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Chapter 25
Cora
I help Adeline carry dinner to the table while the twins run crazily around the coffee table in the living room area. The noise is deafening. I don’t know how John Mathews and Adeline cope with it every day.
One of them, I think it’s Tim, falls and lets out a loud wail, and seconds later, his brother joins him in crying. Adeline and John Mathews go to them, and within minutes, calm is restored, and the boys are on the floor playing happily with their toys. I look at them in admiration as they return to the table unfazed.
“It must be your careers,” I tell them.
“What about them?” John Mathews says.
“They’re what prepared you both for twins. I mean, it’s chaotic in the ER, isn’t it? And the courtroom is like a wrestling ring but without physical punching.”
They laugh, but I mean it. Watching my nephews as someone who is on the way to having her own child is frightening. I’m not as organized as Adeline is. Panic seizes me. What if I can’t take care of a baby? Maybe I’m not cut out to be a mother.
How do people know they can do it? Is there a survey that I should have taken before getting pregnant because from what I’ve seen this evening, I can’t hack it? I inhale deeply and shove those thoughts out of my mind before I go into full-fledged panic mode and start screaming.
I wait until dinner is under way before I tell Adeline my plan to get to know Ian. Her face becomes pinched, but before she can say anything, John Mathews speaks up.
“That sounds like a reasonable thing to do.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Adeline explodes.
“Maybe we’ve made him out to be a monster, and he’s not. And even if he is, you know what they say about keeping your enemies closer,” I say.
“No way. I’m not giving that man a minute of my time.”
I’m not surprised by her reaction. My purpose in telling her was not to change her mind. It was to inform her so that she doesn’t hear about it and go crazy on me. But now we’re on that topic, I can try to make her look at it from a different perspective as Thomas did for me.
Not that I’m holding out much hope with Adeline. She’s as stubborn as a mule. When she makes up her mind about something, it’s very difficult to dissuade her.
“I don’t want to either, but what if he’s in our mother’s life to stay. Then what?”
Adeline is stubbornly quiet.
John Mathews shoots me a sympathetic look, and then he stands up. “It’s bath time for the boys. I’ll see you later, Cora.”
“Bye,” I say and call out to the boys to enjoy their baths.
Adeline and I clear up the table and load the dishwashing machine. We make some tea, carry our mugs to the porch, and relax on the rocking chairs.
“This is perfect,” I say.
The sky is dark and dotted with the sparkles of a thousand stars. It looks like a magical night. A night where everything is a possibility.
We sip our tea companionably.
Adeline turns to me. “How is my niece doing in there?”
I pat my belly. “Good, no complaints so far. As long as he’s in there.” I let out a heavy sigh. “Watching you and John Mathews tonight frightened me. I don’t think I’m equipped to cope with a baby.”
To my surprise, Adeline laughs. “Nobody ever is, little sister.”
“But you guys look like pros. Nothing fazes you.”
“You’ll be fine, I promise. It also helps that when they’re born, they bring with them so much love that you just automatically know how to take care of them.”
“I hope so.” I sound as unsure as I feel.
“I have to admit, though, that an extra pair of hands do help. Maybe you and Thomas should move in together.”
I make a noise that implies that the chances of that happening are pretty slim. I don’t admit that I’ve entertained that very fantasy myself.
“Why don’t you think it’s possible?” Adeline asks. “People in a relationship do that all the time. Why not you and Thomas?”
Suddenly I’m tired of lying to her. “Thomas and I are not a real couple. We just happen to share a baby.”
She stops rocking her chair. “I don’t understand.”
I start at the beginning. How I planned to have a baby through a sperm donor.
“I didn’t know you wanted a baby that badly,” she says, clearly taken aback.
“Yeah.” The hard part is telling her how Thomas and I hooked up after three years.
“You slept with him less than a week after seeing him and then without protection?”
“Okay, I know I behaved slutty, but let’s move on with the story, okay?”
“I knew something was not right about the whole thing. There’s no way you’d have had a hunk like Thomas for three years and kept him hidden away.”
