Within Reach (18 page)

“Wait a little longer,” she murmured. “I’m sure I’ll pick up pretty soon.”

She didn’t. Rather she grew more uncomfortable. Michael reached his limit when she opened her eyes once again and they were filled with tears. He was up like a bolt and on his haunches before her.

“Damn it, Dani, tell me. Is it the baby? Do you think something’s wrong?”

The tears hovered on her lids and she swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I’ve felt weird since last night. I woke up with a backache.”

“I have a heating pad at my place. Should I get it?”

“I feel cramps every so often. They were mild at first and I hoped they’d just go away, but they’re not doing that.”

Michael forced himself to remain calm. “Are they getting worse?” She nodded and met his gaze. He realized that she was terrified. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” He pressed a warm kiss to her forehead. “You stay put. I’m going to call the doctor.”

“He’s in Boston. I can’t drive—”

“I have one here.”

“Not an obstetrician.”

“He’ll give me the name of one. The best in the area.” Squeezing her arm, he headed for the phone. When he returned, he squatted down. “A Dr. Masconi is waiting for us in Portland. Do you want to put on some clothes?”

Nodding, Danica tried to push herself up, but Michael was quickly lifting her and carrying her into the bedroom, where he set her gently on her feet. He turned toward the dresser. “Tell me what you want.”

“I can do it,” she breathed shakily. “You go wait for me. I’ll be right out.”

“Are you sure? Will you yell if you need me?” When she nodded, he left, but he was right outside her door waiting when she appeared moments later. She had thrown on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved summer sweater. But she was crying. When he reached for her, she grabbed his arm. “I’m bleeding, Michael. I think I’m losing it. Dear God, I don’t want that!”

Trying to contain the fear he felt, he lifted her up and made for the door. “I don’t want it, either, sweetheart. Neither does the doctor. He’s an expert. He’ll do everything he can.” Her arms were around his neck and she was holding him tightly, as if that might help save her baby. He felt more helpless than he ever had before. All he could do was to try to keep her calm and get her to the hospital as soon as possible.

The drive was an agony for them both. Danica sat curled beside Michael, holding his hand, wondering if she was being punished for feeling so much for him but needing his strength nonetheless. Michael tried to soothe her fears with gentle words of encouragement, praying that the baby would be all right, praying that she would be all right, that she wouldn’t blame herself if something did happen.

The hospital wasn’t the most efficient of places. The doctor had to be paged from somewhere in its labyrinthine midst, and in the meantime Danica was left on an examining table in one of the emergency room’s small cubicles. Once she had undressed, Michael stayed with her for all but those moments when he angrily stalked to the nurse’s station to demand to know what was keeping the doctor.

When the doctor finally arrived, Michael was relegated to pacing the emergency-room floor. He was allowed to see Danica for a brief minute as they were wheeling her upstairs. She had been sedated, but she saw him clearly. He had to be content with that until the time, much later that evening, when she was wheeled back to a private room.

He rose quickly from the chair in which he’d been seated, it seemed for days, and waited until she was settled in bed. She was still pale, but she was awake. He took her hand and smiled gently.

“Hi. How’re you doin’?”

“Okay, I guess,” she whispered. Her lower lip quivered. She bit down on it.

Settling beside her, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. Her fingers were limp, her skin chilled. He lowered her hand to his chest and pressed it there in an offer of warmth.

“I feel so tired,” she murmured.

“It’s the anesthesia. It’ll take a while to wear off. Why don’t you try to sleep. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

Without argument, she closed her eyes. He watched her until he was sure she was asleep, then carefully left the bed and stood staring out the window until he heard her stir. He was back at her side by the time she opened her eyes.

“What time is it?” she whispered.

“Nearly midnight.”

She nodded and closed her eyes again, but he knew she wasn’t sleeping. He took her hand and held it gently between both of his, sensing that she was mourning, wishing there was something he could do. If that small part of him had once upon a time regretted she was pregnant, it now felt her sorrow with the rest of him.

“Michael?” She didn’t open her eyes. “It hurts up here.” She raised her free hand to her head and he knew just what she meant.

“I know, Dani. I know.”

“I wanted the baby so badly. It was going to open up new doors for me.” A single tear, then another, trickled down her cheeks.

Unable to keep any distance when he felt her pain so intimately, Michael gently lifted her into his arms, holding her while she cried quietly, knowing she needed the outlet.

“I wanted…the baby…”

“I know. It’ll be all right.”

“But I don’t…know what went… wrong,” she sobbed. “The doctor couldn’t…say.”

“He doesn’t know. Nobody knows. The only thing we can guess is that the baby wasn’t well. Something may have been wrong right from the start.”

“But why? Why me? Everyone…else has healthy babies.”

“Shhhh. It’s okay, sweetheart. Shhhh. There’ll be other ones coming along.”

“I don’t think…so. Oh, Michael, I don’t think so.”

“Don’t say that. The doctor saw nothing at all wrong that would prevent you from conceiving again and carrying the baby to term.”

“That’s not the point! Oh, God…”

She was crying again. He held her until the tears slowly eased, thinking all the while about what she’d said, wondering exactly how bad things were between Blake and her.

“Dani, I called Blake when the doctor gave me the news.”

Her body went very still. “You called him?” she whispered against his chest.

“I had to.” It had taken three calls, one to the town house, one to Blake’s office, finally one to the men’s club where he had met with success.

“What did he…did he say anything?”

“He was upset.” He was actually relatively calm, perhaps stoic, or simply well controlled, but Michael saw no need in telling Danica that. “He wanted to know how you were. When I told him that the doctor said you’d be fine, he was relieved. He said to tell you that he’d be up tomorrow…uh, today.”

If he had hoped the news would cheer her, he had miscalculated. She started to cry again, making soft, grieving sounds that tore at his gut, and he could only hold her, rock her gently, smooth back her hair. Eventually, inevitably, exhaustion crept up. She quieted but made no move to free herself from his arms.

“I wanted…our baby,” she murmured as she drifted off. “Oh, Michael, I wanted our baby…”

Perhaps because he had wanted the baby to be his from the start, Michael could have sworn from her words that she agreed. But she was doped up and had spoken ambiguously, he reasoned; of course, the “our” she spoke of referred to her and Blake.

He had no way of knowing that she hadn’t been that far gone. He had no way of knowing that, in her way, Danica had thought of the baby as hers and Michael’s. He had no way of knowing that on the night the baby had been conceived, she had been loving him—not Blake, but him.

Blake arrived from Boston late that afternoon. Danica, who had been discharged from the hospital in the morning and had slept most of the time since then, was sitting on the sofa in her robe, covered by the light shawl Michael had insisted on, drinking the tea Michael had steeped. She was pondering the tag in her hand which read, “The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it,” when the sound of a key in the lock caught her ear.

Her gaze flew to Michael, who was already headed for the door. Heart thudding, she held her breath. The meeting of these two men was something she had assumed would happen eventually. She had never anticipated it taking place quite this way.

She watched them shake hands and exchange brief words, Blake’s in appreciation of Michael’s help, Michael’s in praise of Danica. As unobtrusively as possible, Michael excused himself then, leaving Danica alone with Blake.

He approached and pressed a light kiss on her head before taking a seat across from her. Having come straight from the office, he was wearing a suit. It added to the formality that seemed to yawn glaringly between them.

“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly.

“Pretty good.”

“I spoke with your doctor this morning.” He proceeded to outline the conversation, which told Danica nothing more than the doctor had already told her himself, nothing more than she and Michael had already discussed. “He says that you shouldn’t be worried.”

“I’m not.”

“He wants you to get lots of rest over the next few days.”

“I haven’t been able to do much else. Michael wouldn’t let me move.”

“He seems like a nice fellow.”

“He is. I’m grateful he was here yesterday. I wasn’t sure what to do.”

“I knew you shouldn’t have been alone here,” Blake charged. “If Mrs. Hannah had been with you—”

“It’s all right, Blake. I’ve survived.”
Not my baby, though. Are you sorry
?

“The doctor said that the problem started the night before. What took you so long to get to the hospital?”

She closed her eyes, then opened them with a sigh. “It wouldn’t have helped. Even if I’d gotten there sooner. I didn’t do anything here that they wouldn’t have had me do there. According to the doctor, it was just destined.”

“I know. And I didn’t mean that as criticism.”

Then why did you say it
? she argued silently. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m sensitive.”

“That’s to be expected. You’ve been through an ordeal.”

Not you, though
, she thought. Still not a single word of regret that she had miscarried. It was obviously her loss, not his.

“Well,” she sighed, bunching the crocheted shawl beneath her fingers, “it’s over.” She looked up again. “Thank you for coming. I know how busy you must be.”

In an apparent attempt to cheer her up, Blake proceeded to tell her exactly how busy he had been in the nearly four weeks since he’d seen her last. He spoke of work and his stay in Washington. He elaborated on the excitement of the convention, of the jubilation of the victory parties afterward, of the Claveling campaign’s strategy for the weeks ahead.

Danica listened quietly. Blake had to have said more to her in that hour than in the past thousand. Yet not a word had been of a personal nature, at least none that directly concerned Danica. She recalled similar monologues she had heard on those rare occasions when her family had gathered together for dinner. Her father would ask her about school, then after hearing her initial response, would nod and launch into a dissertation on a subject not remotely related either to Danica or to school. She wondered if Blake enjoyed hearing himself speak as much as her father did, and was appalled at how much more alike the two men were than ever.

She was more appalled, though, when out of the blue Blake announced that her mother would be arriving in Maine the next day.

“Mom’s coming
here
?”

“You don’t expect her to be going to a hotel when you could clearly use her help.”

“Her help.” Danica carefully swallowed the bitter words that threatened to spill, but evidently she was less successful at concealing the cynical look in her eye.

“Look, Danica, I have to get back to Boston tomorrow. Eleanor felt that you shouldn’t be alone at this time, and I agree. She’s concerned about you. She and your father were both very upset when I called.”

Strange, Danica hadn’t given a thought to notifying her parents of what had happened. She must have simply blocked out that particularly odious chore from her mind. Of course they would be upset. They had wanted a grandchild, as though it were their God-given right. Well, what about
her
rights? What about the child
she’d
wanted? What about the warm, close family life she had dreamed about having for years and years?

“I wish you’d told her not to come,” Danica murmured.

“She’s your mother. It’s her place to be here.”

Danica’s laugh held a touch of hysteria. “Her conscience must be coming to life after all these years. She never worried about ‘her place’ before. At least, she never worried about it with regard to me. She and Dad were always out doing something that was more important.”

“You’re being ungenerous, Danica. What she and your father did they had to do.”

“That’s a matter of opinion. Mine differs from theirs.”

Blake’s nostrils flared. His handsome features suddenly took on a harder cast, one she had never seen before. She wondered if she was getting to him… finally.

“Your mother loves you.” He spaced his words as though he were talking to a child. “She wants to be here. I had no idea you objected to her company.”

“It’s hard to object to something you’ve had so little exposure to. I wonder what’s come over her all of a sudden. Belated maternal instincts. Maybe she’s going through menopause and—”

“That’s enough, Danica.” He got to his feet, automatically smoothing the crease in his trousers. “You’re upset. You need some rest. I’ll go get my bag from the car and change. Maybe you’ll be in a better mood when I’m done.”

He never saw the who-in-the-devil-do-you-think-
you
-are glance that hit his back as he headed for the door, and it crumbled as soon as he was gone. By the time he returned and changed his clothes, Danica’s anger had given way to fatigue. She was tired. Tired of wanting and not having. Tired of needing and going without. Of course, things seemed worse right now, she told herself. The doctor had warned her that she might be depressed for a time but that it would pass. She could only take one day at a time. One day at a time. One day at a time. Four days later she breathed a sigh of relief when Eleanor Marshall kissed her goodbye and started back for Connecticut. Within minutes, she was out the glass slider, across the deck, down the stairs and running along the beach.