Page 20 of The Facilitator, Part 3

“Only one woman got pregnant with my child after months of fucking around,” I said, grabbing a pad and pen.

She conceded and allowed me the luxury of pretending I’d at least be able to have some say over what she ate and drank. I made a shopping list, minerals and vitamins, water, and healthy food. I wanted to get online and buy books. Eventually, Lauren placed her hand over mine.

“Mackenzie, please. Slow down. We have a while before we know for sure this baby is here to stay. Just…slow down, for me, please?”

I knew I was getting ahead of myself. I knew I had to slow down for her sake, but that was probably the hardest thing I had yet to do in my life. I made a very conscious effort to.

“I don’t want us to tell anyone,” she said, and I agreed with that. Once we were over that first three months, I’d be shouting from the rooftops.

“What we could do, however, is start to plan, workwise,” I said. I could take as much time off as I wanted, we both could work from home, easily enough.

“What we could do, is nothing for now,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to break, I’m going to work until we’ve made a decision on what to do there. We are a team, we make joint decisions after a discussion.”

I didn’t like to be pulled up short and I didn’t like my enthusiasm curbed. However, I swallowed down that annoyance. I believed I was being sensible. I didn’t see that I was starting to suffocate her.

A blood test confirmed the pregnancy but we weren’t signed off from the hospital at that point.

They would monitor for the first couple of months.

Because we had an IVF baby, and, I suspected, because we were private patients, we had a care package written up for us.

Lauren wanted everything as natural and normal as possible.

Of course, she’d not drink or put herself in any harmful situations, but she urged the nursing team to convince me she could carry her own bags.

They tried, and I lied, and vowed to make life easy for Lauren without her even knowing it.

I spent a lot of time online researching what to expect.

I was both horrified and excited in equal measure.

It was crazy, I was a middle-aged man, but having resigned myself to never having a child, I didn’t take any notice of the things pregnant women went through.

In fact, other that Gabriella, I didn’t know any, and her pregnancy had been so easy for her.

I didn’t expect every woman had the same easy time so I wanted to be prepared.

Especially since one minute Lauren would be screaming at me, the next crying, after that, hot sex, and laughing.

Only once did I mention it was hormones and I seem to remember one of her favorite shoes flying through the air at me.

It broke against the wall and, of course, that was my fault.

I’d picked up my car keys, drove into London, and bought another pair.

If I said the mood swings didn’t stress me out, I’d be lying. I bit my tongue so much I drew blood. I took myself out of the situation as much as I could, and I hugged Lauren constantly, reassuring her that I wasn’t going to leave her and I loved her.

I thanked all my lucky stars that settled after the first month.

We were walking around a store, looking at baby items, even though we had forbade ourselves from doing so until after three months. However, Lauren was just a week away from that date and we had plans for a pregnancy reveal. We were both excited.

“This looks amazing,” I said, walking over to a crib. I turned when I realized Lauren wasn’t with me.

She stood just a few paces away and she was ashen. Sweat had formed on her face and her jaw was clenched so tight I could see her muscles through her cheeks. She held her hands over her stomach; her knuckles were white where she gripped. She leaned forward just a little. I rushed to her.

“Lauren?” I said. I looked around the store and caught the eye of a saleswoman. I called for help. “Please can you get my wife a chair?”

Lauren sat but didn’t speak for a moment. Finally, she looked up. “I need the ladies’,” she said.

I held my breath as I paced outside. She was helped in by the saleswoman, who then came to stand with me while we waited for her. When Lauren returned she was whiter than before. She cried all the way back to the door and then on the drive to the clinic.

We’d lost our baby.

“What do you mean, there might not be a reason why? I asked. “There has to be,” I added.

We sat and listened to the confirmation and that sometimes, there was no reason for a miscarriage.

A week had passed and I failed to contain the bitterness in my voice.

There had to be a reason, we needed to know it.

How could we proceed if we didn’t? I simply didn’t understand nor accept it was one of those things.

Lauren underwent another series of tests, nothing was wrong with her at all.

I then started to question everything I’d done.

Had I fed her something? Had I coddled her too much or not enough?

Was it that time she’d worn high heels and I told her she had to look after her calves?

Had we had sex too many times? Those questions, and many more ran through my mind constantly .

I woke all hours; I paced the bedroom and the rest of the house searching my mind for answers.

I only settled when my wife broke down and begged me to stop. Only when I realized that she had turned to Gabriella because I’d left her with no one to talk her grief through with. Only when I realized how selfish I’d been and how so wrapped up in my own misery I was, that I’d ignored hers.

“Mackenzie, you need to talk,” Gabriella had said. We’d spoken a few times over the phone. The one thing I couldn’t do was FaceTime. I didn’t want to see her holding her child, not that I thought for one minute she would.

“I know. I don’t know where to start,” I said.

“How about a holiday, just the two of you? Get out of that house, you’re suffocating each other,” she said.

I nodded. “You’re right. I’ll book something,” I said.

We chatted a little more about her family and the fact Daniel seemed to have gone to ground again.

Alex had investigators looking for him and so far what they’d uncovered was that, as we already suspected, he was in serious debt to some shady fuckers.

His gambling and drug habit had gotten more out of control, it appeared.

“Call me when you’ve booked something,” Gabriella said, and then we disconnected the call.

I walked upstairs to the bedroom. Lauren was lying naked on the bed just looking at the ceiling. I undressed and climbed on beside her.

“Anything interesting?” I whispered, looking up as well.

She chuckled. “It’s actually quite relaxing looking at nothing,” she said.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m booking a cottage in Cornwall, on a beach,” I said.

She turned to face me and smiled. “I would love that,” she said.

“Just you and me. We need to be out of here and find some peace,” I said.

She reached over to stroke the side of my face. “I love you, Mackenzie.”

I kissed her fingertips. She pulled my shoulders so I could roll on top of her. “Make love to me,” she whispered.

I did.