“Mia,” Dante said. “You need to breathe. God doesn’t work like that.” She started to cry, and Dante looked as worried as I felt. The news about my leg wasn’t a complete shock. The prospect had been hanging over our heads after every daily check in, but it wasn’t what anyone would have wanted to hear. “Stress isn’t good for the baby,” Dante told her firmly.
“Link’s fine,” I assured her, taking her bandaged hand in mine. “Nothing is going to happen to him. He’s got Lydia and Dom and Carmen. Carmen, for fuck’s sake. You think Carmen would let anything happen to him?”
She took in big gulping breaths and hiccupped. “Not Link,” she said, looking at me. The tears hung on her lower lash line and she looked worried.
“I’m sorry?” I tried to figure out what other secret baby Mia had managed to have without me.
Mia’s bottom lip trembled again, and Dante answered for her. “You’re going to be a father of two because apparently you can’t wrap it and she can’t say no.”
The tears that would have come from Mia turned into spluttered laughter as she blushed, but I was trying to process what Dante had just told me.
“You’re pregnant?” I asked, taking her in.
She chewed on her bottom lip, an old nervous habit, and nodded her head. “I didn’t want to say anything,” Mia whispered. “There’s so much going on, and I’m... I’m...” The tears spilled over.
“She’s worried about reaching twelve weeks safely,” Dante said quietly.
“Come here,” I told her.
Mia made her way over and came to stand at the side of the bed. I placed my hand against her stomach, and she rested hers over it. This was definitely not part of the plan. We’d agreed that we’d have more children but that was after the wedding. That was after Mia had time to catch her breath because Link was proving to be a little handful. It made sense that this plan had gone to hell with the rest of them.
I understood her fears even if I couldn’t feel them as deeply. Mia was carrying a baby and her fear and responsibility was amplified compared to mine but that didn’t take away from the fact that I wanted this baby to be safe and healthy.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked her.
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” she told me.
“You can’t go through this alone,” I responded sternly.
“I wasn’t. I had Dante.”
Dante made a strangled sound from his seat and I leaned back to look at him with narrowed eyes. “You didn’t think to tell me anything? You didn’t think I deserved to know.” Unlike Mia, there’d been no delay in seeing Dante.
He turned a vibrant pink. “It’s not my secret to tell,” Dante said, words sounding dry in his mouth.
“Am I ever going to find out about my future children before you?”
“Probably not.” He shrugged. If I’d had anything at hand, I would have thrown it at his fat head for that comment. Dante had found out about Link before I had, and our second child had fallen into the same pattern.
“Don’t be mad at D,” Mia told me, jumping in to save him before it went too far. “I asked him to pray with me. I didn’t know what else to do, to be honest. Last resort. I think He must have known that though because I’m paying the price. Not me. You are. I’m so sorry.”
It was a marvel how Mia’s brain worked sometimes. She couldn’t reconcile with true faith, so she believed it worked on a bartering system, and I played along. “I’d lose both my legs if it meant that I got to keep you and our baby.”
“Don’t say that,” she replied.
“It’s the truth.” I’d sacrifice everything for my family. Mia and my children would consistently come before anything else in the world. If God had struck some silent deal that he only knew the terms to, then so be it.
“Let him lose it, Mia,” Dante said from the chair. “He’ll still have the leg you care the most about.”
“Out!” I yelled at him, making Mia jump.
“What? I just—”
“Get out before you lose both of your legs. Now!” Dante didn’t need any more prompting. He shot up from the seat and left the room. Once the door had closed behind him, I looked back to Mia. “What’s going on in that head of yours?” I asked her.
She moved, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and wincing as she did so. “I just don’t know when it’s ever going to end, Luc. It feels like one thing after another. I want to catch my breath, but I can’t.”
“You will,” I told her confidently. “You will. We will. Mia, this is it. We’re almost there.”
