Mansion of High Ghosts by James D. McCallister

Author:James D. McCallister [McCallister, James D]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JMAC Enterprises Inc.

Thirty-Eight

Creedence

Chelsea, alone in the emergency room examination bay with white, gauzy curtains pulled all around for privacy. Everything seemed so clean, neat and orderly.

Thankful for the quiet after a whirlwind: the ambulance ride, getting checked over. The cramping. The dizziness. Dusty and Eileen’s stricken faces, his in particular. Looking like he was about to shit his britches.

And now, Chelsea, truly alone: Estranged from her husband, yes, but following this miscarriage, her body was no longer the vessel for another life besides her own.

Her brother. Why she thought of him, she didn’t know. How she ached for Devin. How she longed for the innocence of their childhood together, their absent friendship. Before he started drinking. Before the car accident. Maybe he’d come back and they could finally work all that out. Stranger things had happened.

Crying to herself—hiding the tears from whom?—and guilty for not wanting the child, she worried that despite Dusty’s culpability, it had been her own will which caused the spontaneous abortion.

Thinking: Maybe it was Buddy Lawler’s anyway, and feeling a rush of revulsion and despair like a gust of hot wind.

Guilt, but also relief.

Complicated, these emotions. Nothing as easy as they led on when you were little. Get a husband, get a baby, get yourself fulfilled. All else would work itself out.

Bullcrud.

Feeling queasy, like the hangover she had after that party with Billy and Devin, right before her brother left South Carolina like he was never coming back. Teenage girl hangovers had left her system with haste; wondering, now, if the aftermath of this experience would fade in quite so efficient a manner.

The doctor, explaining that the miscarriage might have happened whether she’d fallen on the stairs or not: An extremely unfortunate but common event, miscarriages. The tumble after she tripped carrying the bag of groceries—that’s right, she only stumbled and fell; that’s what both Dusty and her mother had said to the paramedics, nodding to one another—may have simply accelerated a process already in motion.

“These things happen, Mrs. Wallis. We don’t always know why. I wouldn’t worry about trying again in a few months. But be a little patient. It’ll be a while before your body’s back to normal.”

Not far enough along to need a D&C, as a nurse explained, Chelsea’s body would rid itself of the remaining tissue over a period of a week to a month. The worst news? That she could expect to continue experiencing a kind of phantom pregnancy, likely manifesting as ongoing morning sickness and cramps. Joy.

“You’ll have all sorts of odd little troublesome feelings.” The nurse, a huge African-American woman, spoke with a caring, patient tone. “You being clumsy didn’t have the first thing to do with this.”

“No?”

“We try to sort out what happens to us in life. Figure out ways to blame ourselves for things we don’t have in our control. But, sugar, the way it all plays out? It’s all only in God’s control, not ours. That’s the notion we got to give ourselves over to. That’s what makes it all add up.

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