Spring's Late Tide Was Never Yours

We had been married for five years, but Chuck Gorman spent more than half his time at the condo opposite the river.

He claimed that his older brother, Calvin, had passed away at a young age, leaving behind his widow, who had no one to depend on, and that as Calvin's brother, he was responsible for taking care of both families. This was a Gorman family value of upholding loyalty and kinship.

I had believed his words then.

To help him uphold his loyalty and dignity, I tolerated it whenever he was absent during important holidays and said nothing when he split his time between his sister-in-law and me during Christmas dinner. I even had to hold back my tongue when others mocked me for being a weak woman who was willing to 'share her husband'.

However, Chuck had always been gentle yet distant when he spoke to me.

This continued until we were involved in an accident with several collisions. The car we were in was wrecked.

As I shielded my heavily pregnant belly, I broke out in cold sweat from the pain. I kept hitting the window while shouting, "Chuck! Save the baby…"

Chuck climbed out from the driver's seat and glanced at my bleeding body, only to turn away to pry open the car door of the back seat. He shielded Sandi Lemming tightly in his arms, holding her against his chest despite her suffering only minor scratches on the forehead.

"Don't look, Sandi. It's okay. I'm right here."

He patted her gently on the back while comforting her over and over to calm her nerves.

As for me, I was stuck inside the car due to the dented car door.

I realized that it was not loyalty and kinship he was practising. He was just unable to see Sandi come to harm at all.

The ambulance arrived at the scene as firefighters were trying to unclamp me from the car door using hydraulic pliers.

I looked down below my car seat to see my blood while my abdomen throbbed with intense pain. My hands were placed protectively around my belly, which contained the baby I had been carrying for seven months, and I wondered if it was still moving.

While I was being transported limply into the ambulance on a gurney, the paramedic placed an oxygen mask over my face while shouting out, "Where's her family? How long has she been pregnant? Is there any information about her pregnancy?"

Chuck Gorman was busy wiping the minor wound on Sandi Lemming's temple with a piece of tissue as the paramedic shouted the question again. He looked at me and told the paramedic, "The baby is 29 weeks old… That's all I know about it."

That was all he knew about it.

Every time I returned from the gynaecologist, I would place the report in the second drawer of the table inside the study, but he never looked at any of the reports. Yet, when it came to Sandi, he could remember all of her medical allergies, which knee she had hurt herself, and how long she liked her tea to sit in hot water.

When the paramedics pushed the gurney toward the ambulance, I turned to look at him, but he did not follow them. Sandi was holding his arm and leaning onto his chest while trembling. Chuck's head was lowered as he pressed his hand behind her head. "Don't look over there. Everything will be fine. Just shut your eyes. I'm here, right by your side."

I watched him help Sandi into another car as the ambulance doors closed before me.

The moment I arrived at the hospital, I was pushed into the surgery room right away. I bit my lip, trying not to scream, but my tears could not stop flowing as they dripped from the oxygen mask while the nurses kept knocking on the outside and calling out, "We need a signature from a family member! We need the consent form for a Caesarean section rescue. Are there any family members of the patient here?!"

Chuck entered the room and took the pen from the nurse to sign his name at the bottom form with trembling hands. I thought he would come over to my side, but he took out his phone to pick up a call after he was done signing it.

His voice was lowered, but I could still hear what he said, "Don't worry, Sandi. The medical report will be out very soon. I told Peter to stay with you for now. I'll head over once I'm done signing the form."

I slowly lost consciousness as the doctors administered anaesthesia to me. I had no idea how long the surgery took, but when I woke up, it was already the middle of the night. Tania Walker was sitting next to my bed with red, swollen eyes.

The first words I spoke were, "Where's my baby?"

Tania did not answer me. I looked at her face and closed my eyes. I could hear my mother-in-law lowering her voice outside my hospital room. "Don't worry about this, Sandi. Chuck had made all the arrangements. You should go back to sleep and take care of yourself…"

No one mentioned my baby. It was as if the baby, who had been living inside me for seven months and who I had given a nickname, the little life whom I had knitted a baby hat for, had never existed.

Chuck did visit me once after that, but all he did was stand at the end of my bed and stay silent for a long time before saying, "I got the confinement center to reserve a place for you. You should just focus on recovering."

He did not apologize nor mention our baby, and I said nothing.

Tania came by the next day to show me the images recorded by the car's dashcam. The first picture showed Chuck standing next to the car door where my seat was with his hand on the bent frame of the door. The second picture showed him turning away from the back seat to pull open the door where Sandi was.

I stared at the picture while my fingers pressed hard on it.

That was when I realized that Chuck's excuse that everything happened too fast was a lie. All he did was choose another woman over me.

I flipped the pictures over and placed them on my bed while my palm pressed on my empty belly. I could not stop crying, and I closed my eyes when I heard someone whisper outside the door that Sandi was still in shock. I looked away and turned to the dark corner of my room.

That night was the first time I did not wait for Chuck to come back.