“So…who was it?” she had pressed again, and I shook my head and waved my hand.
“It doesn’t matter.”
But it seems like, now that she’s been confronted with the actual reality of the twins once more, her curiosity is getting the better of her again.
“So you’re really still not going to tell me who the father is?”
I shake my head. “It’s not important,” I reply. “He’s…he’s not going to be part of their lives. That’s all that matters.”
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, and I can practically sense her confusion coming off her in waves. “You know that for sure?”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve spoken to him about it?”
“Sofia, I’m exhausted,” I tell her, hoping that I can plead out of this for a little while longer. “Can we talk about this some other time?”
“Sure we can,” she replies, though I sense that she’s far from done with the conversation. I rest my head against the window and close my eyes, pretending I’m getting some sleep, even though it feels virtually impossible to turn my mind off after what happened with Martin at the hospital.
I can’t believe how he reacted. And he’s meant to be a prenatal specialist—aren’t babies his whole thing?
I guess he likes to keep his work and his personal life separate, because the way he looked at the twins…it was like he had been punched in the mouth.
And I get it, there’s going to be some level of shock there, given that he had no idea until he was helping birth them, but I expected him to…I don’t know, at leastpretendto put on the front that he wasn’t completely horrified by their existence?
I can’t get the look on his face out of my head. It was more than just surprise or betrayal; something like that I could wrap my head around. No, this went deeper, far deeper. This is something that reaches into the depths of his soul, something he doesn’t want to see reproduced. I don’t know how he can look at two such perfect, innocent little creatures and see anything otherthan babies who need protection, but I guess I am the one to blame for this…
The one to blame for my kids not having a loving father in their life. The meds I’m on have numbed the pain from birth, at least somewhat, but they can’t undo the hurt of realizing that.
Whenever I pictured having a family at some point in my future, I always imagined the most perfect, idyllic life imaginable. With two parents, everything that I never had. I grew up with the knowledge that my family didn’t want me, that they had turned their backs on me when I was nothing more than a kid—I don’t even remember my mother and father, and that was how they wanted it to be. And now…
Now, my twins will live with some of the same pain. I might not be abandoning them, but their father wants nothing to do with them, and I don’t know how I’m going to ease the pain of that in years to come. I glance at them in the mirror, the two of them lulled to sleep by the motion of the car as Sofia crawls at a snail’s pace through the city, and a lump springs to my throat at the thought of it. I want them to have everything, but there’s one thing I will not be able to give them.
We arrive at my apartment building, and Sofia helps me get the twins upstairs and settled into their bassinets. She has done so much for me these last few months, helping me out with building all the new furniture that I’m too useless to put together, making sure I have the fridge and freezer stocked with fresh meals so I won’t have to worry about cooking while I’m in the trenches of the newborn stage.
“I don’t know what I would have done without you, Sof. Seriously,” I tell her, as she sets me up on the couch with some water and a modesty cover so I can breastfeed. I take Ross intomy arms, and he latches almost at once, just like he did back at the hospital. That, at least, isn’t something I have to worry about, even though the sheer enormity of the task in front of me is just beginning to sink in.
“You would have found a way,” she tells me gently. “You always do. You’ve made it through so much already, Lila. You’ll make it through this too.”
I gaze down at the little boy currently feeding from my breast, and I can’t help but smile. She’s right. I feel a sudden surge of certainty that she is genuinely, truly right. If I can feed these babies, if I can love on them, if I can make them feel as though they’re not missing anything despite the fact that their father seems to want nothing to do with them—then I will. I will pour every inch of my energy into making sure of it, no matter how impossible it seems. I have a home, I have a room for them, and I have a job that’s willing to take me back once I’ve recovered from giving birth. It might not be how I pictured bringing my family into this world, but hey, sometimes things don’t go exactly as you imagined them. Doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.
“Can I hold him?” she asks me softly as Ross finishes feeding and I reach for Matty.
I nod. “Be careful,” I reply. “He needs burping. And if he’s had to much to eat, he might throw up on you a little.”
“I already picked out all my ugliest clothes for the occasion,” she replies, and I laugh as I brush some of the strands of dark hair off of Matty’s forehead. She lets out a small, satisfied cooing sound before she latches, and I focus on the sensation of it, how new it feels. Guess I’m going to have to get used to this, since I’ll be pulling double-dinner shifts for the twins for the next few months.
Sofia gently takes Ross from me and lays him against her chest, rubbing his back carefully like she learned to do from all those videos we watched together. It’s hard to believe that the kid she’s holding is mine, but it’s true.
For a moment, everything is quiet and still, Ross tucking his legs up beneath him in that adorable scrunching motion I’ve seen so many newborns do before. I feel Matty shifting slightly against me, getting comfortable—it strikes me that she must be able to feel my heartbeat from here, just the same way she could feel it when I was carrying her inside of me.
And then, with a sudden noise, Ross spits up over Sofia’s shoulder. I press my lips together to try and keep from laughing, but I can’t hold it in. I giggle, almost unlatching Matty in the process, as Sofia sighs and rises to her feet.
“Well, can’t say you didn’t warn me,” she remarks. “Come on, little buddy, let’s get you cleaned up. You and me both, actually…”
She makes her way through to the bathroom, leaving me alone for a moment with my thoughts as I finish up Matty’s first at-home feed.
In the stillness, I can almost forget about my confrontation with Martin earlier. I can almost put out of my mind the look on his face when he walked out of the room, like he hoped he would never lay eyes on me or the twins again as long as he lived. I could convince myself that it was all just some dream induced by the medication, and that by the time I wake up tomorrow, it will be a distant part of my past.
