Not today.
I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do next, and for the first time in a very long time, that doesn’t feel entirely like a catastrophe. It feels like the beginning of something. Which is, somehow, worse.
I am fifty-two years old. I have a pair of twins, twenty-eight, who are amazing people. I have a son, twenty-six, who is struggling to make his way in the world. And there are three newborns in this hospital who could be mine.
The math shakes out. It could be me, or it could be her ex. On the other hand, maybe she hooked up with someone right after me. Regardless, the possibility is there.
And the truth of the matter is, I’m not sure who I want it to be.
If it’s someone else, the worry is a moot point. But is it even worry that I feel right now? Or is it hope?
13
SAGE
I got hit by a truck.
My entire body has been peeled apart, rearranged, and stitched back together by someone who wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing. I feel like Frankenstein’s monster, except the monster is my vagina.
And the rest of me. Everything aches. Everything is sore. There is not a single position that feels like relief.
For a second, I don’t move. I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember where I am and why my body feels like this. Then it hits me.
“Oh,” I croak, my voice dry and wrecked. “Right. That.”
Labor. Triplets. Cool. Love that for me.
I close my eyes again, like maybe if I don’t acknowledge it, my body will reset itself, and I’ll wake up somewhere else—preferably not in a hospital bed with what feels like internal bruising in places I didn’t even know existed. That fantasy lasts about three seconds, because something makes a noise.
Not loud. Not urgent. Just… there. Soft. Small. My eyes snap open. I turn my head—and freeze.
There are three bassinets in the room.
I’m not sure why it keeps hitting me in waves, but for a second, my brain refuses to process it, like it’s too much information to take in all at once. Then it catches up, slamming into me with the same overwhelming force that everything else has had in the last twenty-four hours.
My babies. They’re here. All of them.
I push myself up too fast and immediately regret it as pain flares low in my body, sharp enough to make me hiss. “Okay,” I mutter under my breath. “Okay, we’re not doing that again.”
I move more slowly this time, bracing carefully as I shift upright, my muscles protesting every inch of the motion. Once I’m up, though, I don’t care anymore, because they’re right there—close enough that I can actually see them.
Three tiny humans. Mine.
“Holy shit,” I whisper. They’re so small.
I knew they would be. Everyone kept saying that—early, multiples, expect small—but knowing something and seeing it are two completely different things. They’re swaddled tight, little faces barely visible above the blankets, each one breathing in soft, steady rhythms that make my chest feel too tight.
“They’re good,” a voice says gently from the doorway.
I turn, blinking blearily as a nurse steps in, smiling like she’s seen this exact moment a hundred times before. “Morning. I’m Rose.”
“Hi,” I say, because that feels like the correct response, even though my brain is still catching up to everything else.
“You gave us a bit of a show last night,” she says lightly, moving further into the room. “But these three? They’re strong.”
I look back at them, something twisting in my chest. “Why aren’t they in the NICU?” I ask, because I definitely remember that being a thing.
“They were evaluated,” Rose says, checking one of the bassinets with practiced ease. “But they’re doing well enough that it would’ve been overkill. We’ve got babies in there who really need the resources. Yours just need monitoring, warmth, and you.”
