“Sadie, I’ve told you that you did nothing wrong,” said Gray. “You have to believe me, honey. None of this is on you.”
“Sadie?” Wes stared at his daughter, feeling her pain.
“I didn’t know he was married.” She said the first sentence breathlessly. “He was part of my security team. He never said he had a family, a wife and children. We’d been seeing one another for a few months, so I thought when I told him I was pregnant, he’d be happy.
“I was so wrong. He asked me to wait for him in the lobby that morning. We were supposed to have dinner the night before, but he told me he wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t think anything of it. When I saw them coming out of the elevator, I knew. I knew I’d made a mistake.”
“Sadie, baby, everyone makes mistakes,” said Wes. His heart was cracking in two for his daughter. “But this wasn’t your fault. It was his.”
“I was so angry. So hurt, I said I wished I wasn’t pregnant with his stupid baby,” she sniffed. “I did it, Dad. I miscarried because of what I said. I did it. It was twins, Dad. Uncle Marc. It was twins.”
“Baby, it was not your fault,” said Wes, sitting beside her. “Saying words doesn’t make a woman have a miscarriage. Even your dumb old dad knows that.”
“I’ve tried to tell her that,” said Lena, smiling down at Sadie. “I’m going to guess it was the stress and probably the spell that Matilda put on you. It had nothing to do with you, Sadie. Nothing.”
“What’s the surgery?” asked Wes.
“She needs to have her uterus scraped and cleaned out, basically. I’d like to take a few tissue samples just to be sure nothing else is going on. It’s a minor procedure, but she’ll need to be in bed for the next week or so. No stress. No strain.”
“I understand,” said Sadie. She turned to look at Ham, her eyes like huge round plates on her face. “Will you be here? Will you stay with me?”
“I’m not going anywhere, Sadie. I’m going to be right here the entire time. I tried to get Gray to let me go into surgery with you, but she said they don’t have gloves to fit my ham-hands.” She gave the first smile Ham had seen on her face.
As Cruz and Lena prepped her for surgery, Claudette called Mary, Virginia, and Ela to come in to comfort her.
“We’re going to take her back now,” said Gabi. “I’ll be assisting Gray because technically, she shouldn’t do the surgery on family, but this is fairly routine. We don’t expect any problems.” Ham was still holding her hand and bent down, kissing her forehead.
“You won’t leave me, right?” she whispered.
“You haven’t chased me away yet,” he smiled. “I’m not going anywhere now.”
The group of people stood in the hallway, watching as the bed was wheeled back to surgery. Ham slowly turned, tears streaking down his face. He was flexing his hands open and closed, shaking his head.
“Ham,” whispered Virginia, gripping his arm.
“She’s in so much pain,” he said, shaking his head. “I want to take that away, and I don’t know how to do that. The only thing I can do is, I want to find the security agent who was with her. I need to find him. He did this. He lied to her. He knew what he was doing.”
“We’ll find him, Ham,” said Wes, squeezing his shoulder. “I agree with you. He knew what he was doing.”
It was only two hours later that Gray and Gabi walked out, but it felt as if it were forty. They both had small smiles on their faces as they stood in front of the group that had grown exponentially.
“How is she?” asked Virginia.
“She’s fine. There was some scarring and other things that were probably causing her discomfort during her periods. From what we could see, she was suffering from endometriosis and fibroid tumors, which also could have led to the miscarriage.”
“Will she be able to carry again?” asked Ham. All eyes turned to him, and he never even flinched. “Will she be able to have more babies?”
“Yes,” nodded Gabi, staring at the man. “There is no reason to believe that she can’t have a normal pregnancy in the future.”
“That’s good,” nodded Ham. “She’ll make a good mother one day.” Gabi and Gray smiled at the younger man, nodding their heads.
“She asked to see you first, Ham,” said Gray. He looked at Wes and Virginia and the others, and they all nodded, giving him a reassuring smile. He turned slowly and followed Gabi back toward the recovery rooms. When they were gone, Gray smiled at them all.
“He’s kept her alive,” she said. “Her mental state wasn’t good, but her physical state was worse. I’m not sure how she managed, but she had to have been in considerable pain. I didn’t want him to know, and I won’t tell her either, but there were still remnants of the fetus left in her uterus.”
“Dear God,” whispered Mary, holding her stomach.
“Eventually, it would have made her sick, or she would have naturally expelled it. She’ll be fine now, I promise.”
