Page 96 of Family Bonds- Gabriela & Luca

“He’s in Boston,” Taylor said.

“When do you see him?” Cora asked, running her fingers through her hair.

“He comes over on the ferry now and again. I’ve gone to see him.”

“When I’m working?” Cora asked. “Or are you lying to me about where you’re going or where you’re staying?”

“Maybe this isn’t the time for that discussion,” Luca said. “We’ll see what the results are and go from there.”

But ten minutes later, the positive pregnancy test came in.

There were tears in the office. Taylor’s and Cora’s.

Both were scared, but he assured them the best he could and called over to the OB office in the building to get her seen right away.

Her age, not knowing how far along she was, but he was guessing four or five months at this point. Add in the fact she wasn’t taking care of herself.

He shouldn’t feel the frustration of it, but he was.

He shouldn’t get a flashback of the baby he always wanted and might have had with his wife.

“That’s a rough one,” Gabriela said to him later that night.

She’d finished her shift, had dinner at her parents’ and was back at her condo.

He had an hour left on his shift and rather than go to the ER to check in on things, was finishing up his orders for the night for his patients on this floor.

But he couldn’t focus on that.

He needed someone to talk to. Someone who could understand what he was thinking. Going through.

The pain in his chest for the child he’d wanted so badly and the life he could give it, knowing that others were getting what he couldn’t.

“I can’t stop thinking about it. She’s a child and she’s about to have one.”

“We see it enough.”

“I know. I rarely feel sorry for myself,” he admitted. And hated that it’d crossed his mind multiple times today. Or worse yet that his thoughts of Zoe came with frustration rather than kindness.

Like he was resentful now and shouldn’t be.

“You can.”

“Thanks.”

“For what?” she asked.

“For being someone I know I can talk to. Who understands without me having to say much at all.”

“I’m always here for you.”

He knew that, but maybe he needed to hear it also.

“There are moments,” he said quietly, staring at the computer in front of him without really seeing it, “when I hate myself for the thoughts that come. For things I need to move past but get sucked back into.”

“I think it’s normal for your mind to go there,” she said gently.

“It feels like it’s unfair,” he went on. “Like the universe got it wrong. I wanted a child. I was ready. I had love to give. Stability. And instead…” He exhaled slowly. “Instead, it’s happening to someone who doesn’t even know how to take care of herself yet.”