I look at the screen.
Two. Two distinct sacs, two distinct shapes, two heartbeats that she turns the audio up on now, one slightly faster than theother, filling the room together in a rhythm that is not quite synchronized, and I lie on that table, and I listen to both of them, and I cannot speak.
I turn my head.
Roman is no longer at the far wall.
He’s standing at the side of the table, close, and he’s looking at the screen with both hands loose at his sides. His jaw is set and his eyes are doing something I have never seen them do. I watch his face and I watch him hear both heartbeats and I watch something move through him that he doesn’t try to hide, doesn’t have the resources to hide, and he doesn’t say anything for a long time.
Then he puts his hand over mine on the table.
He doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t need to.
Dr. Reyes confirms both babies are unharmed. No signs of placental disruption, no bleeding, cervix closed, everything measuring correctly for twelve weeks. She tells me the pain I felt this morning is consistent with round ligament strain, common with twin pregnancies, and common when the body has been under stress. She tells me I need rest, fluids, and monitoring overnight.
I nod at everything she says, and I watch Roman across the room, pacing.
He can’t sit still. He tries twice, pulling a chair from the corner and lowering himself into it. Both times, he’s back on his feet within three minutes, phone in hand, moving to the window, to the door, back to the window.
He takes two calls in the corridor, the door half-open, and I hear his voice through it, low, clipped, the voice he uses when he’s directing things that need to be directed.
He comes back in after the second call and stands at the foot of the bed and looks at me.
“Your father is on the way,” he says. “I called him. He knows you are safe.”
I look at him. “Thank you.”
He nods. He looks at the window. He looks at the door. He puts his phone in his pocket and takes it back out. I watch him pace the length of the room twice, three times, his jacket still on, his jaw still set, and I think about the corridor in that building and his hand covering mine in the car and both heartbeats on that screen and the expression on his face when he heard them.
“Roman,” I say.
He stops.
“Sit down,” I say.
He looks at me for a moment. Then he pulls the chair from the corner, sets it beside the bed, and sits down. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands loosely clasped, and he looks at the floor, and I look at the top of his head, the silver of his hair under the fluorescent light, and neither of us says anything, and the room holds both of us in it.
His phone goes off.
He looks at the screen. Something in his face shifts, immediately, a different kind of focus moving in. He stands up. He goes to the door and steps halfway through it, and I hearthree words of his side of the conversation before the door narrows.
He comes back in.
He looks at me for a moment, then at the door, and I watch him make a decision.
“I have to go,” he says.
“I know.”
“Your father will be here within the hour. Mara is two doors down. There are eight men on this floor.” He looks at me steadily. “You are safe here.”
“I know,” I say again.
He crosses to the bed, and he stands over me, and he looks at my face the way he looked at the screen during the ultrasound, without the control he usually keeps over his eyes. Then he leans down, and he presses his mouth to my forehead, and he stays there for a moment longer than he usually does.
He straightens.
