my belly. It appeared smaller. I panicked, placing my hands on my stomach. It felt soft, mushy, empty. I screamed. “Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby? Where did they take the baby? Bring him to me!” I sat up, and even though my legs lay lifeless and numb, I lunged toward the edge of the bed, determined to get up, to find my child.
Ethan jumped forward, pulling my arms gently back to the bed. “No, Claire,” he said softly. I detected defeat in his voice, grief. “The baby—”
“Stop!” my mother cried. I turned to face her, but she looked only at Ethan. “She’s not ready yet. Give her more time.”
Ethan shook his head. “She should know.” He turned back to me and looked at me with a face that broke my heart. He didn’t have to tell me. I already knew. I stared at the wall as the words passed his lips, the words that would change my life forever. “The baby didn’t make it.”
The room began to spin.
He sat down in a chair by my bed. “I held—”
“No!” I screamed. “Don’t. Don’t tell me.”
Ethan looked at me through tear-flooded eyes. “Why? Don’t you want to know whether we had a boy or a girl? Don’t you want to know that I held our child in my arms for a brief moment before—”
“Don’t,” I sobbed, burying my face in the pillow to my right.
“They brought the baby to you,” Ethan said, wiping a tear from his cheeks. “You were unconscious, but you—”
“Stop,” I cried. “I can’t bear it.”
I looked down at the bloodstain on my chest, and I began to tremble so violently that a nurse rushed over and injected a needle into my arm, letting the cool contents of the syringe seep into my vein. As my body went limp, I lay trapped inside my mind, haunted by the baby I would never know and the husband who I feared blamed me for it.
Chapter 9
VERA
It had been six days since he’d vanished, six days since the heavens had draped the city in a veil of white and changed my world forever. I searched the streets by day and held vigil in Caroline’s tiny apartment by night, praying, hoping.
“Eva!” Caroline barked as she walked through the door shortly before seven a.m. She looked tired, ashen. Twelve-hour night shifts in the factory without a single break. “Go get Mama a wedge of cheese from the icebox,” she said, setting her purse down before slumping onto the floor by the fireplace. I inched my legs up to make room for her on the sofa, but she didn’t notice, or maybe she was simply too fatigued to pick herself up again.
“But Mama.” Eva looked at me nervously, and then back at her mother.
“Eva, what did I say? Bring me the cheese.” Caroline turned to me and extended her right hand. It trembled so violently I shuddered. “Payday’s not till tomorrow. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.” She pointed to the window. “If that damn snow would just stop, already.”
“But Mama,” Eva squeaked. “Aunt Vera…ate the cheese.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Caroline before she could respond. “There wasn’t anything left. I gave Eva most of it. There was only a bite, and I…”
Caroline tucked her knees to her chest and buried her face in her hands. “It’s OK. It’s OK.” A dry, lonely sob seeped through the cracks in her fingers. “I don’t know how much longer we can go on like this. The rent. The food. I’ll have to go knocking on Mrs. Harris’s door again. You should have seen the way she looked at me last week when I asked to borrow a few slices of bread. I haven’t been able to get milk for months. Eva deserves milk.” She looked up suddenly, and wiped her tears with her sleeve. “Look at me, blubbering on like this when you’ve lost…”
I knelt down by my old friend. She was gaunt, with hollow cheeks and a distant gaze—such a contrast to the woman I’d known just four years prior, the woman who’d had the world in the palm of her hand. No, I couldn’t stay. Not any longer. The last thing Caroline needed was another mouth to feed.
“It’s time I go,” I said, reaching for my sweater hanging on a rusty nail in the wall.
“No!” Caroline cried, standing up quickly. She grabbed my arm, urging me back to the couch. “I won’t hear of it. You have nowhere else to go. You’re staying put.”