Helpless

Nothing would ever be the same.

If John O’Callaghan was sure of one thing, it was that. His once content and bubbly wife would probably never be exactly as she once was - not that he really expected her to be. Silence now filled their once happy and busy home. He never heard her laughter anymore and it’d been months since she’d made a mess in their kitchen while she experimented with her ideas.

He missed those days – he missed coming home to find Logan happily mixing some sort of concoction and he missed the way she used welcome everyone into their home with open arms and a bright smile, but most of all he missed the way they used to talk.

Now, the most communication they had was at the dinner table when one of them asked to pass the salt. As much as John didn’t want to admit it, the silence was tearing him apart. He didn’t know how to fix it though.

He smiled softly at the sight of Logan, watching her hips sway gently with the soft hum of Patsy Cline. To be honest, John wasn’t a fan but he knew how significant it was to her.

For a reason that Logan couldn’t explain to John, Patsy Cline reminded her of her mother – her best friend and her hero wrapped into one perfect person in her eyes.

“Something smells good,” he said seconds before wrapping his arms around her waist. John peered over her shoulders after pressing a light kiss to her cheek to catch a glimpse of whatever Logan was attempting to make.

He could feel her cheek shift against his as she smiled. “You’re a rotten liar,” she said, placing her hands over his, “-but I appreciate your consideration for my feelings.”

John couldn’t help but grin as she shifted their hands up just a little, pressing his palms against her stomach gently.

John kissed her one last time on the cheek, savoring the moment and naïvely believing that time spent like this would never end.

Logan’s eyes weren’t filled with that sparkle anymore. Something just turned off in them after everything that had happened.

John studied her as she stared blankly at the television, caught up in a place that was completely different than the one she was in now. Her brown hair was tossed up into a messy knot on the very top of her head and she was wearing one of his ratty sweatshirts that he’d let her keep after their seventh date.

Without a sound, she stood and wandered to the second story of their home.

Letting a sigh escape his lips, John ran his fingers through his hair and silently wished that he could hold her again. They hadn’t had physical contact in weeks aside from fingers brushing as they reached for the same fork. Hell, he hadn’t even felt her feet tangle with his at night like they used to.

But he couldn’t hold her without Logan pulling away. The spark seemed to be missing from their marriage and Logan wanted nothing more than to be alone. For hours, she would sit in their bedroom, isolating herself from him and their friends and family. On really bad days, she wouldn’t even leave the comfort of their bed.

Something was different about Logan. Her head always seemed to be in a different place and when John did manage to snap her out of her thoughts, she seemed jittery. It didn’t take a genius to know that she was hiding something but he was getting impatient silently waiting for her to tell him.

After a long writing session at Jared’s he found her hunkered down on the sofa, a blanket tossed over her lap, television playing Disney’s Tangled – her latest favorite movie – with a canister of original Pringles in grip.

“What a pretty sight,” he teased, sitting down after lifting her legs to sit beside her. She smiled, holding out the red package to him, knowing full and well that he wouldn’t resist.

“You know what I thought of today…?” she asked after she managed to pull her eyes away from the television screen. “I heard all of the girls at work use nicknames for their boyfriends earlier, and I realized that we’re married and I don’t have a nickname for you.”

“Yes you do,” he countered, popping a chip into his mouth. “You call me Johnny sometimes.”

Logan shook her head. “No, that doesn’t count because it’s longer than your real name. It bothered me all day,” she admitted. “I mean, I can’t call you Jay: it reminds me too much of your father. And I’m not creative enough to pull anything else from John.”

“Looks like you’re stuck then,” he teased once more, mentally pouting when she pulled her legs from his lap. She was incredibly warm.

“No, see, I actually came up with one. I’ll admit, it doesn’t really incorporate your first name and I think you should weigh in on it – you know, tell me what you think about it,” Logan said, wrapping her arms around her knees after handing him the Pringles.

John turned to her, his green eyes narrowing skeptically at her. There was more to this than what she was leading on. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. “Should I be worried?”

He watched his wife bite down on her lower lip, her dead giveaway that she was nervous. “I don’t know… That’s it; I just have to tell you. What about,” she stared at the television screen, afraid to see his reaction, “Dad?”

“Dad?” he repeated, nearly choking – not realizing what she was getting to just yet. “Dad?” he repeated, letting the word sink through his head before something clicked: the wires were snapping together.

“Of course, I wouldn’t be using it very often-”

“Logan, are you-”

She nodded, smiling through frightened tears, “Yes,” she sighed. “Yes, John. I’m pregnant.”

Logan was gone. She went out for her daily run three hours before and she hadn’t returned yet. Worried, John drove around town, searching all of the significant places in her life to see where she possibly could have disappeared to.

He knew her, and even if they weren’t exactly in the best of places in their marriage, he trusted that she wouldn’t just leave without a single word. With her more recent history, Logan probably took a break somewhere and got caught up in her own mind again. But even with the comfort of knowing that was likely the case, it didn’t stop John from being concerned about her safety.

Logan needed him, no matter how hard she tried to push him away; all John could do was to still be waiting for her when she came around again.

He pulled his car to a stop in the park and climbed out to walk the jogging trail that Tempe provided. With his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, he wandered along the dirt path, sand sticking the leather of his boots. For a split second he felt happy as he stared through tree branches above and easily understood why Logan liked running in the area.

But his happiness was short lived when he saw her hunched figure sitting on the dirt path with her palms applying pressure on her eye sockets, willing herself not to cry.

“Promise me you won’t choose Pat to be godfather of Baby Ohh,” Logan said. John could see the humor in her eyes but he knew that she was being serious as she flipped through a magazine on motherhood. “I love the boy to death, you know that, but he’s going to be such a bad influence.”

“Isn’t that kind of the point? To choose someone who can teach our child all the bad things they’re not supposed to do?” He chuckled when Logan gave him a serious look. “I’m joking, Lo. I was actually thinking of asking Garrett.”

“Garrett?” she shifted, crossing her legs on the sofa to imitate him. Logan let the idea roll around in her head for a second. “Garrett. He’d be good. He’s a kid himself so they’ll probably be able to relate to each other…” she teased. “I’m surprised you didn’t choose Jared or Kenny though.”

“They're good guys. They're my best friends, but Garrett just seems right-” he stopped when Logan sat up straighter and placed her hand on her expanding stomach. “What?”

A smile spread over her face but she didn’t say a word. Instead, she gripped John’s hand and moved it in place of hers. “Just feel,” she said. Within seconds, John could feel something cross over his palm. “We just felt Baby Ohh.”

John wasn’t sure how to comfort her. When he last tried, Logan snapped which only further strained their already damaged relationship. He crouched beside her, placing his hand carefully on her shoulder. “Are you okay?” When Logan said nothing, he pressed a little more. “What’s wrong?”

With the shake of her head, John felt what possibly could have been the last piece of his heart break a little more. As if the motion was her last straw, she broke down to sobs. “I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry things ended up like this. This is my fault,” Logan cried. “Everything is my fault.”

Logan could hear the sound of the television playing and the attempts of her husband and his friend trying to be quiet but it was a fruitless effort on their part. She could still hear them cursing at whatever game was on followed by John’s loud shushing sound.

Something was off. She could feel it – that intuition that something just wasn’t right.

Just to be overly cautious, Logan took the day to rest in bed, telling John that she just wanted to catch up on some long lost sleep which was mostly true. She sighed and contently shifted to hug her pillow tighter to her as the two boys shouted out another protest.

Before Logan could get too comfortable an intense pain shot through her. Instinctively her hands cradled her swollen stomach that could have indicated she was further along in her pregnancy than 21 weeks. She tried not to jump to any conclusions but she couldn’t help it as a second, much sharper pain came.

Logan sat up and hobbled her way toward the living room, stopping momentarily with each pain that came and went to find support on whatever surface she was nearest to. “John?” she asked weakly as she leaned in the doorway. “John, I need you.”

Both he and Jared glanced up from the television to see her pain-stricken face but what really caught their attention was the sticky red substance that was staining the fragile fabric of her nightgown and dripping down the insides of her legs.

“You were so excited to be a dad and then- then I just let you down. It’s all my fault, John!”

John shook his head and pinched his eyes shut at her words. He’d never felt as sad as he’d been feeling the past four months and Logan’s words felt like a hard punch to the chest. “No. No, Baby. Nothing’s your fault.”

“Yes it is!” she cried as John pulled her into his chest. Logan fought against him though and in an instant they were separated again with a gap between them that seemed more and more common with each passing day. “If I would have called the doctor earlier that morning-”

“Then what, Lo? We’d have a perfectly happy, healthy baby right now? I don’t think so.” John didn’t mean to sound so upset but he was upset and he was damn tired of hiding it. “You would’ve been admitted and everything that happened that day still would have happened. Nothing would change, Logan. Nothing would be different.”

Logan couldn’t look at him and for a moment John thought her silence was her angry way of telling him that his words weren’t true. As the silence pressed on, the hopes of ever being a successful couple within him began to fade from his fantasies.

“Deep down, I know you’re right,” she stated after her cries quieted to nothing but the occasional sniffle. Logan still couldn’t bring herself to look at him but John couldn’t help but to stare at her hunched frame in awe for a moment. He almost couldn’t believe that she was actually speaking to him, not just talking to avoid the conversation. “I just feel so guilty. All. The. Time.”

Another silence settled over them. “I felt helpless in the hospital,” he murmured. “I felt helpless the entire time. Fuck, I still feel helpless because I know you’re hurting and I can’t do anything to help you.” The admission was a big one, one that Logan felt she needed to hear.

A shaky sigh escaped Logan’s lips as she craned her neck to look at him through puffy, red eyes. “I’m sorry… Things have been pretty bad between us, huh?” she asked, a humorless hint of a laugh tainting her words.

John let out his own puff sarcastic laugh as he nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I still miss you.”

For one of the first times in months, John saw a genuine smile lift his wife’s lips. “I still miss you too.” John grinned at her, reaching over to take her hand in his. “This isn’t going to be easy,” Logan admitted, more to herself than to her husband. "Trying to fix everything isn’t going to be easy."

“Life is never really easy,” John stated, pressing his lips lightly to her knuckles before standing. “Are you ready to come home?” he asked. When Logan nodded, he pulled her up from the dirt and together they headed toward the car.

John couldn’t help but to smile to himself the entire walk back.

There was still hope.

After everything that had happened to them, there was still hope for them.