Meant to Be, 2005

Lovar, spring, 2005
mini-update
Grex stopped at the bedroom door watching his wife move slowly about the room. Her hands pulled the blanket into place with slow determination and her eyes looked dull. He knew housework wasn't the most exciting thing to do, but Ginger's behavior was a bit odd.

"Are you ok?"

"Yea," she replied.

"Are you sure? Are you feeling sick?"

"No... in fact I'm not feeling sick and I'm concerned."

Grex cocked an eyebrow.

"I haven't thrown up yet and it's almost noon."

"Oh..." Grex knew enough about pregnancies to know that most women didn't suddenly stop having morning sickness just a few weeks into their pregnancy.

"You should go to the doctor."

"For what? I haven't vomited? Isn't that a good thing?"

"You should go," he urged her.

Thankfully, Ginger took his advice and visited the doctor while Grex stayed home with the toddlers. Breckin was walking and starting to run, while Lara was working on her words. He heard the door shut and knew that the twins were still in school.

He didn't have to ask, he could tell, but he asked anyway to go through the motions.

"How did it go?"

Ginger's face crumbled.

"They couldn't find a heartbeat."

Grex's own heart stopped beating.

Grex could barely hear the words that spilled from his wife's lips.

"It was horrible! They looked and looked and then...then she said...[hiccup] no heartbeat...take this medicine...[hic] come back in three days...[hic] no reason...don't know why..."

Grex felt powerless. All he could do was hold his wife as she cried her tears. Watching her endure the pain and the grief felt like his spleen was being pulled slowly from his body. He wanted to do something, to erase the pain. Then the guilt hit him. Maybe if he had gone to the doctor with her, the results would have been different. He could have held her hand and consoled her as the doctor spoke. Instead he was at home enjoying his younger children and having tickle fights while she was bared on the table, examined and prodded.

Finally she stopped crying and pulled out of his embrace. He slapped on a reassuring grin.

"Do you need me to do anything?"

Ginger sighed. "Would you mind taking the children to the park after school and maybe making dinner?"

"Of course, anything."

"I just need a bit of time..."

Grex nodded. He knew where she was going. She would go talk to her parents and their other baby, Gregory. He turned to leave the room, when her voice stopped him.

"Do you think we're cursed? Why must there be so many deaths in our family?" She mumbled, her limbs quivering. She thought of her older brothers, dead before their time. Her mind drifted to her nieces and nephews and sister-in-law, snatched from this world by the rising flood waters.

Grex took her in his arms again, "I don't know, sweetie. I don't know."

He tried not to think of his own siblings or the bus wrapped around the tree that fateful day.

"Is it meant to be? Why would death be meant to be? I don't understand!"

"I don't know, sweetie." Grex repeated, "I don't know."