Chapter XV
Samantha slowly opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. She felt very tired and groggy. Her stomach felt like it had been extensively pumped and ached with emptiness. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the bright light in the room. She saw stark whitewashed walls and ceiling. She was close to a window and could see a large ground of grass and an old prefabricated building across the way. A wheelchair was being pushed along the pathway that curved behind the prefab building, and cars snailed by, carefully navigating the speed humps dotted along the road. She was in the local hospital.
She could hear a machine intermittently beeping and wheels creaking along vinyl flooring. She slowly turned her head the other way to see where the noise was coming from. A tea trolley was being pushed in the corridor outside the room, by a middle aged woman wearing a beige dress, creased apron, and very tanned tights. Then she saw Pete, sitting on a chair beside her, crouched over her bed and asleep on her right hand. She tried to move her left hand over to stroke his hair and found it restricted. She looked over and saw a needle taped into her hand, and a thin tube of clear liquid being fed through her from above her head. She was on Saline IV.
Samantha struggled to remember why she was there. Her head was thumping. She must have hit her head. That didn't explain why her stomach ached or why Saline IV was being pumped through her bloodstream. The pain from her stomach became more intense and she winced in pain, shifting slightly.
Pete suddenly shot bolt upright. "Wha..?"
Samantha jumped and a monitor began to beep.
"Whoa, Sam? Sammy?" Pete started yelling her name and still appeared to be slightly disorientated.
"Hey, I'm fine!" Samantha yelled at him. "Hey! Calm down!"
The monitor started to slow its beeping and then became intermittent as before.
"You are all kinds of jumpy!" Samantha said, patting her chest to calm herself down.
"Oh my God, I thought you were gonna…" Pete sat down again and gripped her hand, looking at her intently.
"How long have I been here?"
"Two days now."
"What?"
"It's Monday afternoon."
"I don't think I can… What happened to me?"
"You don't remember?"
Samantha shook her head. "Bits and pieces, but not a great deal. I'm sorry..."
"No, no, shh!" Pete said, stroking her face with his left hand, still holding tightly to her with his right hand. "I'm just really glad you're awake."
"How long have you been here?"
"I got a call on my way home from the club," Pete said, still stroking her face and holding her hand. "The police turned up and took me here. Told me you'd been stabbed and…" His eyes filled with tears and he clenched his teeth together to stop himself. "You fell unconscious in the ambulance. They reckon you lost a lot of blood and they took you straight to the theatre, did a transfusion or something, and then… Well, you're okay now."
"There's something else, isn't there?" Samantha said. "You were going to tell me something and just stopped talking."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Pete whispered.
"Tell you what?" Samantha asked, notching her eyebrows.
"That you were pregnant."
Samantha's eyes widened in surprise and she notched her eyebrows further, amazed and confused at the same time. "That I was…?"
"The doctor said it was at least eight weeks old…"
"I'm pregnant?" Samantha asked, her left hand instinctively reaching for her stomach.
"You lost it," Pete whispered, trying his utmost best to hold back his tears.
Samantha looked at her stomach. The test at the surgery had been wrong. The nurse had been right, though, and the blood test would have confirmed the nurse's theory. All that stress hadn't caused the irregular and missed periods; it had been because she was pregnant. With Kevin's baby. And now, it had been murdered, by whoever had tried to kill her too. Her eyes filled with tears and she did nothing to stop them.
"I had a baby…" Samantha said, barely whispering the words and trying to understand what she was saying.
"So why didn't you tell me?" Pete asked her.
She looked at him, tears rapidly cascading down her cheeks and dropping off her jawbone on to her hospital gown.
"I've been so stressed lately that my periods have been really irregular and I've even missed a couple. I didn't realise…"
"It must have been from my first night back," Pete offered, staring vacantly into space. "That would have been seven weeks ago."
Samantha couldn't understand why she was upset. Surely, if she was having Kevin's baby, she wouldn't really want it, even if Pete thought it was his. She had never wanted any children before this point and certainly hadn't felt ready to have any. Why was she feeling this enormous sense of loss? It didn't make sense.
Pete pulled a tissue out of the box on top of the cabinet by the bed. He gently dabbed at Samantha's face, drying her tears carefully, as if he were trying to clean a preserved work of art. Samantha gave a little smile as she watched the concentration on Pete's face.
"I'm sorry," Samantha said softly.
"Sorry for what?" Pete replied. "For getting stabbed?"
"I lost a baby!"
"It's not your fault!"
"I don't know what else to say."
"Then don't say anything."
Samantha laid there in silence, letting Pete go back to stoking her face. She looked over at him. He looked really frazzled. He must have been sitting beside her the entire time she was there. He loved her so much. She was stupid to even think about ruining what they had.
"Whatcha thinking about?" Pete asked her.
"About how much I love you," Samantha replied.
"Well, that makes the two of us," Pete said, and he leant over to kiss her on her forehead.
"Nice to see you awake, Miss Daniels."
Samantha and Pete looked up to see a man in a three quarter length white coat looking at them from the foot of the bed.
"Oh, hi Dr Carmichael," Pete said.
"You're a very lucky woman," Dr Carmichael said to Samantha. "You had lost so much blood we were seriously worried if you were going to make it. A lot of damage and internal bleeding."
"I'll be okay, then?" Samantha asked.
"We want to keep you in for a couple more days now you're awake, just for observation," Dr Carmichael said. "In the meantime, if you're up to it, a member of the police and I would like to speak to you about the incident."
A policeman entered the room and took off his hard hat. "Hi, I'm PC Harrison."
"Look, I really can't remember all that much," Samantha said.
"Well, I'm just going to ask a few questions and just do the best you can, okay?" PC Harrison said.
"Can Pete stay?" Samantha asked.
"Yes, of course!" PC Harrison said.
Samantha held on to Pete's hand a little tighter and Dr Carmichael and PC Harrison settled into two chairs on the other side of the bed, opposite Pete.
"Right," PC Harrison said, taking out a small notebook and a black pen. "Just for the record, can you state your names please."
"Samantha Marie Daniels, one 'L'."
"Peter Marsters with an 'R'."
"Dr James Carmichael, MD."
"Okay," PC Harrison said, scribbling intently. "Now, in your own words, slowly tell me what happened on Saturday night."
"Well, I was celebrating my hen night at Verve's," Samantha said. "I left about ten thirty. Yeah, it must have been about that time, because the man on the door was watching football highlights, Man United versus Juventus."
"Great match," PC Harrison smiled. "Okay, then what?"
"Well, I've never been to Verve's before so I got lost walking home," Samantha explained. "I was trying to find a bus stop on Lincoln Road but I got sidetracked and…"
She stopped, trying to think how she managed to leave the main road. She couldn't remember. She knew she had been on Lincoln Road when she left the night club but she had somehow found herself a long way down a street full of houses. She didn't want to sound like a loony in front of everyone.
"And what?" PC Harrison asked, cutting into her thoughts.
"Sorry?" Samantha asked, breaking away from her thoughts.
"And what?" PC Harrison repeated.
"I, uhm…" Samantha tried to think what had happened between getting sidetracked off Lincoln Road and then finding herself back there and on the wet pavement. She could remember the pain and a couple of boys being there…
"Can you not remember, Miss Daniels?" PC Harrison asked, lowering his notebook and pen.
"It's really fragmented," Samantha explained. "I can remember things happening, but not in the order that they happened. It's really confusing."
"No, that's fine," PC Harrison said, holding his hand up. "Just take your time, yeah?"
Samantha looked at PC Harrison's hand and remembered the cold one that clamped over her mouth.
"A hand went over my mouth," Samantha said, her eyes darting around the floor, her hand beginning to shake slightly. Pete grabbed her tighter. PC Harrison looked at his hand being held up and then suddenly started scribbling again.
"I felt something sharp in my back," Samantha continued, "and… I was so cold and I couldn't feel anything. He wanted my bag…"
She paused. What happened next? He didn't take her bag because she could see it hanging off the back of Dr Carmichael's chair.
"I hit him with the bag…" Samantha said slowly and uncertainly. "No, I kicked him in the shins and then hit him with the bag."
"You saw his face?" PC Harrison asked, looking up whilst still scribbling on his notebook.
"Just eyes," Samantha said, looking at him. "He wore a dark balaclava."
"Can you remember his eye colour?" PC Harrison asked.
"They were narrow… slitted… I think they were green."
"Okay, that's good."
"And then…" Samantha moved her hands to her stomach as she remembered how painful the knife insertion was. She shut her eyes tightly and began to heave.
"Okay, I think that's enough," Dr Carmichael said, getting up and going around the bed to look at the monitors. "I don't need you stressing out my patient."
"No, go on, Miss Daniels," PC Harrison said.
"I… the knife… he…" Samantha began to heave some more.
"Hey, it's okay," Pete said, stroking her arm.
"I said that's enough!" Dr Carmichael said angrily.
"Okay, I have all I need for now," PC Harrison said. "I'm just gonna interview the two young lads and I'll be done."
"I remember there being boys there," Samantha said. "One of them pushed on to my stomach."
"They saved you," Pete said. "That's what the doctors said. If they hadn't been there and called an ambulance…"
"They were very quick thinking young lads," Dr Carmichael put in. "One of them told the ambulance crew they saw a man running away from the scene. They might be able to put in a good description."
Samantha nodded. PC Harrison got up and shook hands with Pete.
"Thanks for your time, Mr Marsters," PC Harrison said. "Thank you, Miss Daniels," he added, nodding at Samantha, and then walking out of the room, putting his hat on again as he went through the door.
"Okay," Dr Carmichael said, "call me if you need anything."
He went out of the room and left Samantha and Pete alone.
"Well, that was fun (!)" Samantha said, fiddling with the bed blankets.
"Yeah, well, they've caught criminals on less information," Pete pointed out. "We just need someone to have seen a man running down Lincoln Road at around ten fifty."
"Ten fifty?"
"That's the time the boys said they called an ambulance. The guy checked his mobile and showed us the time he made the call."
"Thank God for call registers, huh?"
"Yeah."
"I can't believe this," Samantha said, sighing. "And you know, I was sitting in Verve's, thinking about how wonderful everything was getting and then…"
"You're lying in a hospital bed with stuff like wedding plans suddenly becoming totally insignificant?" Pete finished for her.
"Yeah," Samantha said. "It's like, all those things I was stressed out over and that we were arguing about… They don't matter. Nothing matters, just so long as I have you to be with me."
She smiled at him and pulled at his hand, silently asking him to lean in and kiss her. He saw the sign and obliged, pressing gently against her lips.
"So, what are you saying?" Pete asked her. "You still wanna get married?"
"I don't want to wait around while our lives just shoot ahead of us," Samantha said. "We have a life to live together and we're worrying about caterers!"
"What are you…?"
"I wanna get married now."
"Are you serious?"
"Deadly!"
"But don't you want the fairytale wedding?" Pete asked, looking confused. "I thought all women wanted the perfect dress…"
"With the perfect three tier cake and the perfect 'all you can eat' buffet?" Samantha finished for him.
"I take it from your tone of voice that it doesn't bother you then?"
"No. It's about you and me. No one else. No stupid flounces and flowers and strange people giving you bone crushing hugs and wet kisses… Ugh!"
Pete laughed, throwing his head back. Samantha laughed as well, and then suddenly hunched, the laughing making her stomach hurt.
"Ow!" Samantha winced. "It hurts to laugh."
"Aw, honey!" Pete said, kissing her again. "Better?"
"Yeah," Samantha smiled at him. "So, you wanna get married or not?"
"We can get married at the registry office when you get out," Pete confirmed. "I'm guessing you'll want to do at least one wedding tradition."
"What's that?"
"Walk down the aisle!"
"Well, it wouldn't bother me too much…"
"Yes it would!"
"Yeah, it would, actually!"
"So, tomorrow, yeah?"
"Tomorrow."
Back to Chapter XIV
Go to Chapter XVI
She could hear a machine intermittently beeping and wheels creaking along vinyl flooring. She slowly turned her head the other way to see where the noise was coming from. A tea trolley was being pushed in the corridor outside the room, by a middle aged woman wearing a beige dress, creased apron, and very tanned tights. Then she saw Pete, sitting on a chair beside her, crouched over her bed and asleep on her right hand. She tried to move her left hand over to stroke his hair and found it restricted. She looked over and saw a needle taped into her hand, and a thin tube of clear liquid being fed through her from above her head. She was on Saline IV.
Samantha struggled to remember why she was there. Her head was thumping. She must have hit her head. That didn't explain why her stomach ached or why Saline IV was being pumped through her bloodstream. The pain from her stomach became more intense and she winced in pain, shifting slightly.
Pete suddenly shot bolt upright. "Wha..?"
Samantha jumped and a monitor began to beep.
"Whoa, Sam? Sammy?" Pete started yelling her name and still appeared to be slightly disorientated.
"Hey, I'm fine!" Samantha yelled at him. "Hey! Calm down!"
The monitor started to slow its beeping and then became intermittent as before.
"You are all kinds of jumpy!" Samantha said, patting her chest to calm herself down.
"Oh my God, I thought you were gonna…" Pete sat down again and gripped her hand, looking at her intently.
"How long have I been here?"
"Two days now."
"What?"
"It's Monday afternoon."
"I don't think I can… What happened to me?"
"You don't remember?"
Samantha shook her head. "Bits and pieces, but not a great deal. I'm sorry..."
"No, no, shh!" Pete said, stroking her face with his left hand, still holding tightly to her with his right hand. "I'm just really glad you're awake."
"How long have you been here?"
"I got a call on my way home from the club," Pete said, still stroking her face and holding her hand. "The police turned up and took me here. Told me you'd been stabbed and…" His eyes filled with tears and he clenched his teeth together to stop himself. "You fell unconscious in the ambulance. They reckon you lost a lot of blood and they took you straight to the theatre, did a transfusion or something, and then… Well, you're okay now."
"There's something else, isn't there?" Samantha said. "You were going to tell me something and just stopped talking."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Pete whispered.
"Tell you what?" Samantha asked, notching her eyebrows.
"That you were pregnant."
Samantha's eyes widened in surprise and she notched her eyebrows further, amazed and confused at the same time. "That I was…?"
"The doctor said it was at least eight weeks old…"
"I'm pregnant?" Samantha asked, her left hand instinctively reaching for her stomach.
"You lost it," Pete whispered, trying his utmost best to hold back his tears.
Samantha looked at her stomach. The test at the surgery had been wrong. The nurse had been right, though, and the blood test would have confirmed the nurse's theory. All that stress hadn't caused the irregular and missed periods; it had been because she was pregnant. With Kevin's baby. And now, it had been murdered, by whoever had tried to kill her too. Her eyes filled with tears and she did nothing to stop them.
"I had a baby…" Samantha said, barely whispering the words and trying to understand what she was saying.
"So why didn't you tell me?" Pete asked her.
She looked at him, tears rapidly cascading down her cheeks and dropping off her jawbone on to her hospital gown.
"I've been so stressed lately that my periods have been really irregular and I've even missed a couple. I didn't realise…"
"It must have been from my first night back," Pete offered, staring vacantly into space. "That would have been seven weeks ago."
Samantha couldn't understand why she was upset. Surely, if she was having Kevin's baby, she wouldn't really want it, even if Pete thought it was his. She had never wanted any children before this point and certainly hadn't felt ready to have any. Why was she feeling this enormous sense of loss? It didn't make sense.
Pete pulled a tissue out of the box on top of the cabinet by the bed. He gently dabbed at Samantha's face, drying her tears carefully, as if he were trying to clean a preserved work of art. Samantha gave a little smile as she watched the concentration on Pete's face.
"I'm sorry," Samantha said softly.
"Sorry for what?" Pete replied. "For getting stabbed?"
"I lost a baby!"
"It's not your fault!"
"I don't know what else to say."
"Then don't say anything."
Samantha laid there in silence, letting Pete go back to stoking her face. She looked over at him. He looked really frazzled. He must have been sitting beside her the entire time she was there. He loved her so much. She was stupid to even think about ruining what they had.
"Whatcha thinking about?" Pete asked her.
"About how much I love you," Samantha replied.
"Well, that makes the two of us," Pete said, and he leant over to kiss her on her forehead.
"Nice to see you awake, Miss Daniels."
Samantha and Pete looked up to see a man in a three quarter length white coat looking at them from the foot of the bed.
"Oh, hi Dr Carmichael," Pete said.
"You're a very lucky woman," Dr Carmichael said to Samantha. "You had lost so much blood we were seriously worried if you were going to make it. A lot of damage and internal bleeding."
"I'll be okay, then?" Samantha asked.
"We want to keep you in for a couple more days now you're awake, just for observation," Dr Carmichael said. "In the meantime, if you're up to it, a member of the police and I would like to speak to you about the incident."
A policeman entered the room and took off his hard hat. "Hi, I'm PC Harrison."
"Look, I really can't remember all that much," Samantha said.
"Well, I'm just going to ask a few questions and just do the best you can, okay?" PC Harrison said.
"Can Pete stay?" Samantha asked.
"Yes, of course!" PC Harrison said.
Samantha held on to Pete's hand a little tighter and Dr Carmichael and PC Harrison settled into two chairs on the other side of the bed, opposite Pete.
"Right," PC Harrison said, taking out a small notebook and a black pen. "Just for the record, can you state your names please."
"Samantha Marie Daniels, one 'L'."
"Peter Marsters with an 'R'."
"Dr James Carmichael, MD."
"Okay," PC Harrison said, scribbling intently. "Now, in your own words, slowly tell me what happened on Saturday night."
"Well, I was celebrating my hen night at Verve's," Samantha said. "I left about ten thirty. Yeah, it must have been about that time, because the man on the door was watching football highlights, Man United versus Juventus."
"Great match," PC Harrison smiled. "Okay, then what?"
"Well, I've never been to Verve's before so I got lost walking home," Samantha explained. "I was trying to find a bus stop on Lincoln Road but I got sidetracked and…"
She stopped, trying to think how she managed to leave the main road. She couldn't remember. She knew she had been on Lincoln Road when she left the night club but she had somehow found herself a long way down a street full of houses. She didn't want to sound like a loony in front of everyone.
"And what?" PC Harrison asked, cutting into her thoughts.
"Sorry?" Samantha asked, breaking away from her thoughts.
"And what?" PC Harrison repeated.
"I, uhm…" Samantha tried to think what had happened between getting sidetracked off Lincoln Road and then finding herself back there and on the wet pavement. She could remember the pain and a couple of boys being there…
"Can you not remember, Miss Daniels?" PC Harrison asked, lowering his notebook and pen.
"It's really fragmented," Samantha explained. "I can remember things happening, but not in the order that they happened. It's really confusing."
"No, that's fine," PC Harrison said, holding his hand up. "Just take your time, yeah?"
Samantha looked at PC Harrison's hand and remembered the cold one that clamped over her mouth.
"A hand went over my mouth," Samantha said, her eyes darting around the floor, her hand beginning to shake slightly. Pete grabbed her tighter. PC Harrison looked at his hand being held up and then suddenly started scribbling again.
"I felt something sharp in my back," Samantha continued, "and… I was so cold and I couldn't feel anything. He wanted my bag…"
She paused. What happened next? He didn't take her bag because she could see it hanging off the back of Dr Carmichael's chair.
"I hit him with the bag…" Samantha said slowly and uncertainly. "No, I kicked him in the shins and then hit him with the bag."
"You saw his face?" PC Harrison asked, looking up whilst still scribbling on his notebook.
"Just eyes," Samantha said, looking at him. "He wore a dark balaclava."
"Can you remember his eye colour?" PC Harrison asked.
"They were narrow… slitted… I think they were green."
"Okay, that's good."
"And then…" Samantha moved her hands to her stomach as she remembered how painful the knife insertion was. She shut her eyes tightly and began to heave.
"Okay, I think that's enough," Dr Carmichael said, getting up and going around the bed to look at the monitors. "I don't need you stressing out my patient."
"No, go on, Miss Daniels," PC Harrison said.
"I… the knife… he…" Samantha began to heave some more.
"Hey, it's okay," Pete said, stroking her arm.
"I said that's enough!" Dr Carmichael said angrily.
"Okay, I have all I need for now," PC Harrison said. "I'm just gonna interview the two young lads and I'll be done."
"I remember there being boys there," Samantha said. "One of them pushed on to my stomach."
"They saved you," Pete said. "That's what the doctors said. If they hadn't been there and called an ambulance…"
"They were very quick thinking young lads," Dr Carmichael put in. "One of them told the ambulance crew they saw a man running away from the scene. They might be able to put in a good description."
Samantha nodded. PC Harrison got up and shook hands with Pete.
"Thanks for your time, Mr Marsters," PC Harrison said. "Thank you, Miss Daniels," he added, nodding at Samantha, and then walking out of the room, putting his hat on again as he went through the door.
"Okay," Dr Carmichael said, "call me if you need anything."
He went out of the room and left Samantha and Pete alone.
"Well, that was fun (!)" Samantha said, fiddling with the bed blankets.
"Yeah, well, they've caught criminals on less information," Pete pointed out. "We just need someone to have seen a man running down Lincoln Road at around ten fifty."
"Ten fifty?"
"That's the time the boys said they called an ambulance. The guy checked his mobile and showed us the time he made the call."
"Thank God for call registers, huh?"
"Yeah."
"I can't believe this," Samantha said, sighing. "And you know, I was sitting in Verve's, thinking about how wonderful everything was getting and then…"
"You're lying in a hospital bed with stuff like wedding plans suddenly becoming totally insignificant?" Pete finished for her.
"Yeah," Samantha said. "It's like, all those things I was stressed out over and that we were arguing about… They don't matter. Nothing matters, just so long as I have you to be with me."
She smiled at him and pulled at his hand, silently asking him to lean in and kiss her. He saw the sign and obliged, pressing gently against her lips.
"So, what are you saying?" Pete asked her. "You still wanna get married?"
"I don't want to wait around while our lives just shoot ahead of us," Samantha said. "We have a life to live together and we're worrying about caterers!"
"What are you…?"
"I wanna get married now."
"Are you serious?"
"Deadly!"
"But don't you want the fairytale wedding?" Pete asked, looking confused. "I thought all women wanted the perfect dress…"
"With the perfect three tier cake and the perfect 'all you can eat' buffet?" Samantha finished for him.
"I take it from your tone of voice that it doesn't bother you then?"
"No. It's about you and me. No one else. No stupid flounces and flowers and strange people giving you bone crushing hugs and wet kisses… Ugh!"
Pete laughed, throwing his head back. Samantha laughed as well, and then suddenly hunched, the laughing making her stomach hurt.
"Ow!" Samantha winced. "It hurts to laugh."
"Aw, honey!" Pete said, kissing her again. "Better?"
"Yeah," Samantha smiled at him. "So, you wanna get married or not?"
"We can get married at the registry office when you get out," Pete confirmed. "I'm guessing you'll want to do at least one wedding tradition."
"What's that?"
"Walk down the aisle!"
"Well, it wouldn't bother me too much…"
"Yes it would!"
"Yeah, it would, actually!"
"So, tomorrow, yeah?"
"Tomorrow."
Back to Chapter XIV
Go to Chapter XVI
© 2004 Clare Benton
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