All Chapters of Cruel Love Back in His Hands : Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

The fertility specialist had suggested, gently and practically, that four months of unsuccessful trying in the context of an already stressful year was an argument for a brief interruption. Not giving up — interrupting. She had said: sometimes the body needs the month to not be the month. She had said: take a trip if you can. Do something that has nothing to do with outcomes.She had agreed before George did, which told her something about how much she had needed to hear someone say it out loud.They left Lily with Ellen and Sandra, who had extended her visit by two weeks on the grounds that she had not seen enough of Lily's school and of the autumn light in Queen Anne, which Sandra had decided was underrated. Lily had found this acceptable. Sandra had found it more than acceptable. Ellen and Sandra had, over the preceding month, developed an efficient rapport based on shared opinions about the correct temperature for serving food and a mutual willingness to argue with each other abou

An automated message first, asking her to hold for a representative from the Lakewood Correctional Facility. She was in the kitchen, half-awake, and her first thought was that it was the restorative justice follow-up. Her second thought, arriving half a second later, was that the automated message had said infirmary.The representative came on the line.She said: I'm calling for Kristine Crawford. We have Nathan Caldwell listed as an emergency contact — she is listed on his file with that name.She said: yes.The representative said: Mr. Caldwell was involved in a physical altercation yesterday afternoon. He is currently in the infirmary with non-critical injuries. We are required to notify the listed emergency contact.She said: I see.She said: I need to remove my name from his contact list. Today. Permanently. Please document this call and ensure that neither I nor anyone in my immediate household receives any further contact — medical, administrative, or otherwise — from this faci

This was the reasonable explanation and she applied it for four days before acknowledging to herself that she was running out of reasons to apply it.The exhaustion was first. Not the tired she knew — the tired that came from a full week or a difficult project or the specific depletion of a hard conversation with Dr. Weiss. A different tired. The kind that sat behind her eyes and arrived before she had done anything to deserve it.Then the nausea. Mild, unreliable, appearing at the wrong times — not in the mornings specifically, which she had expected, but in the afternoons, at her desk, during meetings, in the car on the way home. She had eaten through it and not told anyone and rescheduled two lunches on the grounds of a persistent headache that was not entirely untrue.The emotional part was the hardest to explain away.She cried at a commercial on her phone. Not a moving commercial — an advertisement for a car that involved a father and a daughter and a graduation. She had watched

Dr. Huang was thorough and warm and had the specific quality Kristine had come to appreciate in medical professionals — she gave complete information without editorialising the emotion of it, leaving the emotional response to the people in the room who were equipped to have it.The appointment covered everything the first trimester required covering. Blood draws. Medical history review, which George had contributed to at several points with the specific fluency of a colleague rather than a patient's partner, and which Dr. Huang had received with the measured tolerance of someone who was used to medical professionals being unable to entirely turn off the professional register even in personal contexts. A discussion of what to expect in the coming weeks. The continued monitoring plan given the endometriosis history.And then the ultrasound.She had seen the initial one. The confirmation image, the heartbeat flicker, the relief of placement. But this was the full picture — bigger screen,

Dr. Huang had scheduled it at seven in the morning, which meant Lily was still at home when they left and had to be informed of the appointment and the likely subject matter.Lily had said: are you finding out what it is.George had said: yes.She had said: text me immediately.He had said: you'll be in school.She had said: text me anyway.He had said: immediately.She had approved of this arrangement and gone to find her backpack.The clinic was quiet at seven. The waiting room had one other couple, both of them with the specific early-morning stillness of people who had come a long way from ordinary life for this particular hour.She lay back.George stood beside her.He had been like this since the first trimester had ended. Not anxious exactly — George's version of protective was not anxiety but attentiveness, the specific quality of someone who has identified the thing most important to them and has organised their functioning around not failing it. He had been carrying things.