A Daughter's Trust

Now that she needed to cry, her tears were all dried up. Along with her heart. He knew now why she could never, ever be trusted to love enough. Why she didn’t deserve all-in love from anyone.

“All alone.” His two words said it all.

“Yes.”

“How far along were you?”

“Five months.” Enough to be able to tell…“It was a girl.”

A girl. Finally, the dam broke again. Sue sobbed more quietly this time. Mourning what she’d lost. Her daughter. Herself.

Rick just held her. Let her cry.

“Eventually…” she said, sniffling, “…I was able to get to my phone. Dial 911.”

“And did they tell you at the hospital that a lot of women jog while they’re pregnant?”

She shook her head. “They said that wasn’t necessarily the reason I lost her, but it was. It happened right after I got back. Women can jog when they’re pregnant so long as their pregnancies are progressing normally. And generally only if they’d jogged before getting pregnant. I was five months pregnant, and I hadn’t even seen a doctor. I killed her, Rick. Killed her with negligence.”

“No, Sue, chances are you’d have lost the baby, anyway. It just happens sometimes. A life that isn’t meant to be. You didn’t kill anyone. You were a frightened young girl who was in over her head and needed help at a time when you felt there was no one around to help you.”

She’d lost her best friend—her only real friend—when she’d rejected Joe.

“It was a miscarriage, Sue. Plain and simple. Twenty percent of women who are pregnant miscarry.”

Rick and his statistics. Remembered from the birth of his own daughter over seven years ago? Having a walking encyclopedia around was kind of nice.

“The tragedy is that you were so young. And alone. And didn’t get help to deal with your loss.”

“I felt responsible. Guilty.”

“Didn’t they tell you in the emergency room that it wasn’t your fault?”

“Yeah. And my ob-gyn told me later, too. But I knew better.”

When Rick chuckled, a world that had turned sickeningly off-kilter righted itself enough for Sue to take in a full deep breath. “That’s my Sue,” he said. “She knows better.”

“Sometimes I do.”

“Most times you do. That’s what makes it so dangerous those few times y

ou don’t.”

“I think I’ve solved the chicken and egg thing with my claustrophobia,” she said softly, not wanting to sit up, to move her face away from his chest.

“Which came first?”

“My fear of failure.”

“Mix that with my aversion to believing anyone is going to stay in my life for the long haul and we make quite a pair.”

And Sue realized something else. She hadn’t just pushed Rick away. He’d been waiting to be abandoned. To be let go.

“I know you’ve got this thing about second chances,” she ventured, “but I was wondering if I could have a redo.”

“On what?”

“Last Wednesday night. Right after you asked me to marry you. For Carrie’s sake.”