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Part of me wanted to tell her the truth, to let her in and tell her everything. Because I knew my mom didn’t hate me, and probably wouldn’t judge me too harshly. But the thought of the phone call or the rampage I’d get from my dad afterwards… it wasn’t worth it.
Would I keep it a secret forever? Probably not. It wasn’t realistic, and it wouldn’t be fair to them. But for now, I didn’t want to hear all the reasons I was going to fail before I’d even given myself a chance to succeed. I wanted to prove that I could do this. When I told them I had two little boys, I wanted to tell them that I was doing okay, and that I was making it.
“I’m okay, mom.”
“Do you need anything?” she asked softly. “Anything at all?”
It was a weird question, and it made me wonder if she knew. But that was extremely unlikely.
“Nope. I’ve got everything handled.”
“Okay… please call me if that changes, honey. I love you. Remember that.” She gave me a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and turned back down the hall.
About a week later, Anna and Bet and I were dancing and singing in the kitchen of my little apartment, and I felt the boys kicking a lot. Then there was some cramping. Then the cramping was a lot stronger. When a sharp pang made me gasp and drop my glass of orange juice, my friends rushed me to the hospital.
My boys did not waste time. Anna and Bet were with me the whole time, encouraging me and holding my hands while I cried and tried to breathe. I felt like I was dying, but I didn’t have a choice but to live, because my babies were ready for me.
And then suddenly, impossibly, I was holding my sons in my arms.
Watching them breathe, yawn, and reach for each other’s fingers made my heart explode with joy. They were so small, with an impossible innocence about them that made me want to shelter them from the world, even from the nurses.
I barely let them out of my sight. I found myself anxious when the doctor came in to look at them, knowing they were going to leave my arms. They started screaming as soon as they were separated from me, and I burst out in tears, throwing a fit until the nurses brought them back.
They were so small. So precious. So beautiful. They were pink and flushed with a hint of color that I didn’t have in my own skin, and a light scattering of black hair on top of their heads. I stared down at them wondering how the hell I got lucky enough to have not one, but two perfect sons. I felt my heart squeeze, and I was almost high off love and adoration for them.
I would do anything for you.
What would they be like as they grew up? Who would they turn into? What would their voices sound like? How would they laugh? Would they like toy trains and cars, or bugs and mud, or music and movies?
I want to know everything about you.
They slept in my arms, their hands still intertwined. Matthew was born first, Jacob only a few moments later, his hand clasping at his brother’s ankle with a surprising amount of strength. They were exact copies of each other. Identical in every way.
The doctor came in to check on me again. He studied them, then asked if he could take a photo of us.
“Sure, I guess,” I said softly. “But I look horrible.”
“I want to get a photo of the tops of their heads. It’s extremely rare, but you’ve actually had mirror twins. They’re identical, but they’re not carbon copies. They’re mirror images. I’d like to document it, if that’s okay.”
He threw around some other statistics, but I couldn’t really grasp what he was saying. I was staring down at my boys, watching their eyelashes flutter as they opened their eyes. Two perfect sons, special, rare, and somehow still unique even though they were identical.
Jacob looked at me first. His eyes were chocolate brown, like mine.
I closed my eyes and laid my head back against the pillow.
I knew this was going to be the hardest thing I ever did.But I knew we would be okay, because I would do literally anything to make that happen.
When I got back to my apartment several days later, the trouble started.
The boys both had colic, and they screamed from four in the afternoon until nine at night like clockwork. A week into our stay at home, I was about to pull my hair out, and Bet and Anna were less than enthusiastic to come over and give me relief. They made copious excuses in the evenings, though they seemed fine to help in the mornings. I couldn’t really blame them; they were my friends, not my hired help, and it wasn’t like I was that great of a friend over the past few weeks since I was useless with newborns.
But it was a struggle. Their coverage was a major part of my survival plan. I started missing the few shifts I was scheduled to work because I couldn’t find coverage, and my manager at the bookstore called me one day and told me not to come back in.
Then the landlord arrived, banging on my door and demanding I pay a fee for having children in my room. “They aren’t on your lease,” he snapped. “It’s an extra hundred a month for each child!”
“It is not!”
“Check the lease!”
