Page 41 of The Regrettable Mistake

She turned in a half circle before she spotted the bag my brother had gone to pack for me. The two doctors went over my dos and don’ts before they left me with signed discharge instructions.

“Do you need help or would you rather me step out for a minute while you get dressed?”

“Privacy would be nice.” She nodded at me and then walked out of the room. I wasn’t sure where Steve had wandered off to. It looked like he had the hots for my obstetrician, so knowing my twin, he went to make sure that the opportunity to talk to her did not slip away from him.

I felt so much better after getting plenty of rest and fluids. Physically, at least. Mentally, emotionally, I wasn’t so sure anything had changed. Beating myself up for not taking better care of my pregnant self, had become a refrain that my obstetrician tried to get me to let go of.

I understood that it wouldn’t do anyone any good to dwell on what could have happened, but it was all still so fresh. She was able to see if my baby was a boy or girl during the ultrasound, but I didn’t want to know. It felt a little icky not to know because I’d made the decision spur of the moment. My anger toward Ollie made that decision as it was one more thing I wouldn’t have to share with him.

Eventually, I’d have to share my child with him, and whoever else he conned into a relationship. It hurt to think about that inevitable future, so those thoughts were dismissed while I worked to get myself cleaned up and ready to leave the hospital. Dread settled heavily in the pit of my stomach as the thought of facing a gauntlet of reporters taking pictures of me came to mind. I wasn’t entirely coherent when my brother brought me into the hospital, but I remembered the camera flashes and shouted questions.

Someone knocked on the room door. “Come in,” I answered and then mentally kicked myself for not checking who it was first.

“Are you about ready?” I turned to see my mom and brother standing there. Neither of them appeared happy, as if they’d just gone twelve rounds with the cameras I dreaded.

“Yeah. Everything okay?”

My mom’s tight-lipped nod spoke volumes, but Stevie pasted a huge smile on his face and came to wrap me up in a huge hug. His smile dropped when he noticed the bloody jeans that were set aside. “I’ll buy you a new pair of jeans, sis. Throw those away.”

I nodded because I hadn’t planned to bring them home. They were a vivid reminder of what I almost lost. After the jeans were tossed in the garbage and we checked the room one more time for all my belongings, we walked out.

“Do you know where my phone is?” I asked. “The old one?”

Steve shook his head. “No, but I have the new phone with the new number you asked me for. Mom, Dad, Hutch, and me are the only ones who have the number. It’s up to you who else you give it to. Monica probably needs it because of Den, but if you aren’t comfortable with that, I can have a landline installed at home that she can call.”

“No. Monica won’t give my number to her son if I ask her not to.”

“If you’re sure,” My mom mentioned in a disbelieving tone. She was never a fan of Monica’s. There had never been a good reason for it other than Monica had insisted on calling me her daughter. I think my mom felt some kind of way about having her own daughter poached out from underneath her. It made me want to giggle every time she got all territorial.

“Mom, I know you have some kind of beef with Monica, but she would never do that.” I glanced over at Steve. “She’s probably upset that I never called her from the hospital to let her know what happened.”

Mom scoffed. “As if you needed to handle other people in your condition.”

“You could have called her. She was babysitting Den for me.”

“No, she was babysitting Den for your no-good husband. The man can’t find time to be a husband or a father these days. He’s left it to all the women in his life to pick up the slack. I’m honestly not sure Monica is the right person to babysit Denmark, or the baby when it comes, look at how her own son turned out.” Mom sniffed and stuck her nose in the air as we walked down the long, sterile hallway.

I glanced over her head to see my brother as he attempted to hide his amusement. I rolled my eyes and prayed that my maternal instincts never meant that my children were left in a war zone because I was frightened about someone else loving them.

The closer we got to the front door the worse my anxiety grew. “Maybe we should find a back door somewhere?” I suggested.

Steve came over and hugged me close to his side. “I promise, it will be okay when you leave here.”

“The cameras,” I whispered my concerns because there were a few people gathered around the lobby who didn’t mind us knowing they were staring.

“There won’t be any cameras, Sis.”

“There already are.”

Steve stopped us and looked around. He finally seemed to notice the people standing around with their cell phones raised. He glanced around to the woman stationed at the information desk. “Get security here, now!” Steve handed me off to my mother. “How about I start filming all of you?” Steve pointed at a couple as he held his cell phone up to them. “You’re wearing a wedding ring and she isn’t. Maybe, you don’t want anyone to know you’re here with your arm wrapped around her.” The man removed his arm as if it was on fire. My brother was ridiculously observant.

“Let’s go.” He ordered as soon as everyone in the lobby started to scramble out of the way. “Sorry. Ollie took care of the press yesterday, but none of us really thought about everyday people with cameras.”

“What do you mean, he took care of the press?”

“Well, when Ollie left the hospital yesterday, he stirred up an angry hornet’s nest and made sure those stingers landed in all the right places.” Steve chuckled.

“Why was he at the hospital?”

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