Why would I want to inflict that on more children?
Martha and I split not long afterward, as though she could sense it. As though she knew that it was what was in me that had done this, not her. My son even gave up on my name after that, returning to his mother’s maiden name as a surname, doing everything he could to put distance between us like he wanted to prove to me how little he needed me in his life.
And now, I’m a father again. Like it or not. A fresh batch of my genes sitting right in front of me, slumbering in two cribs as their mother looks on. She has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.And I don’t even know if I have the heart to tell her what she’s in for. It was hard enough with one, but two?
“Martin?” she prompts me, trying to bring me back to the moment.
I blink and shake my head. “I have to go.”
“You’re just going to leave? Like that?” she retorts. I hate the tone in her voice, the pain that she can’t hide. I wonder if, for her, I’m just another in a long line of men who have screwed her over and left her when she needed them most. I hate that I might be, but I have no choice.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, and I turn and head for the door. My head is a mess. I can’t do this again, go through the pain of loving children only to see them struggle and hurt the people around them. They might only be babies now, but time passes all too quickly, and when the reality sets in…
I don’t know if I’m going to be able to cope with it.
Even as she calls after me, I keep my head down and close the door, ignoring the anguish in her voice, and praying that she can find it in her heart to forgive me one day.
Even if I’m not sure I will ever be able to offer the same grace to myself.
7
LILA
“Hey, be careful,”I protest, as Sofia bumps me over the step at the bottom of the stairs and starts wheeling me toward her car. “Recently pregnant woman here, you know. And two babies.”
“Sorry, sorry,” my cousin mutters as she continues on her way to her beat-up old car. I can’t help but smile when I see that she’s put a couple of baby seats into the back, clearly prepared for this day, even if I am still reeling from what happened earlier.
“It’s okay,” I murmur. “I’m just… I’m just glad you’re here, Sof.”
She leans down to give me a quick hug, dropping a kiss on the heads of each of the twins in turn. As she straightens up, she frowns.
“Wait, am I allowed to kiss them?” she wonders aloud. “I mean, what if I have germs or something on me? Oh God, do I need to sanitize their little heads now or?—”
“Sofia.” I speak over her before she can vanish into one of her usual anxiety spirals. “It’s okay. You’re doing great. Now, can you get me home so I can sleep in my own bed for a change?”
“Your chariot awaits, fair maiden,” she replies, sweeping her hand toward the door with a flourish. “You need help getting in…?”
“Oh God, yes,” I reply, looking down at the twins. “And I don’t exactly feel very fair-maiden-like right now. Maybe after I’ve had a shower or three…”
Sofia sets about securing the twins into their seats, and Matty begins to cry. I lean back, stroking her dark brown hair back from her face.
“Hey, you’re alright, sweetheart,” I promise her softly. “You’re going to be fine. Not long now till we’re home, okay?”
She settles soon after I pay her attention, and I gaze into her eyes for a moment, still not entirely sure that she’s real. I mean, how could I have created something as perfect as her? And done it twice, for that matter.
As she looks back at me, I see a hint of green in those eyes, and I’m reminded of the hard truth. That it wasn’t just me. That there was someone else involved too—someone who doesn’t seem to want anything to do with our twins now that they have come into the world. The smile fades from my face, and I squeeze her little hand gently before I sit back into my seat and wait for Sofia to pull away.
Sofia isn’t really my cousin; I don’t know any of my actual biological family, but she might as well be, as far as I’m concerned. She’s been my best friend for years, ever since we wound up in the same foster family together as kids, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. We went to the same high school, even attended the same college for a couple years before all that shit with Thom went down.
As much as he tried to force the people I cared about out of my life, Sofia just dug her heels in and wouldn’t move, even as the rest of my friends fell away.
When I came back to the city, with nowhere else to go, I slept on her couch for a while. I managed to get enough money together from a part-time job I picked up at a cafe nearby to get an apartment of my own, just around the same time that I found out I was pregnant. I hid it from her as long as I could—in denial of some kind, I suppose—but she knew me too well not to notice the giant hoodies that I suddenly seemed to be wearing everywhere.
Upon discovery, she pretty much tried to interrogate the truth of the father from me as best she could. But all I could do was assure her that it wasn’t Thom, and leave it at that.
“If it is him, you know he’ll find out,” she had warned me.
“It’s not,” I promised her. “Honestly. We didn’t do anything like that together the last few months I was living with him. I couldn’t have him near me without freaking out.”
