“Let’s go,” she says, gripping my hand with a grin.

Hank kisses her and wraps an arm around my shoulder, squeezing it gently before turning to look for Max.

The discomfort from the bar quickly fades as Sarah and I laugh over a pint of ice cream that we picked up on our way back to the house. Somehow, the topic of Aunt Louise and the book that she had given to me at the wedding last fall comes up, and we giggle and share excerpts from the story until our sides hurt. Then we discuss how things have been going with me in Delaware. I tell her about school and the lab. I tell her about Fitz and learning about myself. I’m tempted to tell her a little about Danny, but I don’t. I avoid bringing both him and Kitty up.

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

–Lao Tzu

A loud gasp has me sitting up to see Sarah on the edge of the sofa, her arm clutching her stomach, eyes closed in pain.

“Sarah?” My heart races as I scramble from the couch to kneel beside her.

“Sarah, are you okay?”

“I don’t know. My stomach hurts really bad,” she says quietly.

“Can you compare the pain to something for me?” I ask, hearing my dad’s voice in my head, repeating the same question to me and my sisters each time we got hurt.

“It just hurts. Like really bad cramps.” She folds her torso to her lap, and I stand up and place a hand on her shoulder, trying to remain calm.

“Okay, it’s probably nothing, but why don’t we go to the hospital just to make sure everything’s okay.” Guilt fills me again, and I’m not sure if it’s just the residual guilt that I’ve been feeling lately for being here, or because I know I’m lying to her. “I’ll go get Hank.”

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she says quietly.

“Can you wait? They’ll probably want to do a urine sample?”

She slowly stands up and shakes her head and disappears down the hall.

I race up the stairs, still in the clothes I wore all day and bare feet, and knock on Max’s door several times. When I don’t hear a response I swing the door open and find it empty. I notice that things are different; I know it instinctually, but I don’t take the time to look around. I sprint down the stairs to go see if Kendall or Landon are home yet and am met with Sarah screaming my name before I reach the main floor.

I take the corner to the hall so fast my shoulder hits the drywall, sending a dull pain through my left arm that I actually appreciate because it distracts my fears from drowning me. When I reach the bathroom door, I call her name softly.

She doesn’t respond but I can hear her crying. Without a second thought, I turn the handle and see Sarah staring at the toilet, her hands covering her mouth as tears pour from her eyes.

I take a couple of steps in to see what I think I already knew I would find. Blood is everywhere.

“I lost her, didn’t I?” Sarah whispers.

“Let’s go to the hospital.” I open the vanity below the sink and rummage through a pile of assorted beauty and hygiene products until I find a bag of pads. I hand her one and step outside, leaving the door propped open in case she asks for some sort of help.

Since my father died, I’ve been working with death in one form or another. Dissecting different organs, speaking to families of the deceased, writing and reading reports about them. There are instances and stories that have affected me more than others, leading me to my nightmares or haunting my thoughts, sometimes for days. However, this death is much more personal. I know Sarah and although I don’t know her baby, my heart hurts severely and traces direct paths to my dad and to Kitty’s illness.

“My pants, they’re all bloody.”

“I’ll get you some others to wear.” I place my hand on her back and guide her to the living room, trying to focus on what I need to do. I pull out a pair of loose fitting sweats and hand them to her.

While she goes to change, I find my phone and call Max. I leave a message on his voicemail, pleading with him to call me and send a follow up text, telling him we’re heading to the hospital.

I grab our purses and Kendall’s keys from the kitchen table and find Sarah staring at the toilet in the bathroom.

“Are you ready?” I instantly kick myself for the question. I can recall when my aunt had come to ask me if I was ready before my father’s funeral. Ready? How can you ever be ready?

Her eyes are swollen with pain, but she nods again and leans into me as we head to the rental car.

The ER is a popular place to be on Saturday night at midnight. We wait for over an hour before finally being taken back into a room.

While the nurse begins going over the typical medical questions with Sarah, my phone rings. I take a step to the side so I can still offer some support and flick my finger to accept the call when I see that it’s Max, finally returning my call.

“Ace?” I hear Hank before the phone is to my ear.

“Yeah.” My throat constricts.

“What’s going on? Is she okay? Is it the baby?”

“We just got checked in,” I reply, blinking rapidly to keep tears from forming.

“Shit!” he hisses.

I swallow back my own emotions as Hank’s pain amplifies my own. “Are you at Saint Andrew’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Can she talk?”

“She’s answering some questions with the nurse.”

“Okay. Okay. We’ll be there in just a few. Tell her I love her.”

I step beside Sarah again, gripping the hand she extends to me as she answers about her pain scale.

“Alright, someone will be right in with you from imaging and we’ll see what’s going on.”

We sit in silence for a while, the familiar scents of saline and antiseptic filling the air. Neither of us speaks. I think we’re both too afraid that we might admit the truth of the situation.

“Sarah?” A tech asks, pulling the curtain open with a large smile that makes my frown deepen in response. “We’re going to take you down to imaging. Your friend can wait here. We’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

“No! No, I want her to come with me.” Sarah’s hand constricts around mine.

The tech nods and lifts the rails of Sarah’s bed. I hold her hand as she’s wheeled through a maze of hallways, through a set of doors, and into a white-tiled room with an ultrasound machine.

My fingers are white and ache from the grip Sarah has on them, but I can’t manage to move or say anything about it. Instead, I turn my attention to see a new tech with scrubs covered in brightly colored ice cream cones.

“Okay, Sarah, how far along do you believe you are?”

“Nine weeks,” Sarah replies in a hoarse whisper.

The technician nods and sets to work without bothering to introduce herself. She drapes a sheet over Sarah’s legs and lower abdomen then pulls Sarah’s hospital gown up to reveal her stomach.

Without further instruction, she squeezes some goop on Sarah’s stomach and begins rolling over her skin. She rolls until she finds a large pocket of black. I’ve studied very little with ultrasounds, but I know enough about imaging to know that black is never a good sign in this case.

“Okay, Sarah, this is your uterus,” The tech explains, pointing to the pocket of black that she just finished measuring.

“Okay…” I watch Sarah’s eyes search the screen, obviously oblivious to what she’s viewing.

“It appears your uterus is enlarged, showing a recent pregnancy, but I don’t see any signs of a fetus.”

Sarah sobs in reply, her head falling back to the bed.

The tech proceeds to do a transvaginal ultrasound, explaining that she can see more details with the procedure, but it, too, shows no sign of a baby.