And there it is. The part that we’ve been dodging so far. Her eyes widen, as though she’s planted her foot on a landmine.
“The circumstances?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
I glance behind me, to make sure the door is shut. Last thing I need is some intern with too big a mouth to hear about what is happening here and turn it into the talk of the hospital. I lean on the door to make sure nobody will burst in and disturb us, and then turn my attention back to her.
“What, that we had sex nine months ago and now you turn up at my hospital giving birth to twins?”
She bites down on her lip. I can see the same flash of fear that was in her eyes the first time we met, and guilt nags at me for an instant. I don’t want her to be scared of me. I don’t want her to feel as though she has to hide this from me. I need to know what part I have in this, if any, before I get dragged into something I might have no business being in.
“I’m sorry,” she blurts out. “I—I thought about telling you, I really did. But we hardly knew each other, I didn’t even know what your name was, and it just didn’t feel fair for me to turn up after we’d slept together once and tell you that?—”
“That you were pregnant with my children?”
She nods. The room spins as the confirmation hits me like a ton of bricks. So, that’s the truth of it, then—I am the father of these children. I look down at the twins before me, stomach twisting into knots. This should be a joyous moment, a moment where I lift them into my arms and gaze into their eyes and marvel at the miracle of bringing new life into the world.
The same way I did with my son—no, myfirstson now. That’s how I have to think about him. Since I now have a second son, along with a daughter.
“You’re sure they’re mine?”
“I wasn’t with anyone else,” she whispers, shaking her head. “They couldn’t have been—there was nobody else they could have belonged to, Martin.”
It’s the first time she’s called me by my name. My hand flies to the tag on my coat, trying to make sense of how ridiculous this is, how backward. She just gave birth to my children and she didn’t even know my fuckingname.
“Were you ever going to tell me? If I hadn’t found out like this?” I ask her gruffly. I don’t want to blow up at her, not in front of the kids, not when she’s clearly in such a vulnerable state, but I know I deserve answers. She can’t just brush this all off, make like she has no part in this.
“I—I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to use you or something,” she blurts out. “I wasn’t—I thought you would—you know how some girls get pregnant because they’re expecting child support?—”
“You really think that’s how I would have reacted to this?” I demand, waving my hand around the room. I can barely bring myself to look at the twins.
Twins. I know that came from my side of the family; my father was a twin, as were two of my aunts on my mother’s side. Looking at them now, it feels wild to me that these two tiny bundles could be connected to my old life back in Ireland, but they are.
“I had no idea,” she fires back. “I didn’t know you, remember? I had no clue who you were or how you might react…”
“I took care of you that night,” I tell her, voice dropping. “That wasn’t enough to convince you that I would have taken care of you and the children too? If you had given me the chance?”
I run a hand through my hair. Anger is tossed up with confusion inside of me, none of it making sense. She’s had nine months to get used to this, I’ve had barely twelve hours since the moment I walked into her hospital room and found out that she was giving birth.
“I’m sorry,” she blurts out. “But isn’t this…this could be a good thing, right? Now that you know?”
I close my eyes, the weight of it all too much for me to take. She has no idea—no idea what it means for me to have more children, not after the last kid I brought into this world.
I can still recall just how hopeful Martha and I were the day our son was born. My littlebairn,that’s what I had called him, just like my Scottish grandfather had referred to me when I was a boy.
And he had looked up at us with those stormy gray eyes and I had seen so much potential in his future, so much hope in everything he might be, everything he might do. I was so determined to do everything I could to give him the life he deserved, but at every turn, I feel as though I must have fucked it up.
He had everything we could give him—we spent plenty of time with him, gave him opportunities to come to us with no blame if something was bothering him, put him in therapy, treatment, supported living, all of it. But it didn’t seem to matter how farout of our way we went to make him better, he was just…there just always seemed to be something in him that we couldn’t reach.
Something that had come from us.
No, not from us. From me. I know it.
I knew Martha too well, even then, to think that she would be capable of instilling such a thing in our son. She had been the perfect child, kind and giving and thoughtful, and I had been the one running all over town, crashing stolen cars, driving my parents insane before I finally came to my senses and applied for college.
I thought I had exorcized that part of me then, but now I can see it was only waiting, ready to pour itself into my son the first chance it got.
I swore, when he was a teenager, that I wouldn’t have any more children. I clearly don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to raising them right, or maybe there’s some gene inside of me that leaves them unable to function in the world at large.
