While You Stayed With Her, I Buried My Parents

The day I miscarried and hemorrhaged, my parents drove through a downpour to reach the hospital. They never made it. Their car was hit on the way.

I lay on the operating table and signed their surgical consent forms with hands still slick with my own blood.

I couldn't save the baby. I couldn't save my parents either.

The man I'd called seventy-six times without an answer had posted a celebration on Instagram.

【Congrats to our little Sweetie! One long night, and she's finally a mama.】

Too weak to do anything else, I tapped "like." He messaged me immediately.

Two words: “Delete that.”

I sent him my hospital location pin.

“Come to the hospital. I need to tell you something in person.”

“I have something important to deal with. I can't come! Ask your parents to go with you to the checkup. It's not like they have anything better to do.”

“Your important thing is delivering puppies for her dog?”

“Since when did being pregnant turn you into a jealous shrew? You're seriously jealous of a dog?”

I didn't have the strength to argue. If he wouldn't come, he could talk to my lawyer.

……

By the time I'd finished arranging my parents' funerals, it was the following evening.

I dragged myself to the front door and pushed it open.

The apartment I'd carefully tidied was destroyed. Everything pulled out, thrown around, left where it landed.

Wilfred Farley was hunched over, rummaging through something, tossing whatever he picked up onto the floor without a second glance.

The carelessness of someone who'd always had another person to clean up after him.

He didn't look up when the door opened. His voice carried a note of irritation.

“It's the weekend—where have you been all day? I had to order in for lunch.”

I stared at him. So he hadn't come home last night either.

Two years of this.

When Carrie Butler's apartment light broke, he could roll out of bed at two in the morning to fix it for her.

But he'd leave our own front door unlocked behind him, letting some drunk stumble in, leaving me with nightmares that lasted a solid month.

When Carrie's dog went into labor, he could refuse to come to my prenatal checkup.

But he'd take a full week off to be by her side, doing a job that should have been a vet's.

When I didn't respond, Wilfred finally looked at me. Surprise flickered across his face.

“You're white as a sheet. Is the baby giving you trouble again?”

I stepped back, away from the hand he was reaching toward my stomach. My voice was flat.

“I called you seventy-six times yesterday. Why didn't you pick up?”

His hand hung in the air. He frowned.

“Freya Gibson, are you interrogating me right now?”

“Carrie and I are childhood friends. And that dog isn't just some pet in her shop. She raised it since it was a puppy. They have a bond.”

“The dog was in labor. Carrie was worried sick. I had to be there. That's life or death. You think I had time to answer your pointless calls?”

“It was just a checkup. Plenty of pregnant women go alone. And you've got your parents. They're not exactly busy. What difference does it make if I'm not there?”

I looked at him standing there, so sure of himself.

I wanted to ask: And what about my parents?

The crash had been brutal. My father had no vital signs by the time the ambulance reached the hospital.

My mother made it into surgery, but her injuries were severe and complex.

Wilfred's colleague told me that only he, operating himself, might have given her a chance.

He said he'd had no time to answer my calls. But the second I liked that Instagram post, he'd found time to order me to take it back.

Afraid Carrie might read something into it.

“Are you really just childhood friends?”

“Because I saw you kiss her, Wilfred.”

In the same restaurant where he'd proposed to me. At the exact same table.

I'd been so shaken I didn't see the motorcycle speeding toward me.

The rider braked in time. But the life inside me, barely three months along, was already gone.