I felt guilty knowing that she was about to rip her body apart, just so I could be a father.
Chapter 35
Snow
Come on, just a little more pain. Just a little more. Tear yourself apart, you’ve done worse for someone else’s son, now do it for your own. Push one more time, feel this pain one more time, then you’ll have your baby boy. I had to talk myself through the pain; if not, I swear, I was going to die.
"One, two, three, four, five." At six, the baby was out. We all exhaled into a moment of silence, just waiting. Waiting to hear him cry. He didn't. I watched as the doctor suctioned his tiny nose and mouth while I prepared to bring another one into this world. This one came faster, and the moment he took his first breath, he cried. As if baby A was simply waiting for his brother, he cried too.
“You did it,” Cane said as tears rolled down his face.
I smiled weakly as I looked over at the twins. They were being wrapped in blankets. This all felt surreal. This morning, I woke up, 35 weeks pregnant with twins the size of honeydew. And now, they were here. And Cane was here too. The same Cane I had grieved over for weeks. I thought he was dead. I thought I had to do this alone. I was confused. I had more questions than answers, but right now wasn’t the time to ask them. It was timeto hold my babies. “Cane and Cross,” I said as I held them. I had two perfect little boys who looked just like their father. Tears filled my eyes as I looked down at them. I swear, everywhere I felt unloved, they filled.
After etching the twins’ faces into my memory, I handed them over to Cane. “Thank you, mama,” he smiled. I watched the same love take over him as he held our little boys.
“It’s overwhelming, right?”
He nodded. “Man, they got my heart beating different.”
-
“This is my jeweler,” Cane said as he pointed to the old white man who had just walked into my room.
“Congratulations, Ms. White.”
“Thank you,” I said, although I wasn’t sure why we needed him right now.
I watched as he placed an oversized suitcase onto my side table. He opened it, then turned it to me. I gasped at all the diamonds that twinkled back at me. They were all so beautiful, but this shit was so out of place.
“I know you ain’t trying to buy me an engagement ring when you’re already married,” I said as I watched Cane walk over to the display of rings.
“Which one do you want? I liked this one,” he said as he pointed at the princess-cut diamond.
“Hello, Cane. You can’t buy me a ring when you’re already married.”
“What do you think about that one?” he asked as he pointed to the emerald-cut ring.
“It looks like an engagement ring, just like the other one,” I said.
“You can call it whatever you want, but it’s going on your ring finger and it’s staying there,” he said. He grabbed the first ring he pointed out and slid it on my finger. “This is the one.” He said. Unfortunately, I had to agree. It was beautiful and definitely my first choice.
He grabbed another ring. This one was bigger, probably double the carats of the five he just put on my finger. “You can wear this one when you’re mad at me,” he smirked. “And this one when I’m mad at you.” He said as he pointed to the cluster ring. I scrunched up my face. It was definitely my least favorite. “And which one should I wear when your wife is around?”
Instead of answering me, he simply paid for the rings and went back to holding our sons.
When the jeweler was left, I turned to Cane. I hoped that with a little more privacy, he could explain these diamonds he just bought me. “Why did you put this ring on my finger?”
“Because you deserve the world. And who else better to give it to you than me?”
“You already owe your wife the world.”
“Na Snow, she’s dead to me, and if she doesn’t sign those divorce papers, she will be dead to you too.”
“You say that now, but weren’t you just trying to kill her because she wanted to leave your trifling ass?”
“What are you talking about, Snow?”
“The night you got shot. She told me she was trying to leave you, so you tried to kill her.”
