“He looks like Gabriel,” Brea observed. “The chin. And the eyebrows.”
“I think so, too.” Gabriel sounded pleased. “But I think he has Beth's nose.”
“He has his own nose,” Beth said. “He's been alive for four hours. Let's not assign features yet.”
The room filled with quiet laughter, the easy warmth of family gathered around new life. Chelsea appeared in the doorway eager for her turn to hold the babies. The bassinets were passed from person to person, the twins examined and admired and pronounced perfect by everyone who held them.
“Paolo and Emily are on their way,” she said.
Beth lay back against the pillows and let the scene wash over her. Her body still ached. Her stitches still throbbed. She was still exhausted in a way that went beyond physical tiredness, a bone-deep weariness that she suspected would take weeks to recover from.
But none of that mattered. Not really. Because her family was here, crowded into this small hospital room, passing her children from one set of arms to another. As soon as Beth had called out for her mother, Maggie was right by her side. Her brother, who had survived a trauma that could have killed him and was now cradling her son like he was the most precious thing in the world. Her husband, who had been terrified and determined in equal measure, who had held her hand through every contraction and wept when their children were born.
This was what she had wanted. This was what she had been working toward, even when she didn't know it. A family of her own, surrounded by the family she had been born into.
“Beth?” Maggie's voice broke through her reverie. “Are you okay?”
“I'm perfect,” Beth said. “Absolutely perfect.”
A nurse came to check Beth's vitals and remind everyone that the new mother needed rest. She helped Beth to the bathroom, a slow and painful journey that required support and patience. The mesh underwear, the ice packs, the spray bottle for cleaning, all the unglamorous realities of postpartum recovery that no one talked about in polite company.
“You're doing great,” the nurse assured her. “First day is always the hardest. It gets easier.”
Beth wasn't sure she believed that, but she nodded anyway.
The room began to empty slowly, people offering final congratulations and promises to return tomorrow. Michael and Brea were the last to go, Michael pausing at the door to look back at his sister.
“I'm proud of you,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“Good. Because I don't say it enough.” He smiled, that familiar crooked smile that had been getting him out of trouble since childhood. “Get some sleep. You're going to need it.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
He left, and the room fell quiet. Gabriel had settled into the chair beside Beth's bed, his head tilted back, his eyes closed. The twins slept in their bassinets, their breathing soft and synchronized. Maggie had gone to find coffee and call the rest of the family with updates.
Beth lay in the silence and listened to her babies breathe. Such a small sound. Such an enormous miracle.
She thought about the months ahead, the challenges and the exhaustion and the moments of doubt that were surely coming. She thought about Emily, who had arrived at the farm yesterday and was probably wondering what she had gotten herself into. She thought about the house in Andover, waiting to be emptied and sold, waiting for the family to gather one last time.
So much was changing. So much was beginning.
But right now, in this moment, none of that mattered. Rightnow, there was only this room, this quiet, these two tiny people who had changed everything by simply existing.
Beth closed her eyes and let herself drift toward sleep. Tomorrow would bring its own demands, more nursing, more visitors, more learning how to care for two newborns at once. Tonight, she would rest in the knowledge that she had done something extraordinary.
She had brought two lives into the world. She had become a mother twice over in a single morning. And nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever be the same.
CHAPTER 16
The evening had grown quiet at the Powell house. The dinner dishes were washed and put away, and the soft glow of lamps cast warm shadows across the living room. Crawford sat in his favorite chair by the window, looking down the street at the water, a glass of bourbon untouched on the table beside him.
Ciara watched him from the sofa, her knitting needles still in her lap. She had learned to read her husband's moods over the two years of their marriage, had come to understand the difference between his comfortable silences and the ones that meant something was weighing on him.
This was the second kind.
“You're far away tonight,” she said gently.
