LOVE LIFE and VOWS by LaShawn Vasser Page A

their coffees.
    *****
    Vicky was angry that Jason wasn’t willing to deal with how he was feeling. Or, at least express it to her. It was so important that they communicate right now. It would be way too easy to misinterpret something and cause each other unnecessary pain.
    That lawyer made her sound like a gold-digging whore. Vicky just hoped that it didn’t create any doubt in him about her. There was nothing she could do or say to plead her case since he was having drinks with Franklin.
    Vicky decided to try to clear her mind and lay down next to her baby girl. She’d taken these precious moments for granted. There could come a time where she might not get to do this. Tears started to leak from her eyes. Vicky didn’t know exactly when she fell asleep because she was so exhausted but she cried herself to sleep.
    About an hour or so later, something woke her up. When she looked over on the other side of the bed Jason hadn’t come back yet.
    A stabbing pain hit her in her stomach. At the same time, she felt something wet in her bed. Vicky pulled the covers back and that when she noticed all the blood.
    “Oh my god. No.no.no!”
    Another pain racked her body. She reached for her cell phone sitting on the table next to the bed but knocked a glass to the floor. It went crashing down and shattered into a million little pieces. The pain was unbearable.
    Angel woke up “Mommy…you okay? Mommy!”
    Vicky bit her lip so hard she knew she drew blood. The pain was so intense she could barely speak, “Mommy needs Jason.”
    Vicky knew the blackness was just around the corner. “Angel…mommy broke some glass please don’t come on this side of the bed okay.”
    She tried again to reach for her cell phone but it crashed to the floor and the blackness overtook her.
    Jason walked through the door and heard the crash. Angel hopped from the bed running toward him,
“Daddy daddy something is wrong with mommy.”
    Jason ran over to Vicky’s side of the bed and saw the broken glass and the blood. He immediately called 9-1-1. He felt for a pulse and thanked god he found one.
    The EMT’s got to the scene within a few minutes of his call but it felt like forever. Jason put Angel’s jacket on and followed them into the ambulance.
    He listened intently as they talked to each other and started working on her. Someone finally asked him a question,
    “Do you know how long she was like this?”
    Jason frustratingly ran his fingers through his hair, “No, I’d just made it back to our room.”
    “How many weeks is she?”
    “She’s about 30 weeks. Are they going to be okay?”
    “Well, it looks like there was a rupture of her uterus. It doesn’t feel like a complete tear but she’s losing a lot of blood.”
    The ambulance pulled up to the emergency room entrance. The team of doctors met them at the door. They put Vicky on a gurney and took her immediately into surgery.
    Angel was crying. Jason didn’t realize it but he was crying too. “Mommy’s going to be okay sweetheart.”
    Jason held Angel tight. She laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed. His shirt was soaked. He used his other hand to call his mom and dad. They came rushing through the hospital doors with Aunt Shirley within a half an hour.
    Aunt Shirley was still wearing her head-wrap and robe. “Have you heard anything? Are they alright?”
    Jason shook his head, “I don’t know. They’re still in surgery.”
    “Let me have the baby.” She reached for Angel but Angel held on tightly to Jason’s neck. He shook his head. “That’s okay. She needs me and I need her.”
    Shirley understood.
    His mom wiped his tears from his face, “Jason, what happened?”
    “I don’t know. We argued and I left for a couple of hours. When I came back she was bleeding and unconscious. I don’t even know how long she’d been that way. I should have been there.”
    Mr. Rutherford patted his son on the back, “Jason, this is not your fault.”
    “I should have been there dad.