Losing Control

I take my jacket off and place it on the side. I want to comfort her, reassure her, and I step forward.

‘Whatever it is, baby, you can tell me.’

She raises one trembling hand between us, her finger wagging, her eyes widen and spill over, a steady stream of tears that has the panic building within me.

‘We had a child.’

It’s quiet, so quiet. I can’t have heard her right.

‘A child?’ I say, wary, disbelieving.

But she nods, rapidly, her pallor, her tears all the more severe. ‘She died.’

No—No, no, no. My stomach lurches. I feel goosebumps pricking all over my skin as my body chills. I could never have imagined...never have guessed...even for a second...

‘You and Liam had a...’ I take a choked breath ‘...a child?’ She says nothing and desperately I push. ‘When? How? No one said...no one called...’

My ears ring as I strain to hear her answer, and yet I don’t want her to all the same. I had a nephew? A niece? And no one told me? Not even when they died?

‘No, Cain. Not Liam and I. You and I.’

Her trembling hand goes to her mouth. Her other hand clutches at her stomach, at the fabric of the simple navy sweater that she wears, and I can’t blink, I can’t process, I can’t...

‘What are you saying?’

She lowers her hand to her throat, the skin around her fingernails turning white as she claws into her skin.

‘I’m saying...’ She swallows and winces in one. ‘I’m saying...’

But my mind is racing ahead now. I know what she’s saying and I can’t believe it—I won’t. Is this how she thinks she’ll get rid of me? Does she loathe me that much?

‘Spit it out, Lexi.’ It’s low, menacing, my fury lacing every word as I say it between my teeth.

‘When you left, I was pregnant...’

She whispers, but in my head the words are loud and getting louder, reverberating through my skull.

‘I didn’t know for a few weeks, and when I found out...when I found out I was almost three months gone.’

‘Three months...?’ I don’t want to believe her. ‘What makes you think it was mine? You were so quick to hop into Liam’s arms, it could have—’

‘I never slept with Liam.’

‘Come on, Lexi, drop the act,’ I say desperately. ‘You married him within three months of my departure—how can you expect me to believe that?’

‘Because Liam and I never slept together. Ever.’

I stare at her, dumbfounded. None of this is making any sense. Lexi, pregnant? A child, dead?

My child.

No, just no...

My head is shaking but I’m barely aware of it.

‘Liam married me because I was pregnant and you—’ she sucks in a breath ‘—you were gone... He knew I’d never want to bring a child into this world alone, how much it pained me to think of a child growing up without a family, without a mother and a father, like I did.’

My head is shaking and spinning all at once, and the griping sensation in my gut is making it roll until I’m sure I’m going to be sick.