The monitor shifts, and progress continues. Not dramatic. Not catastrophic. Just life, arriving on schedule. I’ve never known a multiple birth to go this smoothly, but I’ll take it. I step into position as the first twin crowns. “Alright, Perry. You’re ready.”
“No, I’m not.” She grips the rails again, jaw set. “But let’s get this over with anyway.”
It’s not long before there’s a strong cry and a healthy weight announced over the cry. The second follows quickly, a little more stubborn but just as healthy. Two boys.
I hand them off to the nurses for assessment and look back at Perry. She’s exhausted. Glowing in that strange, stunned way new mothers are. Eyes glassy but alert.
“You did good,” I tell her quietly.
For a second, she just looks at me, and something in her expression shifts. Something I can’t quite name. Her voice is hollow and depleted. “Thanks.”
The room quiets in stages.
First, the sharp cries soften into hiccupping newborn breaths. Then the monitors settle into steady rhythms. Nurses move with practiced efficiency—fundal massage (which also earns Perry’s curses), swaddling, charting, checking reflexes. The adrenaline drains from the space, leaving behind that strange, fragile stillness that follows birth.
Perry looks smaller now.
Not physically—she’s still sharp-featured, still watchful—but the fight in her has shifted into something else. Relief. Awe, maybe. One of the nurses places the first baby in her arms, and the transformation is immediate.
Her mouth softens. Her shoulders drop. The sharp edges I saw an hour ago round out. “Hi, little guy.”
“You’ve got two healthy boys,” I tell her. “Strong lungs. Good tone. No complications.”
She nods, staring down at them like she’s memorizing their faces. “That’s…good.”
“That’s very good.”
The second baby is settled against her other side. The symmetry of it—two small bodies tucked against her—does something unexpected to my chest. I’ve delivered dozens of babies. It shouldn’t feel new, but it does. Every time.
She glances up at me again. “You look disappointed.”
I blink. “Disappointed?”
“Like you were hoping for something dramatic.”
I hesitate, then chuckle under my breath. “I prefer trauma,” I admit. “Higher stakes. Faster decisions.”
“And this wasn’t high stakes?” she asks, arching a tired brow.
“Not in the same way.”
She studies me for a long second, eyes sharper than they should be for someone who just pushed out two human beings. “Sometimes,” she says quietly, “the slow stuff matters more.”
I can’t argue with that. “It does.”
There’s that flicker again—that almost-recognition. Like she’s trying to place me somewhere outside this room.
I have to ask, “Do I know you from somewhere? Outside of the hospital, I mean. Snow Valley is a small town, but?—”
“I don’t think so,” she says before yawning. “But you look familiar to me too. Déjà vu, maybe?”
“Maybe. Do you go to Carlton’s on Fifth? The coffeeshop?—”
“Yeah, sometimes. Maybe we saw each other there.” She half shrugs before turning her attention to the bundles in her arms. The nurse interrupts to adjust IV lines, and I step back, giving them space.
My job here is nearly done. Mother stable. Infants stable. No hemorrhaging. No distress. Boring, as these things go. But a boring birth is the best kind.
I check her chart one last time. Temperance Lawson. No partner listed. Emergency contact blank. Insurance through a small marketing firm in the city. Nothing remarkable.
