Page 48 of Spiralling Skywards: Fading
He lowered his head and sucked hard on my nipple.
“Is there milk in them yet?”
“Could be.” I combed my fingers through his messy hair and watched him, trying to read his next move as I held back a smile. “You keep sucking on them like that then you’re soon gonna find out.”
He got right back to it, causing a strange tingle in my womb, which led to a practice contraction.
“Shit.” He pulled away and looked up at me. “There is.” Sure enough, I had milk on the tip of the nipple he was just sucking.
“What’s it taste like?” He dove back in for more before looking back up at me to answer. “It’s like watery milk but sweet.”
The baby gave me a swift kick under my ribs and then another to my belly, finally drawing Liam’s attention from his mission. We both saw the baby’s limbs pushing against me and laughed.
“He’s not happy I’m eating his dinner.”
“Well leaveherdinner alone and come eat me instead.”
“No. No way. I did not just hear that. Seriously? She’s pregnant and in a bloody hospital bed. Get the fuck off her.” I peered over Liam’s shoulder to where my brother was standing in the doorway, holding a takeaway bag in one hand and shielding his closed eyes with the other.
“Will you shut the door? I’m naked under here.”
“Nope, not making this any better, Sunshine.”
Luke turned around, obviously with his eyes still closed as he walked straight into the doorframe. He mumbled a few garbled swear words before saying, “Get the fuck off my sister, Del. I’ll be back in five minutes and you both better be dressed.”
We spent the next five minutes laughing so hard it took another ten to put our clothes back on.
When Luke came back, the boys drank beer and we all shared the Chinese that both Liam and Luke brought with them. We sat and talked about nothing for a couple of hours. Because one beer led to four beers, Liam ended up spending the night at the hospital with me again. When I got up to go to the toilet at around five in the morning, I knew something wasn’t right. My head spun, the room tilted, and my legs refused to hold my weight.
“Liam,” I called out as my vision faded around the edges, and I had just enough time to wrap my arms around my stomach before I hit the floor.
***
I woke up to an empty room. It was the room I was in yesterday, but something was different, something had changed, and I wasn’t sure of exactly what. I had a catheter in the back of my hand with both blood and saline dripping through it, and there was a blood pressure cuff around my arm, which made me jump when it started to tighten.
The door opened, and Kim, one of the midwives I had gotten to know walked in.
“Where’s Liam?” My throat was dry and sore, and I squinted at the sound of my own voice. It didn’t sound like mine.
“Ah, you’re awake. Hang on, and I’ll let him know.” She turned around and left. Liam was through the door less than a minute later.
His hair was all over the place, his shirt was a rumpled mess, and his eyes had dark circles under them.
“What happened?” I started to cry—confused and scared. My belly hurt as I heaved out a sob, my emotions morphing to panic and sheer terror. I put my hand to my flat belly. That single moment when I realised my baby wasn’t there would stay with me for the rest of my life.
Liam grabbed my hand away from my belly and kissed it.
“It’s fine. It’s fine, bub. We’ve got our boy.”
My whole body was shaking, and no matter how many times I blinked, I couldn’t see Liam through the tears. “Liam.” I managed to choke out on a broken breath.
“Our baby is okay, Sarah. You’re okay. Take a deep breath.”
I tried, repeating his words over and over in my mind until the panic ebbed.
“They showed him to you when you were in recovery, you don’t remember?”
“No. No, I don’t remember. Where is he? I need to see him.”
