said quietly, squeezing his fingers around her kneecap.

His sentiments didn’t make her feel the least bit better, due to the fact that she could see right through him. Those words were meant for him, not for her. He needed to reassure himself that it would be okay, or else he most likely wouldn’t make it all the way to the hospital.

The fifteen minute ride to Melrose-Wakefield Hospital was filled with screaming, groaning, and insufferable pain. She tried her hardest to contain her cries for Tyler’s sake, but that seemed to be an impossible feat. It was a torture like she’d never felt before, and it controlled her every thought and every action. She was so consumed that she couldn’t even take the time to properly worry about the baby.

Nicki watched Tyler’s facial expressions as she let out screech after screech, and it looked as though he was in just as much pain as she was. It killed her to see him so upset because of her, and she wished more than anything that she could fix it, the way she always did. But she knew that this was unfixable. He would never forget this night, and her screams would surely be branded into his brain for as long as he lived.

When he finally pulled into the Emergency Room driveway, he threw the car into park and raced around to her side to help her out. A couple of EMT’s were standing by, and rushed to their sides.

“What happened?” asked the first one to reach them.

“I don’t know. She woke up and she was all bloody. She’s in a lot of pain,” Tyler explained hurriedly, never breaking his pace as he led her to the front doors.

The three men came to Tyler’s aid and helped carry Nicki’s weight. One ran ahead and notified a doctor, who then strode quickly to them. She was starting to become dizzy and unaware of her surroundings, like she was about to black out. Her legs gave way underneath her and multiple pairs of arms grabbed her, keeping her up.

The doctor spoke to her, but she was no longer comprehensible. The walls swirled around her, and the faces of those who talked to her molded together, creating a confusing and terrifying scene. She heard Tyler fighting with the man giving the orders, and tried to calm him down. She had no idea if the words ever made it out of her mouth.

She concluded that they hadn’t, as she was suddenly being pulled away from him. Nicki tried to call his name. Wherever she was going, she was better off with him by her side. Whatever was going to happen, she didn’t want to face it alone. When it became clear he wouldn’t be coming with her, she cried out to him.

“Call my dad,” she shouted hoarsely, hoping that she had gotten her message to him.

Before Nicki could figure out what was going on, she was being laid flat on an uncomfortable surface. The surface started to move beneath her and forced her into an upright position. She recognized it as the same chair Dr. Reed used for his examinations, and concluded that they were checking on her baby. She hadn’t felt any cramps since they’d gotten into the Emergency Room, and prayed that it was a good thing.

Unfortunately, the lack of pain allowed her to clear her head somewhat, and the weight of her situation came crashing down on her.

“Is my baby okay?” she asked desperately.

She didn’t receive an answer. All she heard was muttering between the doctors at her feet, and some soothing words from the nurse to her right, who was hooking her up to an IV. Nicki shut her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see the needle being inserted into her skin. She would have given anything to have Tyler with her, to hold her hand and to make her feel safe. There was nothing comforting about the strange men whispering between her legs and the cold, sterile hospital room they’d placed her in.

“Is he okay?!” she screamed, becoming frightened and panicked.

Nicki tried to get up so that she could see what was going on, so that she could demand an answer to her question.

“Get her down!” one doctor shouted.

The formerly friendly nurse to her right became aggressive and forceful, and pinned her down against the back of the chair. She tried to get a clear look at her, but her brain was slowly starting to fog again. There was a sharp pinch in her arm, and the fog grew thicker, denser. Her thoughts weren’t making any sense, and her body wasn’t moving the way she told it to. Nicki felt herself starting to cry as the darkness surrounded her, taking her away from everything that was going on.

** * * * *

Tyler paced back and forth across the tile floor of the emergency room as he dialed Bill’s number and let the phone ring. Once. Twice. Three times. Every ring made him more nervous. It was the only thing Nicki had said to him. He had to do it. He had to hold himself together long enough to do what she asked.

“Hello?”

“Bill,” Tyler said, blowing out the breath he’d been holding in.

“Tyler what’s wrong?”

“It’s Nicki. I don’t know what happened, she was all bloody and screaming and we just got to the hospital and the doctors wouldn’t let me go with her and they won’t tell me anything and I have no idea what’s – “

“Hey, hey. Slow down. Which hospital?”

Tyler squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the anxiety attack he felt coming on.

“Melrose-Wakefield.”

“I’ll be right there. Just try to stay calm,” Bill said in an attempt to make him feel better.

It didn’t work.

He hung up the phone and fell into a chair in the waiting room. Tyler began to have flashbacks of the last times she’d been in the hospital. It seemed to happen so often that it shouldn’t have been a big deal. But he couldn’t help but remember the very first time, when he’d been sitting at Mass General waiting to find out if she was going to survive. It was then he realized that there was no way in heaven or hell that he could live without her. And now he hadn’t the slightest clue as to what her state was. For all he knew, her life could be on the line again.

Tyler wished he had given more thought to the dangers of pregnancy. Right now, it didn’t even feel worth it. There was nothing he could think of, not even having children, that was worth putting her in life in jeopardy that way. He hated himself for not seeing it sooner, for not being more concerned for her health. What if all of the symptoms had been signs all along? What if they’d been brushing them off, pinning it on a tough pregnancy, when it was really so much more than that?

After a glance around the room, he noticed that he was more or less alone. There was the woman at the receptionist desk who was preoccupied with whatever was on her computer screen, but that was the only other person he shared the space with. He decided that it was safe to let himself worry, to let himself break down if need be. At the moment, he was so nervous that no other emotion was registering.

All he wanted to do was run down the hallway, checking each room until he found Nicki. He wanted to hold her hand and talk to her and distract her from everything that was going on. If he was this miserable sitting out in the waiting area, he couldn’t fathom what she might be feeling. The thought of her alone on some examination table with a group of strangers was too much for him, and he started getting choked up.

Just as he thought he was about to lose his bearings, a firm hand grasped his shoulder and a body threw itself into the chair next to him. Tyler lifted his head, sure that he looked both pathetic and disastrous.

“So you don’t know what happened?” Bill asked.

Diane joined them soon after, sitting on Tyler’s other side and placing her delicate, slightly wrinkled hand on his knee.

“No, not at all. She woke me up, and then everything happened so fast, it’s like a blur. There was so much blood…” he said, his voice trailing off as he remembered the horror of what he was faced with when he awoke. Tyler glanced down at his hand, and realized that it was still covered in crimson.

Bill followed his gaze, and Tyler heard him inhale slowly at the sight of his daughter’s blood slathered across his hand.

“You should go wash up. She might be in there a while.”

Tyler nodded and tried to get himself out of the chair. It took him a couple of tries, as his legs had become weak and unstable, much like the rest of him. A reassuring hand found its way to his back, and he didn’t bother checking if it was Diane’s or Bill’s.

“Do you want me to call your mother?” he asked once Tyler got up.

“No, not yet. I don’t want to worry her.”

Bill seemed to understand, and let Tyler go on his way to find the men’s room. After getting lost amongst the long, white corridors, he finally found one, and pushed through the door. The first thing he did was look in the mirror, and instantly wished he hadn’t. The fluorescent lighting drained whatever color was left from his face, and he looked nearly as ashen as the walls around him. Tyler leaned against the sink for support and dropped his head, staring down into the too clean porcelain.

He swiped his hand under the faucet and the warm water began to run. Tyler felt sick as he watched the coagulated blood drip from his skin, liquefied again by the stream of water. Out of all the things on his mind, he chose to focus on the fact that they would probably need a new couch. It was the only issue that he could fix, it was the only thing that he could deal with.

After cleaning his hand and splashing his face, he tried to breathe. As soon as he took a breath in, he thought of Nicki the night before. How sick she’d been, how strange she’d been acting. He should have known. He should have noticed and done something about it. Tyler slammed his fist down on the sink, and the shooting pains up his arm reminded him that he couldn’t be reckless.

As he walked towards the door to leave, he was overcome with a wave of guilt. This entire thing felt like it was his fault. If he had just been there the last week, if he could have been home taking care of her, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

That was when he realized he didn’t even know what had happened.

Tyler slumped against the wall and lowered himself to the ground, pulling his knees close to his chest. He was in the next stage of his meltdown: worry. It overwhelmed him. He couldn’t stand the fact that he had no idea what they were doing to Nicki, or what they were doing to his son.

And he couldn’t bear the thought that his baby might be gone. What little he knew about pregnancy only scared him more. He knew what all of the blood meant; what the cramps and the pain were pointing towards. A part of him had already accepted that the worst had happened. The connection he felt to him, even when he was hundreds of miles away, was always there. But now, Tyler could find no trace of it. He simply couldn’t accept that it was over, and held on to a thin string of hope that Nicki was strong enough to hold on to the life inside of her.

He had no idea how much time he spent there, on the hard floor of the bathroom, but got the feeling it had been quite a while. Eventually, Bill came bursting through the door, looking relieved to have found him.

“There you are,” he said, approaching Tyler. He held out a hand to help him up. He would have rather stayed on the floor, but didn’t want to seem like a psycho, either. He accepted Bill’s outstretched hand and tried his hardest to get up on his own.

“They said we can see her.”

As Bill spoke, it felt like the floor had been ripped out from underneath him.

“Did they say she was okay?”

Bill shook his head, and Tyler noticed that he looked just as worried as he felt. It was easy to forget that it wasn’t just his wife and baby at risk. It was Bill’s daughter and grandchild, too. If anything, Bill had more of a right than Tyler to be devastated. He’d already lost so much, and Tyler had never lost anything.

“They just said we could see her. I came to find you first.”

A sigh escaped Tyler’s lips. He finally had to face whatever was coming, and he didn’t feel ready for it. He followed Bill out of the bathroom and back into the waiting area, before turning down a short hallway and into a small room. The curtain in front of the bed was closed, and an exhausted doctor stood in front of it.

“Are you her husband?” he asked, looking at Tyler.

All he could muster was a nod.

“She’s going to be okay. She’s under heavy medication right now, but should be waking up in a few hours.”

“And our baby?”

Tyler knew the instant he asked that he didn’t want to hear the answer. If it had been good news, the doctor wouldn’t have been so hesitant to share it.

“We weren’t able to help the baby. His heart had already stopped beating by the time you brought her in. I’m sorry,” he explained flatly.

He tried to form a response, to think of another question to ask. Nothing came to him. Nothing besides the fact that his world had just stopped spinning, and he had absolutely no idea how he would ever get over it. Everything he’d wanted, everything he’d wished for the past year was gone. He had found a new reason for living, and it had become the reason he felt like dying.

“Can I see her?” he asked quietly, never peeling his eyes away from the floor.

“Yes, of course,” the doctor said, pulling back the curtain.

Tyler didn’t look up until he was at her side. Tears welled in his eyes the second he saw her stomach, stitched up and empty. His legs buckled underneath him and his knees hit the tile floor, but the pain that shot up his leg was nothing compared to the pain that filled his chest, suffocating him.

“We aren’t sure exactly what happened, our first concern was making sure that she was going to be okay. She’s stable now, but we’d like to keep her here to run some tests and find out what happened. We have a few guesses, but won’t know for sure until we do the necessary exams

He knew that Bill’s hand was on his shoulder, and he knew that Diane had wrapped an arm around him, but he couldn’t feel a thing. He couldn’t feel the burning of saline against his cheeks nor the cold plastic bed he was leaning against. Tyler couldn’t accept that he was gone. He wouldn’t. After everything they’d been through, after the long talks and hopeful dreams, it ended in tragedy.

He knew that nothing would ever be the same.

** * * * *

“Tyler, I think she’s waking up.”

Tyler pried his tired eyes away from the floor to look at Nicki. Her fingers moved first, and slowly her eyes fluttered open. He wanted to get up from where he sat, but the heaviness in his chest kept him where he was. She was dazed when she first woke up, and it took her a while to remember where she was. He realized he should tell her what happened, but he couldn’t find the strength to do it. Saying it out loud would mean that it had really happened.

“Ty?” she asked, trying to figure out what was going on.

He watched her expression as the memories returned to her, piece by piece. The words he needed to say were caught in his throat, and he left her to come to her own conclusion. Suddenly, her eyes widened and she glanced down her body.

“Oh God,” she moaned, frantically throwing the thin sheet off of her. When she was faced with her flat stomach, she let out an earth shattering wail. “No. No, no, no, no, no. Tyler, tell me this isn’t real,” she begged, tears streaming like rivers down her cheeks.

Tyler stayed in his seat. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have the strength to put his feelings aside. There was nothing he could say to make things better, nothing he could do to change what had happened.

Nicki furrowed her brows in agony and stared at him. “Tyler,” she whimpered, just before she broke down completely.

Seeing the sobs wrack her body finally shattered him. Tyler pushed himself out of his chair, driven not by the need to comfort her, but by the need to be comforted. He sat awkwardly, unaware and uncaring of the way his body contorted. He threw his arms around her and buried his face in her shaking shoulder. Tyler felt her arms wrap weakly around his back and felt her steaming tears against his neck.

For the first time since he was a child, Tyler sobbed.

At last, the moment he’d been dreading the most came. Every horrible thought drilled into his head at once, filling him with grief and surrounding him with pain. It didn’t feel like he’d lost something he’d never even known. It felt as though he’d lost everything he ever held close. Everything he ever loved and everything he ever hoped for became irrelevant.

Tyler forgot about Bill and Diane, he forgot about the two doctors who had come into the room when she’d woken up. They didn’t matter. At this point, nothing did.

Nicki’s arms tightened around him and her whining grew louder. He could hear the agony in her voice when she pleaded for him to tell her that it wasn’t real, over and over and over again. Tyler couldn’t find it in himself to answer, because he wished for the same thing.

The only thing he could do was to cry with her. To let out everything with the only person on the planet who knew what he was feeling. She was the only one who understood the depths of his sadness. He truly hadn’t thought it possible to feel such desolation; to be so utterly miserable and hopeless.

The more worked up each of them got, the more tears spilled onto each other’s skin. Tyler couldn’t think of a single time in his short existence that the world had seemed so dark and unforgiving. This didn’t happen to people like them. He mourned for himself and the loss he’d suffered. He mourned for Nicki, who he knew would never be the same person after that night. And he mourned for his son, whose touch he’d never know, whose voice he’d never hear.

His grief turned into a fretful angst as he thought of all the things that had been stolen from him. All of the memories he could have made with the child that was lost before he knew the world, without so much as a fighting chance.

“I’m so sorry,” Nicki whispered into his ear as her shaking fingers moved through his hair.

Tyler yearned to tell her that it wasn’t her fault. That if anything, it was his. But the words didn’t surface. He feared if he opened his mouth, nothing but a furious scream would come out. What had either of them done to deserve this? Not a single person in the entire world deserved to feel the pain he felt, to know the despair that coursed through his veins.

He felt a hand on his back and flinched, not wanting to feel the touch of anything but his son, pressing against the skin of the woman he loved.

“I apologize for interrupting, I can only imagine your sorrow,” a kind voice said from behind him.

Had he been in any other state, he would have released his hold on Nicki and entertained the person trying to comfort him. But there was nothing, not the force of nature nor the wrath of God, that was pulling him away from her then. Tyler simply tried to quiet his weeping and listen to whatever this doctor was going to say.

“That’s fine,” she said, removing her hand from his back. “I only need you to listen, nothing else.” She paused as she waited for Nicki to stop wailing. Tyler did his best to soothe her, but couldn’t gather himself enough to help her. “I know the last thing you’d like to do is hear about what happened, but it’s hospital policy that I explain. My name is Marissa Breckenridge, and I’m a grief counselor. Normally they don’t assign me to situations such as your own, but due to the fact that this happened so late in your pregnancy, the emotional distress is much greater.”

Tyler wished that he could cover his ears, that he could block out everything this woman was spewing at him. Every time he heard someone mention it, reality sank in more and more.

“Losing a baby this close to delivery is placed in a different category than a miscarriage, and is much more devastating to the parents.”

Hearing her attempt to explain their situation in technical terms made his blood boil. There was no possible way to do it justice with words.

“Before I go, I want to offer up my services if either of you need help coping. I’ll leave my card here, you can call my office during the week and my personal number for emergencies. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Footsteps trailed out of the room, and Tyler could hear shifting around him. He knew that the speeches and explanations weren’t nearly over. They had only just begun.

Two other doctors spoke to them, but Tyler didn’t comprehend a single word. He didn’t want to, and he didn’t care. His head stayed nestled between Nicki’s shoulder and neck, which were now drenched with the products of his sorrow. Somehow, she was strong enough to console him. She rubbed his back as she cried, and it managed to make him feel worse. It wasn’t fair that he was too distraught to be there for her, the way she was for him.

Another hand, stronger this time, grasped Tyler’s arm and tried to pull him away from Nicki.

“She needs her rest, son. I’m sorry.”

Tyler yanked his arm from the doctor’s grip and held onto Nicki for dear life.

“I’m not leaving,” he said, ready to do absolutely anything to remain where he was.

“I’m sorry, but it’s not up for debate.”

He turned his head slightly, just so that he could get a glimpse of the man who was trying to do the only thing that could possibly make him more despondent. Or maybe so that the man would get a glimpse of him.

“So sue me!” he shouted. “I’m not fucking leaving.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to calm down,” he said, “Or I’ll have to call security and have them escort you out of the building.”

“Then call them,” he challenged.

Nicki’s wailing picked up again; he was obviously upsetting her. As badly as he wanted to stop, he couldn’t. If he left her, there was no chance that they could ever get past this. It frustrated him to no end that no one could see that. How was it so impossible to believe that they were strongest together? That the only way they would make it through the biggest disaster of their lives was to stay with each other, not to be torn apart.

He heard the two remaining doctors exchange words, and let out a sigh of pure relief as one of them announced that they would be back in the morning to run the tests. Bill and Diane said their farewells, and spent a moment doing everything they could to make things better. Once they realized their efforts had failed, Diane placed a kiss on each of their heads and Bill offered again to call Tyler’s mother. He answered with a nod. Tyler couldn’t bear the thought of telling her.

When they left the room, Tyler slipped underneath the stiff sheets and allowed Nicki to hold him. He had no idea how on earth she could be so reassuring, and didn’t bother to ask.

Silence surrounded them, and the sterile hospital room became even more desolate than it had been before. He wished that he could assure her that it wasn’t her fault, that she shouldn’t blame herself. She didn’t deserve to shoulder the guilt. As if her life hadn’t already been filled with disappointment and loss. Everything was supposed to be better. Nothing was supposed to go wrong anymore.

A sniffle came from above Tyler’s head. “Tell me we’re gonna be okay,” she pleaded, her voice weak and crackling.

He shook his head as his eyes filled yet again.

“I can’t.”