I’d spent years building walls around my emotions, constructing a life defined by control. Yet here I was, utterly powerless, at the mercy of circumstances I couldn’t command.
At Dede’s room, I paused at the threshold. She lay connected to monitors. Despite the equipment and the fatigue evident on her face, her eyes were alert. When she spotted me, she smiled.
“C’mere!”
I moved to her side, taking her hand and pressing my lips to her knuckles. “How are you?” My eyes traveled to the blanket covering her belly. “How are they?”
“We’re all fine,” she assured me.
“I will wait for doctor’s opinion, yes.”
“Stop worrying, Aris. Honestly, we should just be glad I didn’t fall forward.”
“Do not joke about this, no.” The possibilities were too grim to contemplate.
A white-coated doctor with a heavy southern accent entered, consulting his tablet. “Your glucose levels have stabilized, Ms. White, but we need to discuss these test results.” He noticed Kandi and me and hesitated.
“Please continue,” Dede said with a quick smile.
The doctor nodded. “It appears you’ve developed gestational diabetes. That, combined with your age and carrying twins, puts you in a higher risk category.”
I listened with growing concern as he outlined necessary lifestyle modifications: dietary changes, glucose monitoring, reduced stress, increased rest. I questioned him thoroughly, and he answered with professional patience.
Dede turned to Kandi. “Being pregnant at nineteen and at forty-three hit different, don’t it?”
“I will never know. You ain’t have no business getting pregnant in the first place,” Kandi said, shaking her head but smiling back.
“That wasn’t my fault,” Dede shot back.
They both turned to me with pointed looks, as if I bore sole responsibility.
“We will go to Greece, yes.” My tone made it clear this wasn’t a suggestion. “You will be surrounded by family, with servants attending to your needs. I will ensure you have best medical careavailable. The doctors, they will visit our home several times weekly.
Dede glanced at Kandi. “Can we have a minute?”
“Sure, Dee. I’ll be right outside.” Kandi stood, giving me a look I couldn’t quite decipher before stepping out.
Once the door clicked shut, Dede narrowed her eyes. “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind without asking what I want.”
I exhaled, fighting to maintain composure. “I learned about your hospitalization from my mother, who heard it from Tia. These are my children, yes, yet I am last to know when they are in danger. Why was I not first person called?”
She considered my words. “I’m sorry.”
But my patience had eroded. “Are you? I remain peripheral to your life and that of my own children.”
“I’ll add you to my emergency contacts.”
“What good is that? If you were unconscious and decisions needed making, I would have no voice in matters concerning you or my children.” I answered my own question. “Tia, she would determine their future, not me.”
“So this is what this is really about? You being in control?” She shifted against the pillows. “I’m not trying to cut you out. But you can’t swoop in and rearrange my whole life.”
I turned away, struggling to contain my anger and failing. “I cannot do this right now, no.”
“So you’re just gonna leave?” The hurt in her voice made me pause at the doorway, my hand on the frame. I drew a breath, fighting the urge to turn back.
“I need air, yes,” I said without looking at her, and walked out.
23
