“What does this mean, Dr. Estrada?” Maeve asked.
“Well…” Salma said again. “It means…you’re having twins. Baby A. Baby B.”
“Twins?” Maeve barely got out.
“Twins,” I said, and all eyes turned to me. “Camden and Caitlin.”
“Not sure of the sexes just yet,” Salma said, “but definitely two.”
“Two of the same,” I said, feelin’ a sense that this moment had happened twice in my life. A shiver ran through me. Maeve held on to my hand even tighter.
“Twins for the wins!” Maeve pressed her head against the pillow, her feet tappin’ against each other, and laughed, so full of joy, I thought she might burst. Maybe that was why her eyes were leakin’ like that.
“At the twelve-week scan, you’ll be able to tell if the babies are identical. But I’ll say this.” Salma took the picture and looked right at me. “They’re not hiding. As wild and as bold as their dad, it seems.”
Salma winked at me, handing the picture to Maeve, and then she and her sister left me and my wife alone, allowing what seemed like all the light and fresh air in the world to flood in.
Chapter36
Cian
Sometimes, out of the blue, I was the kid buried underneath the surface of the ground again. My lungs would burn, like I’d just run up that hill. My heart would ache, like I’d just realized my parents and siblin’ were gone. I’d taste the acid of vomit in my throat and smell mud in my nose. I’d feel things crawlin’ on me, but I was too frozen to move.
I’d feel trapped in this life. In this body.
After, I moved about like a ghost on the hunt for the men who’d murdered my parents and stolen my life.
I looked down at my hands, turnin’ them some in the foggy beach air. My nails were cut down to the quick, but my blood was still caked underneath them.
Just as I’d imagined those memories from before, I was seein’ somethin’ entirely different now.
The blood might as well have been mud.
Lookin’ at my wife, I realized she’d given me the breath to claw my way out of the grave and to break the hold death had on me.
She gavemea purpose.
She had mine tucked deep below her surface, shieldin’ them like armor.
A grin came to my face when she rushed back with the tide and it almost touched her feet. The water was choppy, the wind whippin’, tearin’ her hair out of the bun. It clung to her face as the strands desperately tried to hold on. Even with all the violence of the weather and the silvery tint to the world, she was the brightest spot in it.
Her head was turned up to the sky, like she was absorbin’ the sun.
She was the sun. Nothin’ could touch her but the clouds. And she intoxicated them as much as she intoxicated me.
I was the world in that moment—feelin’ everythin’ and reactin’ to it.
I’d make sure nothin’ ever touched her or my purposes that she hid deep inside.
Closing my eyes,I see the scene again.
My parents.
The shimmer of the stained-glass window.
Two figures who didn’t belong.
I hear it again.
