Her eyes are already shining. She looks stunned, terrified, and so open it almost hurts to see.
Then Dr. Bianchi adds, “And not just pregnant.”
My head snaps to the screen.
She points, smiling now. “You’re having twins.”
Silence.
Like my brain has just blanked completely.
Twins.
Elsa makes the smallest sound—half laugh, half sob.
“Twins?” she whispers.
Dr. Bianchi nods, still looking at the monitor. “Yes. It looks like they may be fraternal, but it’s very early yet, and a blood test would tell us more.”
I stare at the screen like I can force my mind to catch up if I just look hard enough.
Two.
Not one.
Two.
Something enormous and wild tears through my chest. Joy. Fear. Awe. Protective instinct so violent it almost makes my vision blur.
My children.
Our children.
Elsa turns her head toward me, and the look on her face nearly undoes me. She looks like she’s waiting to see if I’m happy. As if that could possibly be in question.
I lean in immediately, press my forehead to hers, and laugh once—helplessly, breathlessly—because if I don’t, I might just break apart from the force of it.
“Twins,” I say, and my voice sounds wrecked to my own ears.
“I know.”
I kiss her, feeling full of every impossible thing in me that suddenly has nowhere else to go.
When I pull back, I keep my hand around hers and bring the other to her face, thumb brushing beneath her eye.
“You okay?” I ask because apparently I’ll ask her that until I die.
She laughs again, shakier this time. “I don’t know.”
I grin despite myself. “Fair.”
Dr. Bianchi is kind enough to look busy with the machine while she gives us the illusion of privacy.
I look back at the screen.
Two.
My mind jumps absurdly fast—cribs, names, tiny socks, Elsa growing bigger with them, telling my family.
