Grant looked at me, then back at the screen. “Babies? Don’t you mean baby?”
“See here,” the nurse pointed to the scan. “That’s one head. This over here,” she moved her finger. “This is the second baby. They don’t appear to be identical. They’re both in different sacs. In a few weeks we might be able to tell the gender.”
“There are two in there?” He was looking at my stomach. “How will two fit?”
“I’ll end up being huge.” One of my cousins had twins. She could barely walk by the end of her pregnancy, but she was keen on the attention. “That’s two sets of furniture then.”
“Jesus, fuck. Twins?”
“Yes, Grant. Twins. Two of them. So you’ll have gone from a father of four to a father of six.” I was highly amused with his reaction.
He found a chair and sat down, head momentarily in his hands.
“Are you okay, Mr Callaghan?” The nurse crouched down in front of him.
He nodded, moving his hands away. “I wasn’t expecting twins.”
“You still aren’t.” I pointed at my stomach. “I’m the one expecting them. It’ll be me doing the work growing them.” The devil got into me. “And pushing them out.”
He got up out of the chair and moved so he could see the screen again. “I hope one’s a girl or Claire will never let us hear the end of it.”
“One of each will be nice, but as long as they’re healthy - ”
“And you’re healthy.” He took hold of my hand. “That’s the most important thing.”
“Thank you. I’m sure we’ll all be fine. As my mam will tell you at least a dozen times while I’m pregnant, women have been getting pregnant since time began. And my father will assure you that flu is much worse, especially when a man gets it.”
Grant laughed, nodding. “Your dad is on the dramatic side.”
“It runs in his family so one of these little ones might end up with that streak too.”
The twins were born in the early hours of the morning, exactly on their expected date, with as smooth a delivery as I could’ve hoped. It ended up being a home birth, which terrified the other residents of the house, except Bernadette who’d been present at a couple of births before.
Grant paced. Max sat in a corner and hid his head in his hands. Claire took vigil outside the bedroom door and Jackson slept through it all.
Callum was either also asleep, or with Grant or Bernie or our au pair, who was more excited than any of us at the prospect of twins.
I had no idea what anyone was doing until afterwards when I enquired as to my family’s whereabout while I’d been labouring times two, slightly concerned that there had been a lack of sleep throughout the house, other than Jacks who’d slept straight through.
In fact, that’d been my first question, while Grant was still in a daze of looking from the baby in his arms to the baby in mine.
“Everyone’s fine. Desperate to meet the twins.” He’d slipped out a couple of times, probably to get himself a cup of tea, while I was in labour. “Have you thought about names?”
“I thought you’d made your mind up about names.”
He shrugged, staring at his new son. “You pick. You did all the work.”
I smiled, the little girl in my arms stirring, probably in shock at meeting the world. “Payton. I know it’s an American name but it’s unusual and my favourite.” And she looked like a Payton, the name suited her. “And you promised my father we’d call a boy Joseph.”
“I like the name Joseph. That’s the one I wanted.” That’d been his top pick, although he'd wanted Marie for a girl. I'd shot that down straightaway. The world didn’t need another Marie Callaghan. One was plenty as it was.
“We have names then.” I relaxed further down into the pillow, aware that I was absolutely exhausted and that I was going to need some sleep soon. “Let’s introduce the first four to the next two.”
“Can we not mention the word six? It is rather a lot.” He stood up, carefully holding Joseph. “Or four plus two. That sounds worse.”
“Call it what you like. You’ve still fathered six children.”
Seph made a little babbling noise that could morph into a cry. “Do you want to bring him here while you rustle up the other kids? He might want to be with his sister.”
