Night, Forgotten: Draft 1

Chapter 21: Then

Flashes of light flickered in front of my eyes. I blinked, trying to clear them away, but they persisted. The day before, I had seen those same lights dancing around the periphery of my vision while I was rinsing the shampoo from my hair in the shower. They had gone away after a few minutes, so I hadn't mentioned them to Owen. But this time the lights lingered, little golden streamers that I couldn't quite focus on.

The bathroom tiles were cold beneath my folded legs as I leaned back against the edge of the tub. Making this small movement reawakened the sharp pain that had bloomed between my eyes that morning and hadn't gone away. I used the sleeve of my bathrobe to wipe the vomit from my mouth.

"Owen!" I cried, blinking hard again. I wasn't sure what else to do but call his name. Tears began to collect in the corners of my eyes, further obscuring my already confused vision. "I'm seeing those lights that Dr. Syed said...!" It was hard to form a coherent sentence. The pain burned brightly somewhere behind my forehead.

Owen appeared in the doorway within seconds. Clearly alarmed, he flew to my side on the floor by the toilet, which he gracefully flushed without mentioning its contents.

"You're having visual disturbances?" Leave it to Owen to remember what the flashing lights were actually supposed to be called. "Are they still there?"

I stared through them, trying to will them away from in front of his frantic eyes. The best I could offer was, "Well, maybe they're fading." I didn't see any reason for us both to be in a state of panic. "Yeah." I let Owen help me up onto the closed lid of the toilet. "I guess they're gone now."

But they weren't gone.

"You know, just to be safe – " I didn't even finish my sentence before Owen was helping me up again gently, grabbing the keys to his Subaru, and helping me into the passenger seat. We both knew we had to go to the hospital. Just to be safe. But what did it mean to be "safe," anymore? If I'd been safe, I wouldn't be pregnant.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt safe.

On the way to the hospital, Owen stopped at the same red light where I had fantasized about having a miscarriage a little more than a month before. Now, twenty-seven weeks into this pregnancy, all I could think about was what the doctor had said the last time we'd seen him.

It had been less than two weeks ago. Until that point, the pregnancy had been physically normal from a medical standpoint. Despite the borderline off-putting cheeriness of his staff, Dr. Syed took me seriously and had been sensitive to the nature of my situation. He had gentle eyes and spoke to me with utmost care, as if every word to leave his lips were a serious decision. In another life, he could have been a librarian. But he was my doctor and the last time we'd been in his office, he had delivered a warning.

"The thing is, Julie," Dr. Syed had explained at my last appointment, leaning forward on his stool and resting his elbows on his knees, "Your blood pressure is elevated. That's a new symptom, and in combination with the protein we detected in your urine and your ongoing nausea, I'm concerned."

Concerned. The time in the room had seemed to trip over itself. Owen had raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat, forcing Dr. Syed to acknowledge him there, perched on the only proper chair in the room. "What does that mean?"

"Well," Dr. Syed had looked briefly at Owen, but then back at me. I had appreciated that deliberate attention; somehow, it had helped the time in the exam room to start passing at a manageable pace again. "If you see visual disturbances, you must come in to see me immediately, Julie. Or if you get a killer headache that doesn't go away when you drink a glass of water."