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“Yeah?”
“I think we should keep the light on. You don’t have nightmares when the lights are on.”
“Okay, we’ll leave them on.”
I lift the iPad from the nightstand and check the cameras. Nick is in bed, but he isn’t laying down. He’s seated at the foot, staring at the floor. I should probably go to him, but something tells me to give him a moment. Nick has always been the kind of kid who needs to process things before he can talk about them. I’ve learned not to push him. I wish I could say the same for his mother.
“Remember what Dr. Nancy says?”
“Yes,” I say. It could be anything.
“She says it’s okay to be afraid of the dark.”
“That’s right.” I pat her head. “How about that story?”
“Tell me about me and Abby,” she says, and my breath hitches in my throat. “About when we were born.”
“All right. Well, let’s see. It was a beautiful day. The doctor said that if you weren’t born by the second week in April that they were going to induce.”
“In—what?”
“They were going to force you out. You were late for twins. Your mother was running out of room in her belly for the both of you.”
She smiles, even though she’s heard this story dozens of times. It’s the same story I always tell her, about the day she and her sister were born. It’s the only one I can allow my heart to touch. I tell her how the nurse placed two tiny pink bundles in my arms. I tell her how it felt like holding two footballs; they were so tiny and so light.
Her favorite part of the story is when I tell her how she wrapped her itty-bitty wrinkled hand around my index finger and held on. She likes it when I tell her how she was the one who was wide awake from the start, how she was always wide awake, refusing to miss a second of anything, while her sister was the perfect sleeper.
Someday I will tell her the rest, but now she snuggles into the crook of my arm, not so unlike the day she was born, and closes her eyes. I close mine too. I don’t sleep, I can’t sleep. In a second, I’ll check in on Nicky. For now, I allow my mind to drift back to the past, but only to safe territory.
I think about how Bethany tried and tried to get pregnant after Nick, about the days of injections, the weeks of doctor appointments and blood draws. Month after month, when the tests turned out negative, she sunk further and further into a funk she couldn’t seem to climb out of.
I hadn’t been particularly concerned. Getting pregnant with Nick was so easy it was practically an accident, and I was convinced that it would happen again just the same, when the time was right. But Bethany, being the type A personality that she is, insisted on seeing a fertility specialist.
She was adamant that we go through with treatment, even though we hadn’t been trying that long. It didn’t matter that the hormones made her crazy or drove her deeper and deeper into a depression. A depression so deep that I pleaded with her to stop the injections, or at the very least hit the pause button. We had time. We had one healthy baby; I didn’t understand why she needed to put herself through all of that for another.
Her insistence almost wrecked our marriage. I thought of leaving, even though I wouldn’t have. There was Nicky, and I loved my wife. I’d sit at my desk at work, afraid to go home, afraid of what I might find. I daydreamed about inventing a time machine. Instead, I took a months-long assignment out of town. Bethany was furious that I would go, seeing that we were trying to conceive and my absence could set us back.
When I went anyway, she suggested that I not come back, that it be a trial separation. I figured it was the hormones talking, and the stress, not that I disagreed entirely.
Thankfully, it felt like divine intervention when two weeks into the trip, Bethany called to say that her test that morning showed two faint lines. Several weeks later it was confirmed, we were having twins.
About a month or so after we found out I arrived home, and we threw a party in our backyard, surprising our family and closest friends with the news. Bethany’s pregnancy with the girls was a lovely time, almost like a second honeymoon for us. I’ve never been more proud of my wife than when I was watching her carry my daughters. I fell in love with her all over again when she delivered two perfect, healthy baby girls. The moment they were placed in my arms was the greatest moment of my life. I hadn’t expected it to be better than it had been with Nick, but it was. Our family was now complete. We had the rest of our lives ahead of us.
Chapter Seventeen
Ethan
Ali stands at the gas pump wearing a perfect dress and a pensive expression. The neon from the station sign overhead partially shades one side of her face, giving her a devilish look. I watch as she positions the nozzle in her tank and presses the lever, which refuses to stick. It takes three tries before she realizes that she’s forgotten to select the grade of fuel she wants.
She jabs at the button, shakes her head, and turns and leans back against the car, folding her arms across her chest. After several seconds, she sighs, opens the driver’s side door and reaches into the car and grabs her cell phone. She starts scrolling, even though there are signs posted all over warning of the dire consequences of doing such a thing. She’s a rebel. It’s probably better I know that now. I strain, trying to catch a glimpse of her screen, but I can’t manage it, so I wait for her to stop scrolling and look up. Her body language makes it obvious what she is thinking. She’s nervous. She should be. She should know better. She ought to be aware of her surroundings. It’s dangerous for her to be on her phone, dangerous in more ways than one. Convenience stores at night are not exactly the safest places in the world for anyone, let alone for a woman who looks like Ali.
I shuffle my feet and shift my balance, hoping she’ll notice. Her scrolling is endless, and my tank is full.
“Ali?”
My voice catches her off guard. She nearly drops the phone. But she recovers quickly, glancing over her shoulder, her brows raised.
“Sorry,” I say. I lift my hands so that my palms face her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
