Chapter 8: Ten Weeks

The family waiting room on the fourth floor smelled of coffee and floor cleaner.

It was almost four in the morning.

Lawrence sat bent over with his hands between his knees.

Her mother was pacing.

Rex stood against the far wall with his arms crossed and his jaw tight.

Nobody said hello.

"She won't talk to us," Lawrence said. "Only to you."

"I'm here."

"She's been sick for a week." Her mother's voice cracked. "I thought it was nerves."

A doctor in grey scrubs came to the door and asked for the family.

"Miss Thorpe has given permission for you all to hear this," she said. "She's stable. The baby is stable."

Nobody spoke.

I felt Rex move on the wall without looking at him.

"Ten weeks," the doctor said. "She fainted from low blood sugar."

"She can't keep food down, which is common. I'd like her on a drip overnight."

Her mother burst into tears.

Lawrence stood up so fast the chair scraped.

"A baby," he said. "Sabine is pregnant."

The doctor nodded and stepped aside.

Sabine was propped up in the bed in a hospital gown, with a blanket around her shoulders.

She had been crying so long her face had gone soft.

"Daddy," she said. "Weston."

I stayed at the foot of the bed.

She looked at me, and not at Rex, and her eyes were enormous.

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