He shook his head as he stood, then walked from the room without another word. Savannah followed him to the bedroom. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I’m not as worried now as I was. I mean, we use two forms of protection. The chances of both failing at the same time have got to be close to nil.”
“Your point?” His voice was terse.
“That it’s God’s doing. And if he made me pregnant, then he wouldn’t just take it away; that wouldn’t make sense. What else do I have to learn from a miscarriage that I haven’t learned already?”
Shaun snorted. “That we should be using three forms of protection?” He pulled off his khakis and replaced them with a pair of shorts. “Savannah, the last miscarriage almost killed you emotionally. I can’t believe you’re not upset about this.”
“But I just told you, if God-”
“You learned a lot from the first miscarriage, right? And you still had another one. I wouldn’t count on God’s will being only for pleasant things.” He pulled on a T-shirt and took his running shoes from the rack on the floor. “This is bad on so many levels.”
His words stung. “Shaun -”
“What are the odds of two people our age producing a healthy baby after two miscarriages? And second- trimester miscarriages at that.” He tied the shoes, yanking on the laces with more force than necessary. “The timing is just-” He shook his head as he straightened and moved past her, leaving the room. She followed him to the front door. “I’m glad you’re not a panicky mess, Van, but I can’t be happy about this. I’m sorry. If it turns out you are…” He shrugged. “We just need to pray you aren’t.”
He left the house, taking off down the driveway at a near sprint. Savannah watched him go as the little light of hope that had bloomed in her chest snuffed out.
SAVANNAH WOKE AT FOUR AND couldn’t get back to sleep. Getting to sleep in the first place had taken longer than usual, and she dreaded the thought of a day wasted catching up on sleep. But that thought didn’t last long as she remembered the little plastic stick waiting for her on the bathroom counter.
She rolled quietly from bed, not wanting to wake Shaun. He’d been shortchanged on sleep, too. She’d wanted to talk to him in the middle of the night, knowing they were both faking sleep for the benefit of the other person, but the chasm that had opened between them seemed too wide to cross. He’d been in a foul mood all night after his run, and she hadn’t had the energy to spar.
She shut the bathroom door and turned on the light. Squinting, she read the instructions one more time, then took the test.
Three minutes never felt so long. She brushed her teeth and flossed, her back to the test where it sat on the bathtub ledge. She checked her watch continuously, not wanting to wait a second longer than necessary, and when the second hand completed its third trip around the dial she checked the instructions once more, took a deep breath, and turned around.
Negative.
She checked again, looking more closely, but the digital readout was too clear to be mistaken. Not Pregnant.
She sat on the ledge, tears gathering in her eyes. She’d convinced herself this was it, that God was going to finally and miraculously grant a long-abandoned wish. It made sense of her symptoms, and now, without that explanation, she was right back to where she’d been before: anxious and sick and sick of being sick.
She took a shower, allowing herself a good cry as the warm water brought a bit of relief to the muscles that still ached. By the time she got out and dressed, Shaun was already downstairs. She could see anxiety in his features when she joined him in the kitchen.
“Negative.”
He let out a deep breath and gave her a hug. “Thank God.”
“Easy for you to say.” She took a mug of coffee into the living room and took her place on the sofa, not wanting to discuss it any more than that.
“I’m sorry, Van.” He sat beside her, rested his hand on her knee. “I know you were getting excited about that. But it just wouldn’t-”
“I know, I know.” She waved a hand, batting away the discussion without making eye contact. “I’ll call Dr. Helms today.”
Shaun left for work and Savannah stared at the trees until her coffee was cold. She made that her excuse to finally get up, then grudgingly pulled out the address book where the doctor’s number was recorded. It had been so long since she’d used it, she couldn’t remember if it was filed under the D’s or the H’s.
The receptionist said it was her lucky day – a cancellation had just been made, and she could come in at eleven. She killed time with a snack and mindless television, then left for the appointment. A small measure of her worry abated, knowing she’d likely leave with at least some kind of diagnosis, even if it required waiting for tests to confirm it. She was almost to the point where she didn’t care what was wrong, she just wanted to know for sure.
“That does seem like a long time for the flu, but in actuality the flu can last for quite a while,” Dr. Helms told her as he marked her chart. “But since you no longer have a fever, I doubt you still have it, if that’s what it was. Let’s take a listen.” He held the chest piece of his stethoscope between her shoulder blades and asked her to breathe deeply. He moved it to the back and she breathed again. He asked her to breathe deeply three more times as he moved the chest piece lower, finally settling it around her ribs. “Well, I am hearing something in there.”
“ ‘Something'? Like what?”
He marked on his chart. “They’re called rales. Noises in the lungs.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you have any chest pain?”
“No, I don’t think so – I mean, I’ve been achy all over, including in my chest, but not heart-attack pain or anything like that. Nothing serious, really.”
He was silent for a moment, then nodded. “I’m going to write you a script for a chest x-ray; I want you to go up to the third floor where the imaging center is and have them do this right now. Once we get the results of that and some blood tests we’ll figure out what our next step is. We can do a hemoglobin test here for the anemia, but I’ll have to send the blood samples to the lab for the rest.”
“How long will that take?”
“I’ll put a rush on it; we should get it back tomorrow.”
She asked him about the other diagnoses she’d read in the medical book at home. He agreed her symptoms were consistent with hypothyroidism, but because she lacked so many other symptoms and the onset had been so quick, he doubted that was it. He also mentioned mononucleosis, but had been reluctant to guess beyond that, especially given the sounds in her chest.
Savannah left the office three vials of blood lighter and significantly more worried. The hemoglobin test had come back normal, so anemia was off the list. But the list of possibilities was daunting. Savannah’s longing for an answer now clashed with her fear of just how serious that answer might be.
The imaging center squeezed her in an hour later, and she drove home afterwards feeling rattled and frustrated. The doctor was supposed to have written her a script for an antibiotic and tell her to rest for a few more days, not send her into a panic with talk of blood tests and X-rays.
When Dr. Helms called the next day, Savannah’s fears grew. Hypothyroidism and mono had been ruled out by the blood tests. “And the X-rays confirmed what I was thinking – there’s fluid in your lungs and your heart has me concerned as well.”
Her gut seized. “So what does that mean?”
“Well, I don’t know yet. I’m going to fax a script over to the echocardiogram lab at the hospital. I want you to call them and make an appointment to get an echo done.”
She went clammy with nerves. “Oh. Okay. Give me the number and I’ll call right now.” She took down the number he gave her, then hung up and stared at it. She really had expected the blood tests to give them an answer. But now that the answer would be more serious than she’d expected, she was afraid to know what was really going on.
She glanced at the clock. Quarter after four. They probably weren’t there after four. She’d call first thing in the morning.
SHAUN WAS ANTSY THAT EVENING, trying to keep his mind off the possible results of tomorrow’s echo but not wanting his concern to show. When Savannah had given him the rundown of her blood tests and Dr. Helms’
