“You look beautiful. I think motherhood really becomes you,” Shane said to his glowing wife.
She smiled knowingly. “If only he knew HOW becoming” she thought to herself with a smile.
“Mrs. Greenwood-Racket is having a party this evening. Would you do me the honor of accompanying me,” he jokingly said with gusto.
“You know I can never say no to your fancy airs,” she tittered. “Let me get ready. Watch Uvie for a bit?”
“My pleasure.”
However, this time, it actually was more painful. Then, he thought she was coming back. Now, especially as a parent himself, he couldn’t fathom how she could have left them. Nothing short of death itself would keep him from Uvie.
Carrie walked out the front door, just to find Shane coming up the steps.
“Shane, let me take her. You need to get ready,” she suggested.
“I’m sorry honey. I just got paged. There has been a nasty pile-up on the interstate near the Simmissippi border. The hospitals there are full so they’re air-lifting some of the victims here. I have to go.”
He brushed past her, taking Uvie back to the bedroom. She silently changed into her robe and went back to work on her painting. As the hours passed, her frustration turned to anger which morphed into the ugly feeling of resentment. How dare he leave me all the time to take care of Uvie by myself? Why does he get to have the career while I get to stay home? Does he ever think that fashion is as important to me as medicine is to him? The resentment burned in her, like coals that hadn’t yet produced fire but were red hot.
The fire exploded onto the surface when he finally got home at midnight.
“What the hell Shane? Why is your job always more important than your family?”
“What are you talking about,” he exclaimed, hurt and shock clearly registering on his face.
“You’re always gone, always leaving me to raise our daughter alone while you’re off saving the world from the sniffles.”
“Damn it Carrie, you know it’s more than that.” He took a deep breath and attempted to take her hands. “Honey, I know it’s hard but my performance at work today was recognized as calm under pressure and perfectly suited for trauma. I’ve been promoted and they even gave me a §1,000 bonus.”
“Great” she scoffed, pulling away. “Now go check on Uvie. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“What more do you want from me,” he muttered as she walked away.
Perhaps luckily for Carrie, his astonishment from her outrage kept him from being more aware of her condition. She still wasn’t ready to tell him about her pregnancy, especially after tonight, and he was too busy trying to figure out how to make it up to her to think she had been serious about being sick. He was under the impression it was sarcasm intended to be another jab at him.
The next day, Shane had figured out how to make his increasing absences up to his wife. While she was taking care of Uvie and napping, he quickly ran an errand. When he got back, he covered her eyes and led her to the foyer.
“So, do you like it,” he asked, hesitantly.
After an initial pause, “I love it,” she squealed! “Although, word of advice, an appliance will not buy me off every time you upset me,” she joked, admiring her new washer.
Carrie still hadn’t told her husband that she was pregnant. Between the arguing regarding his work hours and the stress over the family funds, she just hadn’t found the right time. Lately it had been getting harder and harder to get by without him noticing. She was starting to show more, even through the baggy clothes now. Uvie was often used as a midriff hider but even that was not going to be enough. She had an appointment with her OB that afternoon and, after that, she would decide on her next course of action.
After meeting with her doctor, she realized that she had to tell Shane. She couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. Her body just wasn’t going to allow for that.
“Shane, we need to talk,” she said as she put Uvie down for her afternoon nap.
“What’s on your mind,” he asked, absentmindedly while reading a medical journal.
“Look at me.”
He looked up to find his wife smiling at him. He smiled back, not sure where the conversation was headed.
“Shane, I’m pregnant again.”
“What,” he roared. “Oh, please Carrie, tell me you’re joking. Uvie is not even a toddler yet.”
“No, Shane. I’m not joking,” Carrie snapped, started to get vexed. “And what’s more, it’s twins this time.”
“How are we going to afford this? I’m working as much as I can to support this family and you get mad. Without that time though, I don’t make the money and without the money, we won’t have food. How are we supposed to raise 2 more children?”
“I don’t know but you better figure it out. Doctor Wilson says that with two babies, I am likely to go into labor early and I am already approaching 27 weeks,” and with that she stormed out of the room.
How could I have missed this? Am I that horrible of a husband and a father that I somehow missed the changes my wife was going through? I am a doctor for Christ’s sake. If anyone should have seen or suspected this, it should have been me. Not to mention I sleep in bed with her every night.
His thoughts quickly took a sharp turn. How dare she wait this long to tell me? Why would she keep this a secret from me? Is she having an affair? Twins don’t run in my family that I know of.
His rational side quickly took hold of him. Twins are maternal side, not paternal side. Get ahold of yourself. She has seen how stressed you are and didn’t tell you because she didn’t want to worry you.
He loved being a father and, even though he knew that money would be even tighter than before, he knew that he would love these new babies just as much. He quickly came around to the idea. As the days passed, he found himself being more and more excited. He constantly talked to his children and rubbed Carrie’s belly. They had decided to be surprised about the genders again but he was hoping for a son. Maybe he would even get two.
“Honey, I am so sorry I got called in tonight,” Shane apologized to Carrie, once again. “If there was anything I could do to get out of it, I would.”
“I guess I am just resigning myself to the fact that you will miss important events. She’s only going to be a toddler. I suppose she won’t remember if you were there anyway.”
Though it sounded like a jab, Shane knew his wife was actually accepting at this moment. Not that she has any other choice. We NEED that money.
He headed out to work, thankful that his hours were the graveyard shift right now. He got to spend the time that Uvie was awake with her. When he wasn’t trying to sleep that was.
Carrie set up for the party. She knew that Uvie was only going to be a toddler, but this was her first baby. She wanted the evening to be special. She just had to convince herself that it didn’t matter that Shane wouldn’t be there. There would be more birthdays and special occasions.
“Dorothy, you look fantastic,” Carrie gushed to her sister.
“Yeah, but, of course, you look like you stepped out of a maternity magazine,” she sniped back.
Both sisters were pregnant and Dorothy, always one to want to be the center of attention, loathed sharing the spotlight with her sister. The tension surrounding them permeated the room. The rivalry would not be ended on this night.
Carrie blew out her daugher’s first candle, ready for the fun things that come with a toddler; learning to talk and walk, finally playing games together, reading bedtime stories and so much more. She just hoped she wouldn’t be too tired with the coming new babies to enjoy these precious moments.
As she held her daughter and tickled her, she felt the first surge of contractions.
She couldn’t believe that the twins would time their arrival on Uvie’s birthday. She quickly arranged for Tanner to watch Uvie and headed to the hospital. At least Shane was already there.
If she had thought labor with one child was exhausting, it was infinitely more so with two. Finally, after hours in labor, her second daughter made her first appearance in the world. Carrie, ready to just lay back and doze off, was quickly reminded by the “C’mon, gimme another push” by her delivery doctor that she still had some work ahead of her. Luckily, her son was only 3 minutes behind his sister.
“Honey, hey. How’re you doing,” Shane asked, as he walked in the room 20 minutes later and kissed her forehead before going and meeting each of his children.
“Exhausted. Can I just stay here? They have nurses that help,” she said with a weak smile.
“Only until we pick names. Otherwise, you have been authorized for release. And so have I.”
“You get to come home with us,” she asked jubilantly. “That’s the third best news all day.”
They began discussing names for the twins. Once again, they wanted something unusual and a bit different. As they debated the merits of rhyming names, they were interrupted by Carrie’s phone. She glanced at the caller id and saw that it was her father.
“Hi daddy. How are…oh. Oh! Well, that’s great. Tell her congratulations,” and with that she hung up.
Shane glanced at her inquisitively.
“I guess after leaving Uvie’s party tonight, Dorothy went into labor too. They had another boy. Almost 10lbs and is named Donta.”
“Why didn’t you mention our news?”
“Just didn’t seem the right time. I’ll tell him in the morning.”
Shane smiled to himself. He loved his wife’s good nature. Even though Dorothy would probably never know about her sister’s sacrifice, Carrie was putting her own good news on the back burner to give her sister some time to bask in the glory of this moment.
They each snuggled with the children, again trying to come up with names.
“What about Casey and Lacey,” Shane suggested.
“Ugh, I thought we said we weren’t going to go with rhyming names,” Carrie said, wrinkled nose and all.
“Emily and Emery?”
“Okay…no more suggestions from you,” Carrie chuckled, “although I do like the same letter idea. Just not rhyming too.”
After tossing many ideas back and forth they finally decided on Vesper and Verne. Both names were original enough that the twins wouldn’t likely meet anyone with the same names and similar enough that they sounded like “twin” names without being annoyingly matchy. As soon as the birth certificates were completed, both children and mother were released and headed home.
She put on a brave face for her family but inside she was terrified. She had never imagined having twins. She knew that her paternal grandmother had twins so the gene was carried through her father but it had skipped her sister so she had imagined it had skipped her too. How was she ever going to manage three small children with Shane working so much?
