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In our honeymoon suite, lying in bed with the windows open, a warm breeze lifting the curtains like gossamer wings around us, I reach for a little envelope.
“What’s this?” Michael asks, looking at me sideways. Kissing my shoulder and apologizing again for all the surprises he sprung on me today.
“This is… Well. This is a surprise,” I tell him, laughing a little too much.
Nervous for some reason, but only because I know he’s met his match in the surprise department today.
“Open it,” I say, not having seen the contents myself, but I have it on good authority it’s quite a good surprise.
He chuckles and carefully opens the little silver envelope, taking out what looks like two little blurry black and white Polaroid pictures.
They’re from my ultrasound yesterday.
“What’s this?” he asks, turning the images as he tries to make heads or tails of them.
“This,” I explain, taking the first one with a blue dot on the back. “Is your son.”
“And this…” I add, shuffling the other one to the front, “is your daughter. Our babies. Twins.” I announce victoriously.
His mouth falls open, his breathing grows faster and faster as he shuffles the two pictures at first, then holds them side by side.
“We made twins?” he asks, more than shocked. Better than surprised.
For once in his life, Professor Michael Grayson is actually speechless.
“A boy and a girl,” I whisper to him, snuggling closer so I can watch his face as he studies our babies.
Taking one of his hands and putting it under the covers so he can feel my belly.
“Surprise,” I whisper again, kissing his cheek, tasting the single warm tear as it runs from his eye.
Hugging his arm like it’s a pillow, and knowing it’s too soon I still want to pitch my baby names to him.
“I’m thinking of Jack and Hanna,” I tell him, noting his frown.
His ‘too much too soon’ frown, until I explain.
“After Mama and Papa Peterson, that’s their real names, remember?” I ask. Explaining I want to give them something, include them in our family new as well as having a constant reminder of them.
“It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” Michael asks, squeezing me closer.
“Almost as much as you do. They were the first to show me, true love,” I say truthfully.
“If it were up to me, I’d call them both Sheree. Sheree one and Sheree two,” he quips.
“Why?” I ask, laughing.
“Because they’re the only two things I could love equally to the original,” he says, kissing my neck.
Teaching me his final lesson for some time yet, that Professor Michael Grayson isn’t one to be outdone in anything.
Not even when it comes to love.
“I love you, Michael,” I whisper, feeling the heaviness of sleep way too soon.
“I love you more, Mrs. Grayson,” he adds, pecking me on the cheek.
“Goodnight.”
Extended Epilogue
Two Years Later
Michael
Standing back a few feet I check the level of the door jamb I’m replacing, but also check the view through the same doorway.
Sheree is holding one twin in each of her arms, resting them on her knees. Her hands fixed firmly around them, holding them close as she explains something I can’t quite hear.
They’re still babies, always will be. But seeing them in her arms, the attention and love she shows them every second they’re awake as well as when they sleep, makes my heart swell in my chest.
She never baby talks to them. We both speak to our little ones like what they are, little people.
She’s working on her own projects now, chemistry ones. Something to do with breaking down toxic elements in soil and water, leaving nothing behind but oxygen and more water.
She explained it once, but I have to admit, even I had trouble keeping up.
Like I’ve said, or maybe never said enough. Sheree Grayson was my brightest student.
Today, she’s my wife, lover, best friend, and teacher.
I’m learning from her every day, every minute we’re together.
I’ve turned my hands to more practical things around the place, a steep learning curve for me too and one I’m only just starting to see results with.
Once we started redecorating, it was pretty clear that the house would need some rebuilding.
And once the little ones came along, well. It was a given.
I’ve traded molecules for hammers and anionic bonds for self-tapping screws and lumber.
It’s a decision I almost wished I’d made twenty years ago, but back then the demand for chemistry boffins like me writing books about it was high.
Today? Not so much so.
Today it’s young, brilliant minds like my wife who’ll change the world. Not just repeat the same old stuff, making the same mistakes.
It makes me proud.
I sleep easy knowing I have a future, along with my kids and their grandkids too.
It’s a scary world out there, but here at home. Well, it’s about as close to perfect as we can get.
Looking through the newly formed doorway, it’s like looking back into the past as well as into the future.
