Luca nodded once. Then he went and stood at the window and didn’t say anything else.
Knox found me and came to sit beside me without explanation, the way he always did — just placed himself there.
“He’s worried,” Knox said quietly.
“Yeah.”
“He won’t say so.”
“No.” I looked at Luca’s back, the rigid set of eight-year-old shoulders. “He never does.”
Knox considered that. Then he got up and went to stand beside his brother at the window. Luca didn’t acknowledge him. But his shoulders dropped half an inch.
Handful watched them for a moment, then pulled the deck of cards from Betty’s bag and wandered over. “Hey. Either of you two want to see something?” He fanned the cards in one hand — smooth, practiced, the same tricks he’d used to win them over the first time. “Pick a card. Don’t show me.”
Knox turned immediately. Luca held out a moment longer, but curiosity won. He turned from the window and watched Handful’s hands.
Handful made the wrong card appear three times before producing the right one from behind Knox’s ear. Both boys laughed — Knox loud, Luca quiet — and for a few minutes thehospital waiting room was just a place where a man was doing card tricks for two kids.
Bea arrived shortly after.
I didn’t hear her come in. I just looked up and she was there—in the doorway, coat on, hair loose like she’d left in a hurry. She scanned the room and found Indira first, who stood and crossed to her quickly, and they held each other for a moment the way women do when they’ve been carrying something together.
Then Bea looked up and found me. One second. Two. She nodded. I nodded back.
She went and sat with Indira. I stayed in my corner. The room was big enough that this was easy. We were both here for the same reason and that was all it needed to be.
I was working on accepting that. Most days I was better at it than others.
The nurse came out at 3:37. She looked around the waiting room, eyes going wide at the sheer number of people. “Who’s here for the Spencers?”
Every person in the room either stood up, raised a hand, or said “yes” at the same time. The nurse blinked. “Right. Well.” She recovered quickly. “Two boys. Mom and babies are all doing well. Everyone’s healthy. Identical, like the first set.” Her eyes moved around the room and landed on Luca and Knox. “Just like you two.”
The room erupted. Whoever had two boys in Handful’s book let out a holler that bounced off every wall in the corridor. Handful was already flipping pages, muttering about payouts.
Someone near the back said, low, “Which side of the family do the twins come from?”
The nurse glanced over. “Doesn’t work that way with identical. It’s random — a fluke. Not something that gets passed down.”
“Weights?” Betty called out, because of course she did.
“Five pounds two ounces and four pounds thirteen,” the nurse said, smiling now. “Good size for twins.”
Handful was still working through the book, but his hands weren’t steady. Glitch caught my eye across the room and nodded once — the most emotion I’d ever seen from him. Dutch let out a slow breath through his nose and sat back down.
Luca and Knox looked at each other. Knox reached over and grabbed Luca’s wrist and held on. Betty put her hands on their shoulders from behind—one on each—and I watched something settle in both boys at the news they had two baby brothers. Identical, just like them.
They let us in a few at a time.
Betty took the boys in first — Luca’s urgent, forward-leaning stride, Knox hanging back just far enough to let his brother be first, Betty behind them both with a hand on each back. They didn’t come out. Then Dutch and Indira. Then the others, a few at a time.
Bea went ahead of me. I watched her disappear through the door and heard Lilac’s voice, soft with exhaustion, and then Bea’s answering it, and I stayed in the hallway a moment longer than I needed to.
When I went in, the room was warm and bright and full of people who loved each other.
Colt was holding a baby. A small, wrinkled, entirely unimpressive human being wrapped in a hospital blanket, and Colt looking down at him with an expression I’d never seen on him before. He’d missed this with Knox and Luca — hadn’t known they existed until they were six. This was his first time holding a child that was minutes old.
Lilac had the other against her chest. She looked wrecked and radiant — like she hadn’t slept in a year and didn’t care.
