Page 12 of Ashes of Us
“None.” The doctor responded firmly. “He is medically deceased.”
“Okay.” Danica took a deep breath and nodded. “I need to tell his parents before I give the order. Is there a timeline on this?”
“No, however, I see no reason to drag this out,” The doctor looked at Jasper. “Not to be too blunt or insensitive, butright now you're paying to keep a husk alive.” He turned and left the room with Alex's glare following him.
“Don't worry about that.” He told her when they were alone. “You do this on your timeframe, not anyone else's.” Danica nodded but didn't say anything. Personally, she felt the same way as the doctor. Her husband was no longer there; she couldn't feel his presence at all. She moved closer to the bed and reached out, lightly touching his cheek, one of the few places on his head that wasn't covered by bandages. His skin was cool to the touch, and she quickly pulled her hand back, not liking the feeling.
“I have to tell his parents,” she said, turning to him abruptly. She was all cried out for the moment, but focusing on her next task helped her stay present and focused. Alex nodded and opened the door for her.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked as they started down the hall. “Because I'm not sure you're in the right headspace to drive.” He tacked on a little hastily, in her opinion.
“Danica?”
A soft voice called her name, and they both turned to see a woman approaching them from the waiting room. Danica had no idea who she was, but her eyes were red and bruised, and she had several cuts on her cheek. She was also moving kind of slowly as she approached them. Danica frowned. She had a terrible feeling about her. “Can I help you?” The woman gestured toward Jasper's room.
“I was with him when the car hit us.” She took a deep breath and seemed to be steeling herself for what she was about to say. “I was ten weeks pregnant and lost the baby in the accident. It was Jasper's.” Danica stared at her, then started to laugh.
“Bullshit.” Jasper wouldn't cheat on her, no matter how rough a patch they were going through. He despised cheaters. She could see Alex looking at the women in disgust out of the corner of her eye, and it helped firm her stance, but before she could say anything else, he beat her to it.
“What's wrong with you? Why would you tell a woman who just found out her husband is brain dead that he was cheating on her and got you pregnant when the baby conveniently doesn't even exist anymore?” Danica watched as the woman winced at the pure revulsion in Alex's voice, but she didn't back down.
“Because I want permission to have his sperm harvested so I can still have his baby.” She lifted her chin slightly.
“You fucking BITCH!” Danica wasn't aware that she had yelled and started toward the woman, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights, until Alex's arms went around her stomach and he lifted her feet off the floor. “Who the hell do you think you are?” She squirmed against Alex, but he maintained a firm grip on her. “Let me go!”
Alex shook his head and backed up slightly. “I'm not bailing you out of jail for attempted murder.”
“Oh, it won't be attempted.” Danica snarled as she struggled to get loose. “I fully intend to succeed.”
“Right, cause that will make me let you go.” He muttered lowly. “Look, Lady, you've got ten seconds to get your ass out of here or I'm going to let her go.” The woman hesitated, but when he started to count, she turned and fled just as security showed up. Alex quickly explained what had happened as he cautiously let Danica go.
“I don't want her anywhere near my husband or his sperm.” Danica glared at the security guard as a nurse joinedthem. “If I hear so much as a whisper about her getting anywhere near his room, I will sue this hospital into oblivion, do you understand?”
They had to fill out an incident report before they left, and the nurse found out who she was by looking up who had been admitted with Jasper and had a miscarriage. The security guard pulled a still from the security feeds and promised she wouldn't get on the fifth floor or anywhere near Jasper's body until there was no chance of harvesting viable sperm. When they left the hospital, Alex called a car to take them back to his place to get his car.
“Are you sure you want to tell his parents tonight?” He asked as he helped her into his lifted Jeep Patriot.
“It's not really something I can put off, is it?” Danica set her jaw as she buckled her seatbelt. It was almost midnight, and they had a forty-five-minute drive to Jasper's parents' house, but she still had adrenaline humming through her. The nurse, wisely, had refused to give Danica or Alex the woman's name or contact information. When the woman said she was ten weeks pregnant, Danica had made the connection that she would have gotten pregnant around the time Jasper accused her of cheating with Alexander and had left the house, coming back around four in the morning and begging her to fix the relationship. Under normal circumstances, she didn't believe Jasper would cheat, but if he thought he was evening the score... That was another story.
Chapter Eleven: Delivering Devastation
The ride to the Preston's house in Dedham was mostly quiet, with Danica anxiously trying to figure out what to say to Jasper's parents. She knew that however she tried to soften the blow; it was going to end with his mother having a complete breakdown. Amy Preston was a boy mom to the extreme, even telling Danica that she got her perfect child with Jasper, so she never wanted to try for a second. She worshiped the ground Jasper walked on but had never been the toxic type of mother-in-law. She loved Danica because Jasper did, without questioning anything. When Jasper announced to his family that he had asked Danica to marry him and she had luckily agreed, Amy hugged her tightly and warmly, whispering in her ear. “If Jasper chose you, then I know you're special.”
Danica was fairly confident that the fact that she was an orphan and didn't have a “real” family helped her out. Amy never had to share holidays or special occasions or worry about Jasper seeing another woman as a mother figure; instead, she gained a daughter-in-law who was more than happy to include her in her son's life with her. Amy and Cecil, Jasper's father,were warm and open with her from the beginning and didn't hold her past over her.
Cecil was quieter and more reserved but would drop random nuggets of truth and knowledge that seemed odd coming from the man who never graduated from high school and happily lived his life covered in grease and surrounded by random parts of various cars, until he showed Danica his “man cave” on the second floor of his garage. Built-in bookcases lined the walls, with books stacked three deep on the shelves, a comfortable recliner with a small side table beside it in a well-lit corner and a desk near the door. He explained to Danica, as she looked around, that he also had ADHD, and school back then didn't know how to handle him. He was labelled a problem child and not given the support he needed. He dropped out in the ninth grade and started working as an apprentice in a garage because his father told him he had to either work or be in school. He was good at mechanics and flourished there, so he never bothered to go back, instead getting his GED when Jasper graduated from high school.
She was pulled out of her thoughts when Alex asked for directions to her in-laws' house. She gave him the directions absently, remembering how Jasper had clung to the idea that their plan to move to Dedham and start their car restoration business would be what saved their marriage. The fact that he wanted to leave East Boston so badly, after living there his entire life and refusing to move when his parents suggested it after they moved, suddenly seemed much more suspicious. He had put it down to getting the fresh start they clearly needed, away from the Wests and their home garage, which they had both avoided going back into after the fight, which had made sense before, but now she was wondering if it was because he was afraid Danica would run into that woman.
Danica covered her face with her hands and drew in a deep breath as Alex turned onto her in-laws' street and slowed down as he looked for the house, trying to shake off the thought that Jasper could have cheated on her. She just couldn't see it happening; he loved her almost obsessively, and he never went anywhere without her besides work or the very occasional family gathering she had to miss because of her job. His only friends were his cousins, who were close to her as well, and she doubted they would cover for him. They believed in loyalty, and it extended beyond the immediate family to the spouses who married in. One of his cousins cheated on her husband, and she was the one who was disowned when it came out, while her now ex-husband still attended holiday dinners and family gatherings with their four children. Hell, her best friend, Emilia, was married to one of Jasper's cousins and wouldn’t have kept anything from her.
She didn't know who the woman who approached her in the hospital was and had no idea where Jasper would have met her. She regretted turning off her phone that night instead of tracking where Jasper went. He had insisted on the tracking app after her car broke down in the middle of nowhere and she couldn't tell him where she was exactly, just that she had gone for a drive to clear her head after Cassandra died and hadn't paid attention to where she was going. The car came to a stop, and she lifted her head, staring at Cecil and Amy's dark house. Shoving the thought of Jasper's potential infidelity aside, she glanced at Alex as she unbuckled her seatbelt.
“You should probably wait here.” She wasn't sure if Amy and Cecil knew about everything that had happened since the fight. She did know that Jasper had defended her slapping him, unable to hide the mark on his face when he went to work that Monday, explaining they had fought, he made unfoundedand unfair accusations then grabbed her when she tried to walk away. He said he hadn't told them what the fight was about, just insisted to them that he was in the wrong and deserved the slap. Amy had tried to get the information out of Danica, but she had deflected, stating it was between her and Jasper, and they were working things out themselves.
“I figured as much.” Alex nodded as he put the vehicle in park and pulled out his phone, the light from the screen making his face glow eerily in the darkness. “Are you hungry? I can go pick up food so you can eat while I bring you home.”
The mention of food reminded Danica that she hadn't eaten since lunch in Austin, which now felt like it was days ago instead of just twelve hours previously. “Yeah, but don't go too far or out of your way for it. I have no idea what's going to happen in there, and I could either be thrown out or forced to spend the night; either way, I'll need to be rescued.” She tried to make a joke about it, but it fell flat, and she ran her hands through her hair nervously as she avoided his eyes.
