“Maybe sooner.” He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture Beth recognized as his processing mode. “That's...soon.”
“Very observant.”
“I mean, I knew it was coming. Obviously. The calendar has been staring at me for months. But hearing her say it out loud, putting a timeline on it...” He shook his head. “It's real now.”
“It's been real for a while, Gabriel. There are two humans inside me. They move. They kick. They have hiccups at three in the morning.”
“I know. But now they're going to be outside humans.Humans we have to keep alive and feed and teach things to. Humans who will eventually ask us questions we don't know the answers to.”
Beth reached up and cupped his face in her hands. His beard was soft against her palms, his eyes wide and slightly wild.
“We're going to be fine,” she said. “We have help coming. My mom and Paolo and Chelsea will be here Thursday. Your dad and James are right down the road. My sisters are driving up with Grandma Sarah. We are not doing this alone.”
“I know.”
“And we have each other. That's the most important part.”
Gabriel leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. They stood like that for a moment, breathing together, two people on the edge of the biggest change of their lives.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too. Even when you hover.”
“I don't hover.”
“You absolutely hover. You're like a very large, bearded hummingbird.”
He laughed, and the tension in his shoulders eased slightly. “A hummingbird. That's a new one.”
“I've had a lot of time to think about it.”
They walked to the car, Beth moving slowly, her hand pressed against the small of her back. The babies had shifted during the appointment, and now one of them was pressing against her bladder while the other seemed to be practicing gymnastics on her ribs.
“Before we head home,” she said as Gabriel opened the passenger door for her, “can we stop somewhere? I want to call Emily, and I don't want to do it from the house where everyone can hear.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Everyone being my father?”
“Your father has very good ears, and he worries. I don't want him to worry.”
“About Emily?”
Beth lowered herself into the car seat, a process that required careful maneuvering and an undignified amount of grunting. “About me. About the fact that I'm trying to manage seventeen things at once when I'm supposed to be resting.”
Gabriel closed her door, walked around to the driver's side, and slid behind the wheel. “The coffee shop on Main Street? They have those muffins you like.”
“Perfect.”
They drove through town, past the storefronts and the library and the elementary school where Beth had once imagined sending her own children someday. That someday was almost here. In a matter of days, she would have two babies who would grow into toddlers who would grow into children who would walk through those doors and learn to read and make friends and become people she couldn't yet imagine.
The thought was overwhelming. Beautiful, but overwhelming.
Gabriel parked in front of the coffee shop, and Beth pulled out her phone while he went inside to order. She found Emily's number and pressed call.
Emily answered on the third ring. “Beth. Is everything okay? You don't usually call in the middle of the day.”
“Everything's fine. I just had a doctor's appointment and wanted to talk to you.”
There was a pause. Emily processed information differently than most people. She took her time, considered her words, didn't rush to fill silences with meaningless chatter. It was one of the things Beth loved about her.
