Page 72 of Love Story
“Elizabeth,” he whispered as quietly as he could. “Elizabeth... it’s me, John.”
It took a minute, but gradually her eyes opened. They fluttered a few times and then they grew suddenly wide. She started to cry out, but he gently put his hand over her mouth. “Shhhh.” He brought his face close to hers. “I snuck in. No one knows I’m here.”
She was still waking up, still trying to make sense of his presence. “How... how did you know where to...” Her voice was a whisper now. She was awake enough to understand what was happening. “John...” Her eyes filled with tears and she squeezed them shut. She shook her head and buried her face in the pillow.
At first John thought she was merely overwhelmed with seeing him. But after a minute, alarm coursed through him. “Elizabeth, what is it? What’s wrong?”
A series of sobs racked her body and she kept her face turned away from him. Only after several minutes did she look at him. The pain in her eyes scared him more than anything ever had. “I... I already had the baby.”
“What?” John felt the floor fall away. The room seemed to start spinning and he couldn’t draw a breath. What had she said? She’d already had the baby? He looked around the room, desperate to see a crib or a bassinet, some sign of their child. “Elizabeth, what do you mean? You’re not due for another week, I don’t... I can’t...” He looked around once more. “Where’s the baby?”
Elizabeth shook her head. They were still talking in whispers, still trying to control their emotions. The tears came harder until it looked like she would pass out from the grief that consumed her. “They... they took him. We had... a boy, John. He was perfect.”
She’d had a boy. A son. They had a son. Their firstborn child was a boy. But John was too late, and now the baby was gone. He was gone forever.
John’s heart raced so fast, he could barely think. He felt sick to his stomach, all the room blurred, the walls collapsing in on them. They had a little boy. So where was he? John helped Elizabeth sit up and he searched her eyes. “Who took him?”
“The couple. They were from overseas, John. Missionaries.” She covered her face as another run of sobs shook her small frame. “I couldn’t stop them. My father made... he made the arrangements.”
Arrangements.
John stood and walked silently to the window. Arrangements? Like a funeral? And that’s what this was. A funeral for their little boy. John couldn’t exhale, couldn’t think, but it didn’t matter. He had to know where the child was now. He returned to Elizabeth and sat on the edge of her bed. “We can get him back. We have to.”
“No,” she whispered. She shook her head. “I had him two weeks ago, John. The couple is back overseas by now.” Her face twisted into a sort of grief John had never seen before. “He was so beautiful. His face and eyes. John... I got to hold him for an entire hour.” She squeezed her eyes shut and worked to catch her breath. “He looked... like you, John.”
His son had looked like him. The baby boy he would never know, never hold. Never teach to read or ride a bike. His son had looked like him, but now he was gone. The tears began to come for John, too. How could this have happened? How could her father have been so wicked?
The shock was wearing off, the reality strangling the life from them both. He pulled Elizabeth to his chest and held her, just held her and rocked her while they both quietly wept. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. Sorry I wasn’t here sooner. If I had only known.” He clung to her. “I’m so sorry.”
They stayed that way for an hour, grieving over the futility of what had happened. When they were finally able to see through their tears, John asked her about the delivery. Other than the fact that the baby had come early, everything had gone the way she expected.
“I wish I could’ve been here with you.” His anger was only beginning to grow inside him. Her father had done this to them, and one day he would pay. “I should’ve been beside you.”
She nodded. “Every time I closed my eyes, whenever the pain was too strong, I thought of you. I knew... you would’ve been here. You wanted to be here.”
And if he’d been here, they would still have their son.
Elizabeth explained that she had been weak after the baby was born, so her father made plans with her houseparents to pick her up a few days from now. John shuddered at the news. If he’d waited even a little longer... or if Wilson Gage hadn’t been there to fix his car, he could’ve missed her.
The fact stirred an urgency in John. “We need to leave. Now, Elizabeth. Before your houseparents wake up. Otherwise they’ll call your father, and he’ll stop us.”
Fear darkened her eyes. “Okay.”
A thought hit him. “You still want to come with me, right?” He kept his voice lower than a whisper. With tender care, he put his hands on either side of her face and tried to see the answer for himself. “You still love me?”
“Of course.” She leaned her forehead against his. “It’s just... Where will we live, John? What’s going to happen to us?”
“I have a plan. You can trust me, okay?” John moved his face back a bit so he could see into her eyes. “I love you, Elizabeth. I want to marry you. As soon as possible.”
With every word he spoke, her fear seemed to lift. Her voice was barely audible. “I wasn’t sure... I didn’t know when you’d come back or if you still wanted to...” She blinked away new tears. “I wasn’t sure, John.”
“I’ll never leave you. Never again.” He told her how he had counted down the days and how he had barely made it because of his car. “I broke down in front of this guy’s house. He fixed my oil pan, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” The other details of his encounter with Wilson Gage could wait.
They weren’t important now.
“Marry me, Elizabeth. Let me take you back to Ann Arbor, and then as soon as you’re feeling well enough, we can go to a justice of the peace. We’ll have lots of children, and I’ll take care of you for the rest of your life.” He ran his thumb over her velvety cheek. “Will you marry me?”
For the first time since he’d crept through her bedroom door, the hint of a smile played on her lips. She whispered her answer. “I will. As soon as we can, yes.”
