Their Next Chapter

Chapter 54

Meryl woke up in a cold, dark, room. She reached out for Don but he wasn't next to her like he should have been, like he always was. He had barely left her side since coming home from the hospital; let alone finding out she was pregnant. She called out for Don; nothing. She wondered where he could have gone. She thought she could see two figures in the distance holding syringes and laughing. When she focused on the figures and what they were saying more she could understand what they were saying. "That bitch will never wake up thanks to the drugs we gave her. That will show her to kill her baby." She then heard the other nurse. "Have you seen her husband? He's gorgeous. I can't wait to comfort him." 

Meryl tried to get out of bed but she couldn't move, she tried even harder when she heard a baby's cries; she knew it wasn't just any baby, it was her baby. She then heard the voice of a small child calling out to her, it actually sounded like Henry when he was a small boy. "Mommy, why don't you love me?"

"I do love you." Meryl cried reaching out for the voice of her baby. "So, so, so much."

The voice came closer. "If you did then you wouldn't have gone out in a winter storm and killed me."

"Mommy is so sorry, angel." Meryl cried. "I will ALWAYS love you. You will always be a part of me and your daddy."

Don then walked up beside their child, picking him up and holding him. "If you weren't such a selfish bitch then our child would still be alive. Or is it really my child? Is it Tommy's or Pierce's?"

"DON!" Meryl cried. "Of course he's yours."

Meryl then saw Brad appear next to Don. "You are such a slut; I've known that from the time I first learned about you. If you would have just told Don you were going out then he wouldn't have lost yet ANOTHER baby; and you wouldn't have killed another one of my grandchildren. You will NEVER be good enough for my son."

"Brad, no." Meryl cried as the room started spinning. "Don, please; please don't believe this. DON!" Meryl continued to cry as the men in her family and the nurses were mocking her and pointing. The room spun even more when Don started kissing the nurse with the syringe. "DON! DON!" Meryl screamed as everything went black.

***

Meryl sat straight up sobbing into her hands. "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry." She felt the bile rise up into her throat, threw her legs over the side of the bed, and ran into the bathroom though she was still quite unsteady and threw up until she was dry heaving. She couldn't believe what was happening. All she wanted to do was take Birdie for a little walk and not disturb Don while he was working. Because of it not only did she lose one of their miracle babies; but she had also lost the best thing that ever happened to her, Don. She couldn't take it. The pain was overwhelming. She cried and cried and cried until she eventually cried herself to sleep right there next to the toilet on the bathroom floor.

***

Don reached over for his wife and sat up in a start when she wasn't there. He frowned that the sheets on her side of the bed were now cold. He quickly got up in search of his wife, panicked. She was still quite unsteady and out of it thanks to her being severely overly medicated in the hospital, a medication she never should have been given in the first place. He ran through the apartment. Yelling for her when Brad appeared from the downstairs guest bedroom. "Don? What's wrong?"

"Meryl!" Don panicked. "She's not in bed; and she's still not steady."

Brad thought how Birdie hadn't left Meryl's side. "Where's Birdie?"

"She wasn't in bed with us either." Don said as he continued his frantic search. "She is much too weak to be anywhere herself, not to mention her PTSD and also confusion from those damn drugs."