[ trigger warning: miscarriage. ]
I typically post any disclaimers/TWs in the intro portions of my books, but since this wasn't covered at the beginning of OOTR, I'm leaving it here for the sake of being sensitive to any of my readers that might struggle with this subject.
•••
JANUARY 17th, 1998, OLYMPIA, WA
REAGAN WAS BEGINNING to think that she was sick. It was either that or another person was co-inhabiting her body, forcing her to do odd things that weren't like her. Odd things like willingly visiting her mother's house for a second time within the span of a month.
Technically, she was there with an intended purpose. She'd finally reached her thirteenth week of pregnancy and had been ready to tell her family, deciding that they deserved to hear the news in person. After taking a long weekend off from work, Reagan had flown in the day before and told everyone that night. The consensus had been that everyone was happy for her — even Kimberly had seemed pleased.
Reagan knew that she'd made the right choice, coming back after having spent Christmas with them to reveal the good news. One of her growing fears had been that Robbie and the twins would soon feel like she was estranging herself from them. They were getting older, with Robbie now nineteen and the twins ten, and Reagan knew that she'd always feel guilty for leaving them in the dust to deal with Kimberly by themselves.
But she'd come back. She had come back for them and for Richard, who had beamed so happily upon hearing that she was pregnant that Reagan had been close to tears.
So far, it hadn't been all that bad being back. Dave had volunteered to stay behind in L.A. with Gracie, getting some one-on-one time with her before he left again on tour, though Reagan had presumed that he just didn't want to be around Kimberly. When she'd called him out on it smugly, he'd grimaced, giving her her answer.
She and Kate lounged in the living room that Saturday morning, their sock-clad feet propped up on the coffee table. It was still early and Reagan had regretfully brewed a cup of coffee for Kate but not herself. It was a bitch straying from caffeine in the wake of her pregnancy and she could have used it — her lower back had been killing her since she'd woken up.
"You're really not so bad for a sister," Kate suddenly said from her end of the couch. She was twirling her hair around her finger, smiling lazily.
"I'm easily the best sister to ever exist," Reagan quipped back playfully, surfing through television channels. She couldn't pick a station as usual.
"You must be if you were willing to come back here again."
Reagan laughed under her breath. "I was thinking the same thing."
Stepping foot inside of her childhood house did not necessarily evoke any warm, sugary feelings. There were only a few glimpses of nostalgia worth acknowledging, all in due part to the four younger siblings that Reagan had spent her life helping raise. The best part of the day so far was the fact that Kimberly was out, insisting that she had to run errands and having likely expected Reagan to beg her to stay. Of course, Reagan hadn't. She was hardly complaining about the lack of time her mother spent with her.
Robbie was home, though between his part time job at a record store and attending community college, he was busy. He'd embraced the tail end of his teenage years with open arms, shocking Reagan with a deep, unfamiliar voice and freshly grown out hair that went past his shoulders. There were still elements of the small child that she'd protected lingering inside of him, though. He was still happy to hug her tightly, content to let her into his thoughts, and he didn't seem at all resentful of Reagan for leaving. If anything, he was sporting a strangely mature outlook, wishing his sister well with the air of someone much older.
Kodie and RaeLynn had remained their happily rambunctious selves, though Reagan couldn't believe how big they'd gotten. In her mind, they'd always be toddlers, but the physical evidence of how long she'd been away from home was plainly there in the twins. They were were in fifth grade when it seemed as if they still should have been in diapers.
"I know Mom won't admit it, but she likes you here," Kate suddenly said. "She might like you better than me now."
"That's completely false," Reagan snorted.
"It's true. She's pissed that I'm still not a practicing lawyer yet." Kate laughed gracefully, clearly unperturbed by their mother's mean streak. "She absolutely hates that I failed the bar exam once."
"But you passed the second time," Reagan said. "You're done with school now. She can't complain."
"And yet she still does. Come on, you're the one having babies. We know for a fact that she loves being a grandmother."
"Funny how she likes being a grandmother more than she likes being a mother."
They both temporarily fixated on the television, neither of them speaking until a commercial for an at-home waxing kit finished playing. That's when Kate looked back over at Reagan.
"So . . . are you excited to find out the sex of the baby?" she asked, teeming with curiosity.
Reagan smiled, laughing a little before folding her arms over her chest.
"I don't think I want to know," she confessed.
"Why would you not want to know?"
"Because Dave wants a boy. We didn't really care what the outcome was with Gracie, but I know now that he's dying for a boy. So why not make him wait to find out?"
Kate shot Reagan a disapproving look. "You're a monster."
"He already knows that."
"And he still married you?"
Reagan shrugged. "I'm surprised too, trust me."
"How big is the baby, anyway?" Kate asked, peering over at Reagan as if expecting to see any changes from the day before.
"The size of a peach," Reagan answered without taking her eyes off the television screen. They'd left the channel on MTV and she'd heard a mention of the Foo Fighters, which always grabbed her attention.
"That's adorable - a peach," Kate giggled. "You should call her that. Peach. Dave can't keep calling her Peanut when Gracie is supposed to be Peanut."
"Her?" Reagan tore her gaze away from the t.v. and looked quizzically at her sister.
"I think it's a girl. If Dave wants a boy, you know it's going to be a girl, because he already gets everything else he wants."
"Damn. Would you do me a favor and try telling him that to his face?"
Over the sound of their giggling, Reagan and Kate watched MTV for a little longer, alternating between criticizing and praising each music video that aired. By the time they were joined by Robbie, Kate had decided that her favorite video was 'Gettin' Jiggy With It' by Will Smith and Reagan had thrown in her vote for Deftones' 'My Own Summer.'
"Hey guys," Robbie greeted them, striding into the living room while still in the middle of buttoning up his shirt.
"Hey Rob," Reagan smiled. She outstretched her hand and like the loving little brother he had been and still was, he gave it a squeeze.
"Robbie, come sit," Kate beckoned, pointing to the recliner. "Come be the new judge. Your sister picked Deftones over Will Smith."
"Which sister?" Robbie asked.
"Why does it matter?" Kate replied hotly.
"Because the one who picked Deftones has better taste."
"Ha!" Reagan exclaimed, kicking one foot up from under her blanket triumphantly.
"But her taste is so one-dimensional," Kate grumbled.
"I actually gotta' head into work," Robbie told them as he pulled back his long hair into a ponytail, reminding Reagan of when Dave had once done the same thing. "I'll be back home by six."
After Robbie left, it wasn't long until Richard entered the living room, wrangling the twins along with him and looking in need of a stiff drink.
"Where are you going?" Kate asked, eyeing the twins with an expression that gave away how fortunate she clearly felt to not be in Richard's shoes.
"Kody and RaeLynn have a birthday party to go to in Wildwood," he explained, sounding exasperated by the idea of having to step foot outside with the twins.
Kody and RaeLynn were locked in a heated argument, though from what Reagan could tell, Kody was the instigator. That was a first. RaeLynn had always been the first to antagonize.
Kody was attempting to rip a book out of her hands while RaeLynn fought back, hissing at her brother through her teeth to stop.
"Hey!" Reagan called, making her voice sharp as she slapped a hand down on the arm of the couch. Both of the twins flinched.
"If you behave for Dad, I'll take you out for ice cream tonight," she said. That had always been her go-to trick with the twins, striking deals to get them to do what she wanted. Just as they had done when they were toddlers, they quieted after exchanging a pair of dirty looks.
"Thank you," Richard mouthed at Reagan, putting a hand on each of twins' shoulders and leading them out the front door.
"You can't do that around Mom," Kate announced once the door slammed shut and they were alone again.
"Do what around Mom?"
"Whip Kody and RaeLynn into shape like that. She'll start bribing you to move back in."
Reagan rolled her eyes. "There was nothing difficult about what I just did. Mom just has a complex."
They went back to watching t.v., though Reagan was beginning to brainstorm ideas that would get them out of the house along with everyone else. Chris was supposedly bartending on an afternoon shift, but Reagan questioned the morality of walking into a bar pregnant, even if it was to see her best friend.
She was showing, but only a little. She glanced down at her stomach, turning her head to the side as she inspected the slightly raised bump under her shirt.
"Do you think if went to go see Chris today, I'd get any weird looks?" she asked out loud. "You know, with my belly?"
It took a moment for Kate to answer and Reagan realized that it was because she was drifting off to sleep, her head lolling on her shoulder. She nudged Kate's leg with her foot.
"Kate!"
Kate mumbled out a halfway coherent response. "You could get away with it. You just look . . . bloated."
"Are you seriously going to fall asleep? We have the whole day ahead of us!"
That time, Kate didn't answer. She rolled on to her side and tucked her hands under her face, effectively confirming to Reagan that she was indeed going to take a midday nap.
It looked like everyone but Reagan had decided on their plans for the day.
Out of boredom she kept watching MTV, but was delighted when the video for 'Everlong' came on. She watched the whole thing through, laughing quietly to herself at Dave's surprising flair for acting. It shouldn't have been normal, seeing her husband's music video on television, but it made her feel closer to him somehow. The person in the video was her person and it made it all the more special.
When it was over, Reagan untangled herself out from under the blanket that she and Kate were sharing. She stood slowly, not wanting to wake her sister, but as soon as her feet were planted on the carpet, pain crunched through her lower stomach.
She inhaled sharply, her hand flying to her abdomen. The sudden discomfort reminded her of a period cramp, but it also abruptly reminded her of something else — the night she'd gone into labor with Gracie.
Reagan felt the blood drain from her face in a rush and the voice inside her brain went into overdrive.
No, she told herself. It's not like that.
It couldn't have been. It was something else, a normal cramp from having laid on the couch for so long. Her lower back had been aching ever since she'd gone downstairs and she scrambled to reason that she'd slept funny, or laid at too-awkward of angle on the couch with Kate.
She took a deep breath, feeling her hand around to her back. It ached, but there was no sign of another oncoming punch of pain like the one she'd just felt.
It was nothing. It was just muscle aches.
Practicing extra caution, Reagan took her time stooping to pick up Kate's empty coffee mug and the plate they'd shared a few slices of bacon on. She was even more careful as she shuffled to the kitchen, waiting anxiously for more pain to cripple her. She made it to the sink without feeling a thing.
She exhaled. It had been nothing, just as she'd predicted. She placed the dirtied dishes in the sink and went to turn on the faucet.
Just as her hand closed over the sink's hot water knob, the pain reared up again, the second wave much worse than the first.
Reagan gasped, grabbing her stomach and hunching over. Again, she was reminded of how she'd felt the night that she'd given birth to Gracie. It was the same sensation of her insides sabotaging her and it was the same scenario in which she was pregnant with a baby that wasn't ready to come out.
Especially not this baby. Not at thirteen weeks.
She held onto the counter and steadied her breathing, but it did her no good. Another stab of pain swept through her belly and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to groan.
The cramps were familiar, but they were more rushed than they'd been with Gracie, never letting up once the second wave had found her. They persisted, making Reagan's lower body ache heavily. It felt like something in her gut was being pulled downwards.
Bathroom. Now.
Reagan staggered out of the kitchen, bent over in an effort to subdue the agonizing pain between her hips. She got to the stairs and looked up miserably, wondering if she could climb all fourteen steps without collapsing.
She couldn't even tell what was more distressing; the pain of the cramping, or the fact that she was even having them in the first place.
Using up the last of her dwindling willpower, she dragged herself up the steps, clinging to the rail the whole time and pausing with every spasm rocked her body. By the time she made it the second story, she was panting.
The one bathroom in the Abner household was small and small was not what Reagan needed. The walls felt like they were closing in on her as she shakily shut the door and pulled down the pair of light cotton pants she was wearing.
What she saw horrified her.
Blood. So much of it.
It was running in rivulets down her thighs and pooling thickly in her underwear. For a half-second, Reagan wondered if she'd somehow blacked out long enough to have been stabbed or injured or knocked over into something sharp.
She opened her mouth, wanting to scream, but the sound caught in her throat as another flash of pain swelled over her.
_________________
How long had it been?
Reagan wasn't sure. There was no clock nearby and she didn't have a watch. Hazily, she made a mental note to start wearing one. It would have been nice to have in order to determine how much time had passed since she'd made it to the bathroom.
It couldn't have been long as her imagination was telling her. If she had to accurately guess, she would have said maybe an hour and a half, but it was hard to speculate on. It felt like years had passed inside the bathroom.
Kate was calling for her. Her sister's voice sounded so faraway and Reagan wanted more than anything to respond, to scream for Kate to come quickly, but she couldn't.
She'd forgotten how to speak. She'd forgotten how to function.
She sat on the tiled bathroom floor, her eyes averted away from the toilet. She didn't want to look there. She had already looked once and that had made her vomit into the small trash can tucked under the toilet paper roll.
She wasn't going to look again.
"Reagan!" Kate called. Reagan heard her footsteps jogging up the stairs and she wished that she had the strength to get up on her own, to exit the bathroom before her little sister could enter. There was blood on the floor.
Reagan couldn't. She couldn't do anything but sit, leaning her head against the sink's cabinets as she stared blankly at the wall. The juxtaposition of shock and alertness that she was feeling, all at once, was making her nauseous.
"Reags?"
Kate's voice was behind the door. She knocked and Reagan looked up, trying to think of what to say, but nothing came to mind. She couldn't have simply said 'I'm in here' when she didn't feel like she was in the bathroom. She didn't feel like she was even in her childhood home at all.
She didn't feel real.
The door opened.
Kate walked in and fell to her knees.
__________________
Reagan should have known.
She should have known that she was doomed from the moment she'd gone into an early labor with Gracie, only to hear from her doctors that it was because of her body betraying her. That's why it had happened.
Whether she'd been made that way or because she had indirectly caused it, Reagan didn't know. She didn't care. All that mattered was that it had happened again and this time, she had nothing to show for it.
No baby in her arms to hold.
Her hospital room was silent. She wanted to whip off the papery sheets she was under and walk herself out, maybe even walk all the way back to Los Angeles, but she was vacant of any energy. Sitting upright in bed and staring out the window at the bleary gray skies was the only thing she was capable of.
Dave was there, somewhere in the hospital. Kate had called him and he'd ended up on the next flight out of L.A., meeting up with them after Reagan had already been admitted.
She was glad that he wasn't in the room anymore. The only thing worse than going through what she'd just experienced was having to look into his eyes, feel him squeeze her hand, and speak to her in a raspy voice that bordered on sobs.
He'd given up trying to get her to talk, taking a break to go grab some food.
For once in her life, Reagan didn't want to be around him.
She didn't want to be around anyone for that matter, at least not while she was in the hospital. The doctor watching over her had told her that it wasn't over yet. She'd been given a pill and informed that she'd need to be monitored while the rest of whatever was left in her uterus emptied out."
Whatever was left.
Reagan couldn't fathom that her body had anymore left to give. The intermingled threads of tissue and blood that she'd already seen . . . she had thought that had been enough.
The pain of knowing that in some way, it had been her fault, was excruciating. Her incompetent cervix and it's insufficiency in carrying a pregnancy had come from her and nobody else. It didn't feel as if it was her cervix that was insufficient. She herself felt insufficient, useless, only capable of bringing babies into the world that either desperately clung to life or were already gone.
She thought about what could have been. Would Dave had gotten the little boy that he'd yearned for so badly? In six months time, they were supposed to have been welcoming a new addition to their family. Gracie was supposed to be fulfilling her role as a big sister.
Gracie.
Reagan felt her chest seize up at the thought of her daughter.
She regretted having told her about the baby. Her and Dave had only recently broke the news, surprising Gracie just two weeks prior.
Gracie had been over the moon. She'd been ready to be a big sister.
It was a cruel joke for Reagan to remember how long she'd waited to tell anybody, leery of her chances of miscarrying before her second trimester. But the universe must have been cackling at her, punishing her with her worst fear just as soon as she'd crossed what she'd perceived to be the threshold of safety.
The door to her hospital room creaked open and Dave slowly let himself in, looking at Reagan tentatively. She caught his eyes and immediately looked away.
"Hey," he said gently. He was carrying a styrofoam cup of coffee. If not for the circumstances, Reagan imagined herself grinning at him, making fun of his penchant for choosing coffee over food.
She didn't say anything to him, continuing to stare out the window. A storm was rolling in and the weather seemed to be the only thing that understood what she was going through.
"You feel okay?" Dave asked, dropping down into the loveseat beside Reagan's hospital bed. She kept ignoring him, trying to obscure the sound of his voice. He sounded so pained, so heartbroken for both her and himself, and it was making everything so much worse.
"Did the bleeding stop?"
Reagan snapped her head around but didn't lock eyes with him, looking instead at the flimsy fabric of her hospital gown.
"Please . . . please don't," she whispered. The last thing she wanted was to talk about blood.
"Okay. I'm sorry," Dave said. He took her hand and Reagan let it sit limply in his palm. "I'm sorry."
It was hell to hear him apologize. He had nothing to apologize for and her first instinct was to assure him that it was fine, that everything was okay, but nothing was truly okay.
"Where's Gracie?" she asked, barely raising her voice above a mumble.
"Taylor's at the house with her. I didn't want to bring her when Kate told me what was . . . happening."
Reagan wished that the world hadn't been turned upside down. If it hadn't, she would have laughed at the thought of Taylor babysitting Gracie at their house, rushing to her aide despite being flustered as to what to do with a five-year-old. She would have imagined him phoning Nate for backup, desperate to entertain Gracie two-against-one.
Not even imagining it then could make her smile.
"Your mom and dad are downstairs," Dave said softly, still gripping Reagan's lifeless hand. "Chris is on her way."
"What?" Reagan lashed out, jerked back into reality. "Chris is coming?"
Dave rounded his eyes worriedly. "Kate called her, she wasn't sure if you wanted a friend right now . . ."
"I don't want anyone here. I want them to leave."
"Do you want me to leave?"
Reagan clenched her teeth together and looked away. She couldn't answer that.
"I'm not leaving you," he said, his voice tightening as he squeezed her hand. "I already told Taylor that we're pushing back the tour dates."
"Why would you do that?"
His face fell into a bewildered expression. "Why wouldn't I?"
"It's not going to do you any good staying here with me after all of this."
"I don't care if it does me any good. I should be with you. Don't you want that?"
Reagan had always wanted Dave with her. If he'd told her just twenty-four hours earlier that he was delaying the next leg of his tour, she would have been thrilled. But the thought of sitting around him, wallowing in her depression and knowing that everything they'd planned for had just drastically changed, seemed like torture.
"Not like this," she whispered.
"Reagan," Dave started. He got out of his chair and sat on the edge of the hospital bed, trying to take Reagan's face into his hands. She cringed away from him, trying not to cry.
"We can try again," he urged. "This kind of thing happens sometimes. It doesn't mean we can't try again."
His adamance meant nothing to her because to Reagan, it was unrealistic. It was painful. The events of that day had traumatized her and the possibility that it would ever happen again, that she'd ever be tormented by blood running down her legs and Dave wearing his broken heart on his sleeve, was nonsensical. She knew that medically, she could miscarry again. Worse, she could give birth prematurely as she'd done with Gracie, and perhaps that baby wouldn't be as lucky as their daughter.
Time wasn't on their side, anyway. They'd had a plan. It had been a perfect plan, configured so that they'd both be happy. Reagan would have had Dave at home, and he would have been able to be with her knowing that he could go back to his music.
She didn't know how long another round of trying would take. She definitely had no way of knowing if she would lose a baby again.
The only thing she did know was that if they tried again, Dave would be counting on her not to fuck it up. He would be giving up time that could have been spent doing what he loved, while Reagan danced along a precipice of potentially being traumatized again.
Maybe, she thought, this is the way it's meant to be.
Everything that had transpired felt like a dark metaphor for the path that her life was going down. She'd stupidly relied on a new baby to bring her and Dave back together and that hope had failed her.
Maybe they'd been grasping at straws that whole time.
Tears filled her eyes as she stiffly shook her head.
"I don't want to try," she whispered.
"Okay," Dave agreed readily. "We can wait. We can wait as long as you need."
Reagan didn't contradict him. She didn't have the strength to tell him that she never wanted to try again. There was no way that she could tell him that her world was falling apart without hurting him.
Together, they sat in silence, watching the storm as it moved in.