“Alright, let’s get you settled,” the nurse tells me, as she reaches down to help me out of the chair. I lean against her heavily, feeling like a damn prize heifer as she guides me into one of the free rooms and lets me settle into the bed.
I flop down, already out of breath—as I have been for the last three months, it feels like. I knew that pregnancy was tough on the body, but it turns out when you’ve got double the babies, you’ve got double the symptoms to go with it. Or at least, I’ve been unlucky enough for it to turn out that way.
“Okay, I’m going to get the prenatal specialist and the rest of the team prepped,” she tells me, giving my hand a squeeze. “Would you like me to call anyone? Your husband, your family?”
I shake my head through gritted teeth. I don’t have the energy or the desire to explain to her that I am doing this entirely as a single mother, that the father of these babies doesn’t even know they exist, and that nobody other than my cousin Sofia—who’s currently pulling a double shift at the diner she works at to pay for a crib—is going to be visiting once they’re born.
I think the nurse gives me a slightly pointed look, but maybe I’m just overthinking it. Soon, another searing wash of pain takes control of me again, and I close my eyes and lean my head back on the pillow to try and manage it.
I still can’t believe this is happening. I’ve had the better part of nine months to get used to the fact that I’m pregnant, and still it feels like something that’s happening to someone else. When I found out I was having twins, it seemed like some kind of sick joke being played on me by the universe at large.
But I decided to see it another way—a promise, at last, that I’m going to have the family that has been absent for so much of my life. Two babies. Two babies that I can give the most perfect life imaginable to. I know it’s not going to be easy, but I will never put them through what I went through as a kid, bounced around via foster homes and families until it felt like I could hardly get the ground under my feet at all.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whisper, half to myself and half to my little ones.
I don’t care how difficult this is, how painful it might be.
I am going to do right by them.
This is the hard part. At least, that’s what I have to hope…
It doesn’t take long for the room to fill with people—another couple of nurses, a doctor who checks how dilated I am, all of them talking me through the process in those smooth, calm voices that are meant to make me feel better but only make me want to throw something at them.
One of them takes my hand and I clasp on to it so tight I fear I’m going to puncture through the skin, but it feels good to have someone there for me, in the midst of all of this. I know I’m going to have to do all of this alone once they come into the world, but at least for now, I can pretend that I’m not entirely by myself.
The pain relief is finally administered, and just as I’m starting to get a little woozy, I notice one of the doctors by the door, talking hurriedly to a nurse. Their voices are lowered, and they seem concerned, sending a flood of panic through my system.
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” the nurse assures me quickly, smoothing back my sweat-soaked hair from my face. “The specialist just got called away to another case—an emergency. But you’re okay. Just breathe, alright? And try your best to relax, as hard as I know that is. Everything is going exactly as it’s meant to be…”
I sink back into the pillow, focusing on the sound of my slightly rasping breath as the contractions continue. Now that the pain relief has settled in, it’s starting to feel a little more manageable, even if the squeezing pressure below my waist is the weirdest feeling I’ve ever felt in my life.
My mind flicks, briefly, to the man who fathered these children—the man who has no idea that they’re being brought into the world right here and now. The man I met on that rainy nightafter my car gave up the ghost at the side of the road, who took me home and showed me such kindness when I needed it most.
Even now, the memory of that night has gotten me through some tough times, when I wake up paranoid and drenched in sweat at the memory of Thom and everything he did to me. I have to remember that there’s kindness out there, goodness, and that it will surely be passed down to my children too.
I thought about reaching out to him, seeing if I could track him down based on the information he shared with me that night. I know he’s a doctor, I know he came from Ireland originally, and I know he lives in a luxury cabin in the woods—I probably could have found him if I wanted to, but truth be told, I didn’t want to.
I was terrified about how he would react, perhaps thinking that I had tried to trap him by getting pregnant, even if it had never been my plan. If the twins want to know him one day, maybe I would consider it, but for now I’m just focused on getting through this birth in one piece. Or as close to it as I can?—
“Okay, I’m here,” a voice says from the doorway. A voice that is, much to my shock, familiar. The same lilting tone that I heard all those months ago, the same one that has been stuck in my head ever since. My eyes hazy, I raise my head from the pillow…
And there he is. The very man who got me into this mess in the first place. The man from that night in the woods.
The father of my children.
He’s standing there in the doorway, pulling on a pair of gloves as he takes control of the room. My mind whirs as the pieces fit together, wondering if this can be real or if I have just invented this insane fantasy inside my head. Are the drugs that strong that I would hallucinate someone like this…?
And then his gaze fixes on me, and he freezes. And I know, right then, that this is truly happening. There’s no chance that my mind could come up with a fantasy this convincing.
The world seems to slow for a second, even the pain of my contractions easing as the pure shock sinks in for both of us.
He’s going to put the pieces together. He’s going to figure out that he’s the reason I’m pregnant. I part my lips, half intending to offer some kind of explanation or excuse, but before I can so much as speak, he moves into action.
“Anna, can you check on her dilation?” he asks. “Make sure we’ve got gas and air—are the cannisters fresh? When did she come in, and when did her water break…?”
I notice that he’s trying not to look at me as he speaks, no doubt worried about being pulled out of the moment if he looks too closely at me.
