Fractured

By Susan Oloier

When Anna Kincaid has a miscarriage, her world comes crashing to a halt. Grief overwhelms her life and she combats it with prescription medication. Her husband Lloyd does not see the event as tragic. In fact, not ready to be a father, he is relieved at the news. This creates a chasm in their marriage and splits them apart. Both Anna and Lloyd find themselves moving in different directions. Anna finds hope in a young, male colleague named Ben and comfort in her narcotics. Lloyd loses himself in work. Will their marriage survive the miscarriage, or will it always remain fractured?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Oloier
• Release date: Apr 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476358765

Susan Oloier

Susan Oloier lives in Southwest Colorado with her husband and two sons where she skis when it's cold and hikes when it's warm.After working in both finance and teaching, with a single audition at an acting agency, Susan went back to her first love, which is writing. She has been published in national and regional publications, as well as online. You can find her lurking about on her blog at http://www.susanoloier.blogspot.com

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Now

There’s a palpable thrill at becoming a first-time, expectant mom. The darkening blue line on an EPT; the wonder over whether the baby’s a boy or a girl; the sudden appeal of newborn accessories and maternity clothes. The anticipation.

So milling around the maternity section of Target, pushing the camel-colored pregnancy pants with the stretch bellies across the rack, I remain oblivious to life’s samurai surprises. At three months—twelve weeks in pregnancy lingo—my size 6s just begin to tighten. But as an overzealous, first-time mom-to-be, I need to explore my clothing options.

Mommy even has something for you, I tell the little one as I shake a Winnie the Pooh rattle at my belly.

Customers overhear me, think I’m crazy. I don’t care.

I step into the fitting room. With my street clothes pooled around my ankles, I examine my belly in the mirror. Barely showing. I wiggle into the powder blue dress, assessing myself. Not bad. As I turn, a sharp pain seizes the right side of my abdomen. Not the first time this week. The stretch of the uterine lining, I tell myself. According to Your Pregnancy Week by Week—totally normal. I try the cotton khakis, the overalls, and the too-large blouse. It is then I feel it. It starts as a dribble, then quickly turns into a gush. Increased discharge—totally normal. That’s what the nurse practitioner told the receptionist to tell me when I called earlier in the week. I check my panty lining. It doesn’t appear normal. It looks clear with a pinkish tinge. It isn’t the color that bothers me so much as the volume. It’s like an aquarium burst inside my Jockeys for Her. Then the pain again. I buckle, hold onto the fitting room seat, and grip the Winnie the Pooh rattle until it breaks.

It’s Sunday. No doctor’s office is open. I drive home, surprisingly calm, knowing I saturate the seat of the not-yet-paid-for Altima. Tan interior. The totally normal discharge will definitely show. It’s nothing. Everything is going to be okay. Why am I not convinced? I have never been persuasive in arguments, not like Lloyd. I punch the home number into the cell phone again. No answer. Damnit, where is he? Not that it matters. Nothing is wrong anyway.

The name is Anna. Anna Kincaid. Lloyd hovers over the admissions desk.

The pink acrylic tips of the receptionist’s nails click against the computer keyboard. I hunch over, biting back the pain. This isn’t a leisurely check-in to the Pointe Hilton, sister, I want to say but don’t. Instead, I hold my tongue and my wrenching abdomen. Why isn’t a stream of medical personnel rushing into the room with a gurney, ready to sweep me away? Does no one care what’s happening to me? What kind of emergency room are they running here anyway? I want to talk to the manager. Lloyd gives her all the information she requested. I want to give her a piece of my mind. But I’m in too much pain.

Have a seat in the waiting area and someone will be right with you.

Stripped down, naked beneath the paper gown, my butt exposed to the sterile cot, I lie with a maxi pad circa 1955 between my legs. What’s going to happen to me? No one has said a word. Except for Lloyd. He sits in a hard-back chair beside me, studying his wedding band. Is he assessing the state of our baby or the legal papers he left behind at the office?

His hypnosis suddenly breaks, and he grabs my hand. Everything will be okay once this is behind us.

I attempt a smile. What does that statement mean? That he’s already killed the baby in his mind?

I know, I say. But I’m not so sure things will be all right.

Did I tell you about the newest case? Hamilton versus Hamilton. They’re fighting for custody of toy poodles.

The timbre in Lloyd’s words fades and is replaced by the incessant beeping of a life monitor next door. Maybe someone has it worse than I do.

The blanched blue curtains ruffle as ghost doctors float by. My stomach jumps and my heart sinks as I think they may be rushing to me. I want to know and I don’t want to know. My cordoned-off area remains dark. One recessed light shines behind my head. I notice my blood-stained dress from Target—the one I purchased because I couldn’t put it back on the rack after the totally normal discharge discharged on it. A stack of super maxi pads and mesh ER panties lie on the emergency room version of a nightstand. Dark plywood, uninviting. The message: no one dares to settle in here. Dead or alive, we’re moving you out. This all serves as a reminder of what is going on, even though I don’t know exactly what that is.

I want to reach for another pad. I feel the plasma spilling out of me. But I’m certain if I don’t move, all the bleeding will stop. I know it will. Mind over matter. Or the mind can heal the body. Something like that. Someone said it to Bill Moyers at some time in a PBS interview.

I finally look to Lloyd, seated straight-backed in the visitor chair. Even on Sunday, he wears his dapper Armani suit with an eclectic, Museum of Modern Art tie with its crazy, Jackson Pollack colors. It is slightly loosened now. A sign of relaxation. Or worry. His pale strawberry-blonde hair looks perfectly coifed. His dull blue eyes are plastered to me.

Maybe another time with the poodles, he says.

I want to hear the poodle story. It will mean everything is all right. That our world is not about to change.

With a rip of the hand, the curtain blows back. The metal rings clank against the brassy bar like an awakened wind chime. A white-smocked woman wearing ringlets of chestnut hair settles at my side with a toolbox. She’s here to fix everything.

We’re going to need to take some blood, Mrs. Kincaid. She cinches my arm in her padded fist. This won’t hurt a bit.

She stabs a turkey baster of a needle in my arm and proceeds to suck out vial after vial of blood. I turn my head and grab for Lloyd’s hand. Normally, I would get a wink. This time it’s only a weak smile.

All righty. We’ll get this specimen to the lab. It may be awhile before we hear anything.

Before either Lloyd or I—mainly Lloyd—can question her, she’s behind the curtain. Another scepter in the outside world.

How’s the pain? Lloyd asks, paging through some notes.

Still there.

Hmm, he says, barely listening.

I look at my arm, knowing that Lloyd means the pain inside of me, the ache where the baby is. Better just to concentrate on the arm and the purple bruise that will mark its territory there by the end of the day. Definitely better that way.

I lie with my legs open and upward, ankles fastened in the stirrups. The doctor looms over me. The lines of experience on his face seem more deeply pressed than they should be as he evaluates the scene. I am an accident he has happened upon—disfigured, bloodied, hopeless.

We’re going to take a look at things. Okay?

His speech sounds overly annunciated, condescending, as if he speaks to a lost child. And maybe I am. I look at his nametag instead of his eyes. Joseph Frederick, M.D.. It’s easier to pretend there’s no worry there—the nametag doesn’t give itself away.

Lloyd leans down and kisses my cheek.

Everything will be all right, he says as the nurse hands Doctor Frederick a suctioning device. A Hoover is what it is, meant to suck the crumbs from the depths of the sofa cushions, not to be placed inside of me. There’s so much blood, we need to clear it to get a good view of your cervix.

I know this is meant to be a pelvic exam, but it seems like something more out of a horror movie.

This may be uncomfortable and the noise may be a little disturbing, so we’ll do this as quickly as we can.

Lloyd’s hand settles uneasily on my arm as the nurse flips the switch. Doctor Frederick inserts the hose inside me. This is wrong. Not at all how things are supposed to be in pregnancy. I should be lying in Doctor Perez’s office, my OB/GYN, listening to the baby’s heartbeat. Instead, I listen to the inhuman sucking of blood through the vacuum. Blood and tissue move through the hose like liposuction. A liposuction I didn’t sign up for.

The machine chews noisily, smacking its lips with every taste of what is pulled from inside of me. As more and more scarlet rushes by in my peripheral vision, so do my hopes and dreams for a future with this child. I stare off into the distance to pretend none of this is happening. Just beyond the blizzard white of Doctor Frederick’s jacket, I see the crimson trail of blood I left on the ceramic tile floor. It stands lifeless like cairns on a hiking path. It seems impossible that the baby can still be alive. But there are no words like gone, lost, or dead which lead me to believe that my child is dead. So I hold onto hope. It’s all I have.

After the procedure, I lie stiff on the cot in my tiny corner of the ER. We know nothing more than we did when we first walked in the emergency room. Communication must not be taught in medical school, I think. No one even says the word baby. It is taboo.

I’m sorry you had to see all of that, I say to Lloyd.

There was a lot of blood. Lloyd seems to reel from the gory scene.

I know he’d rather be at work than in the emergency room. You don’t have to stay, I tell him.

He seems to consider leaving. Of course not, he finally says. Then speak no more about the blood or his job. The words, once spoken, may actually confirm what I hope is not true: that the baby is gone; that Lloyd would rather be in his downtown office than with me.

But do you mind if I make a few calls? Lloyd asks.

Even in a time of crisis, Lloyd can’t leave his job at the door. I suck in my frustration to keep it from showing. Fine, I say. But it’s everything but fine. He’s supposed to care more for me than for his clients.

Lloyd disappears behind the curtains like everyone else.

CHAPTER 2

Then

Looking back, things had not started out this way between us, distant and estranged. Then again, they never do. We met through a series of chance meetings. At least that’s what I thought anyway. The first time, Sheryl and I had been at the Coffee Plantation socializing, debating. I’ve always hated coffee, but loved coffee shops. As usual, Sheryl noisily sucked her cappuccino from the edge of her cup. We deliberated on Bush’s administration, themes in a Zora Neale Hurston novel, and the outfit of the girl sitting against the window.

His hand rested on the empty chair between us. May I? he asked us—asked me.

With his pompadour and bright blue eyes, he was not my type. He was tall, but fair instead of olive complected; straight-laced instead of devil-may-care.

Go ahead. I dismissed him, continuing to ruminate on Bush or Hurston. Perhaps both.

He took the chair and left.

You blew him off. He was cute, Sheryl cooed as her eyes followed him across the room.

He’s all right, I admitted.

I’d go out with him.

Then ask him out.

Eh. Sheryl dismissed him, too. "Anyway, I didn’t really read Their Eyes Were Watching God. Did you?" she asked, segueing back into our previous conversation.

Of course. It’s the only thing I have going for me right now.

That’s not true.

It had been, but little did I realize things were about to change.

CHAPTER 3

Now

I open my eyes. And as I lie alone with no distractions or thoughts of the past, my focus turns to the baby. I wonder what’s happening to her. I call the baby her because that’s who I feel she is. I won’t truly find out the gender until week 19 or 20. Maybe I won’t find out at all. No, no, no, I tell myself. You must think positively. If her own mother has already given up on her, what hope does she have? Maybe it’s the myth about craving salads over meats, maybe it’s a mother’s intuition. I just know she’s a girl. Mommy’s little girl. But mommy’s little girl must be writhing from pain right now because mommy sure is. It’s not like premenstrual cramps. No. They would be a welcomed guest. This pain continually beats up and brutalizes my reproductive system. And the baby. With lead batons and hammer fists, it pounds every inch of my abdomen. How can my baby withstand it? I barely can. Maybe my body is absorbing all of the pain, so that she feels nothing. I hope and pray that’s the way it is.

I talk to the baby inside my head, knowing that conversations are easily overheard between the thin linings of the curtain dividers. Already I learned that the neighbor on my left is hooked up to some sort of monitor. The nurses already threaded an I.V. Seems pretty serious when they have to thread one of those. I’m certainly glad I don’t need one. It’s a woman suffering from kidney problems. She weighs over 300 pounds. I know this because she volunteered the information when the ER staff attempted to move her. I can’t imagine offering that up without a fight.

The woman on my right is elderly—93, to be exact. She managed to get herself to the emergency room by calling a cab. With no husband, no family, it must be lonely. Dizzy spells. That’s the reason she came. But I’d be willing to bet that her true ailment is loneliness. She came to the ER to have some company.

So in my head, I say to the baby that everything will be fine. The bleeding will soon stop—though I am on my fifth pad already—and she will be able to heal. But I’m not sure if my thoughts are a promise or a question.

CHAPTER 4

Then

My classroom phone had rung. It had been Sheryl. Go with me to Anderson’s tonight. Pleeeaase.

Believe it or not, I’m really busy here. The kids are out of control today. I have essays to grade. I just want to go home and relax.

I cupped the receiver to my chest to yell at Jimmy Darwin. Put that glue down immediately!

We don’t have to stay forever.

I don’t know. I pulled the telephone cord as far as it would go and penciled Jimmy’s name on the board. I swore I heard the word fuck escape his lips.

I know what you’re going to say. It’s 80s night, and you hate 80s music. But I promise I’ll buy drinks for you the entire night. Please just do this for me.

He’s going to glue her hair. I swear he is.

Did you hear what I said about the free drinks? Sheryl asked.

I hardly drink and they have fifty cent tap beer on Friday nights.

Ms. Delacroix, Jimmy’s throwing a tampon around the room!

Great, I thought, I just hope it’s not used.

Have to go, Sheryl. I’m dealing with projectile feminine hygiene products here.

Oh shit. You better go. So I’ll be at your place around 9 o’clock. Okay, bye.

She slammed down the phone before I was able to answer. So I was forced to go to Anderson’s. And that night out truly did change my life.

CHAPTER 5

Now

We’re going to take you for an ultrasound. See what we can see, the nurse has been sent in to tell me.

Those are the first promising words we’ve heard all day. We have been in the emergency room for four and a half hours so far and no closer to what’s going on with me, with the baby. I smile weakly at Lloyd. He smiles back, but hope now seems absent from his face. His look is consoling rather than encouraging.

Sharon Sturgess, radiology technician, rolls me back to yet another examination room like I am an invalid, unable to stand on my own two feet.

First we’re going to insert a balloon inside your bladder. Makes it easier to see what’s going on.

Earlier, they put a catheter inside of me for comfort, now a balloon. Next thing, I’ll have an I.V.

The room smacks of sterility—white-washed walls, bright interrogation lamps, and ammonia-scrubbed floors.

She parallel parks me alongside a monitor, lubes my stomach with what feels likes mentholated eucalyptus, and takes a seat.

I’m going to fill the balloon. It won’t hurt, but it’ll feel like you have to pee. She whispers her final word, probably to avoid embarrassment. Nevermind that I’m buck naked and emitting fluids galore beneath my barely-there gown.

She slides an air hockey paddle over my stomach—a double agent working incognito as a shock device during artificial resuscitation. No words escape her lips. Only hmmms and undercover sighs. I strain to see the monitor, but it’s tipped just out of my view. I want to see my baby, witness the heartbeat, then I’ll know she’s going to be all right. Sharon touches a few keys on the keyboard—coded language—then the ultrasound is complete.

We have to wait for Doctor Minot to read the results before we know anything. Do you need anything? Water? A warm blanket?

Water and a blanket? She’s got to be kidding. Does she think I’m here for a paraffin treatment or a salt water sea scrub? Though, it occurs to me, this procedure likely costs more than a day at the spa. I could probably have the works with a fruit plate at the Phoenician for what I’ll be paying these people.

Yes, I’d like a warm blanket.

She drapes it over me, and I dissolve into sleep.

CHAPTER 6

Then

As we entered the club in what had seemed like ages ago, the bass of the music crawled beneath our flesh, pounding and pulsating.

Caroline from Sheryl’s workplace, West Realty, joined us at the club. Her body-hugging fashions, and the fact that she was a thin blonde with less-than-real boobs, attracted men to us. She simply tucked a lick of hair behind her ears, and guys flocked to buy her drinks. She seemed to capitalize on it. Pretty sad since that seemed to be the only talent I could detect in her. I did not know what Sheryl saw in her except that Caroline had everything Sheryl did not, aside from the blonde hair. I always suspected that, subconsciously, Sheryl had a crush on her in a non-sexual way. Sheryl lived and breathed men. Whether on the covers of tabloid magazines or in the desperation of nightclubs, she dreamed of finding that one special guy.

The darkness was breached by the strobe lights circling the dance floor. Cigarette smoke climbed and curled the walls, haunting the club like scepters from the previous weekend. An infestation of club-goers swarmed the dance floor in a cornucopia of gyrations, twitches, and floundering to the sound of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus. All of my senses were assaulted that night: the music, the stench of stale beer that wafted from the chair fabric as we seated ourselves at a high-top, the feel of my too-short skirt creeping up my thigh. That was the moment I saw him. He didn’t walk over right away. He just glanced occasionally in our direction. Very subtle for a guy. Most men leer; make it obvious that they’re interested in you. Not him. He looked for a long time. Then he came over. Same hand on a different chair. Same line.

May I?

Go ahead, I said.

CHAPTER 7

Now

My warm blanket has gone cold, so I wake up.

Back in my remote section of the ER, the pain crescendos as we continue to wait. Lloyd looks at his watch.

What’s taking so long? I ask Lloyd through gritted teeth. My fist clenches a section of sheet and blanket, a technique I discovered within the last half hour to withstand the pain.

I don’t know. We just have to be patient. Lloyd’s tie is draped around his neck, completely undone about an hour ago. Do you want me to ask for medication? He tries to be helpful in the only way he knows how.

I shake my head, studying the splash of colors in his tie. The baby.

I think you need something. You look flushed. There’s an edge to his voice. He tries to be patient with the situation and with me. He sidles up close to the bed just as the curtain tears back violently, and one of the nurses enters. Lloyd pushes his chair back to its original position so she can continue her clear path to the blood pressure machine.

Doesn’t she look flushed? He asks the nurse. Would it be at all possible to get some pain medication for her? His voice has a tone. The nurse can’t recognize it, but I can.

You haven’t had any pain medication? She asks this as she squeezes the arm cuff even harder. We’ll have to get some for you.

This will pinch a little, the nurse reassures me as she stabs the vein of my hand with a needle the size of my index finger and threads an I.V.

So it has come to this—an I.V.

The medication will enter your bloodstream more quickly this way. It’s a narcotic, so it should take care of your pain rather quickly.

Narcotic! I picture a scruffy teenager peddling crack cocaine in the lobby of the emergency room. In a darkened corner beside the vending machines, Doctor Frederick slips the kid a wad of bills in exchange for a baggie filled with tainted off-white rocks. It’s that substance that floods through my bloodstream and washes over my internal organs, making me forget about the pain. My mind seems to detach from the situation, from reality. The pain fades into the background, and I’m almost giddy. But not really. I like the feeling, which seems so wrong in the midst of the situation. The thought, what about my baby? enters my mind for an instant, then I thrust it away. The doctor wouldn’t prescribe a narcotic if it’s going to harm the baby.

Doctor Frederick blows through the curtain and wafts into our assigned area of the room. Seated on a stool, he rolls beside the bed. He looks me directly in the eye—though he could be looking through me for all I care. Lloyd reaches for my hand.

Frederick puts on a forlorn face. I’m sorry. Your baby is dead.

My emotions battle with the narcotic for control of the news. I’m not really sure who’s winning, but I feel the tears stream from the outward edges of my eyes. Lloyd’s hand tightens around mine.

Doctor Frederick rambles for awhile. I’m not sure what he’s saying. I do hear certain phrases clearly, such as no sac or baby present in the ultrasound. He asks me questions, and I don’t know if I even respond. He draws a picture of what’s supposed to be my uterus on the back of his diagnosis sheet, but I’m not sure what he’s trying to explain. Again, I hear scraps of information—things I should probably ignore.

You couldn’t have been too far along. Your hCG numbers are pretty low. And it’s not like there was a heartbeat.

No heartbeat! What is he talking about? I saw it for myself in Doctor Perez’s office. As vivid as my hand before my face. But there was a heartbeat, I try to spit out through parched lips.

Really? He looks to Lloyd, more reliable than I am in the doctor’s eyes. Lloyd nods his head in affirmation.

Hmmm. It’s not normal to miscarry when there’s a heartbeat.

I don’t know what any of this means. hCG levels low, not normal to miscarry when there’s a heartbeat. And what’s this with not trusting my word. I am the mother for God’s sake. I can’t get