Page 50 of Seizing Control: Part Two

“Sophie,” she stammers in response.

“Lay back, metukà shelì.” With a deft touch, I am assisted on to my back. Lazarus stays near my head, holding my hand while the sheet is pulled over my lower half. On the technician’s urging, I fold my loose halter top up under my breasts to expose my belly. Butterflies fill me. A visible ripple moves through the lower right quadrant of my stomach. “Is that—” Lazarus gulps. “—Did you see that?”

“Yeah.” Taking hold of his hand, I splay his fingers over the spot where our baby is poking me from the inside. “It started this morning.”

“It’s... strange.”

“Try being the person it’s happening to.” I giggle when Nadia knocks Lazarus’ hand away so she can feel the baby move again. “I feel like I have an alien inside me.”

The ultrasound machine is wheeled over.

Nadia nudges my first love out of the way to take up vigil on my right side.

Lazarus moves to stand on my left and he grips my closest hand.

“This is good,” Sophie remarks when the little acrobat inside me keeps performing. After squirting gel on my stomach, she runs the wand over my skin. “An active baby makes things easier... as long as they hold still while I’m taking the measurements.”

The silent tension that grips us as the technician gets to work is thick. Full of emotion. Filled with awe. We are captive to the sight on the screen. Mesmerised by the new life that I’m growing.

“That’s strange.” All three of us freeze when the heartbeat echoes around the room. “There’s an echo or something.”

“Something similar happened at my dating scan,” I tell her. “They thought it was twins, but it turned out not to be.”

Fraternal twins run through my father’s side of the family.

I had a moment of delight when the idea was floated at my first scan.

It died when I remembered that this isn’t my first pregnancy.

When it launches a sneak attack, I push away the grief that crashes into me.

The thought that Alex killed two babies is unfathomable to me.

“Well, they were wrong.” Sophie clicks buttons on the keypad and resituates the ultrasound wand. Another heartbeat fills the room. “It’s definitely twins.”

With a muted cry, I pull my hands free of Nadia and Lazarus to clasp them over my mouth.

The shock that emanates from my first love is palpable.

His grip on my fingers tightens.

“Twins.” My mouth runs dry. I can’t speak. He pulls my left hand to his mouth and presses a kiss after kiss to my knuckles. “Fuck... metukà shelì. Every time I think I can’t love you anymore than I already do, you make my heart grow even bigger.” There’s a quaver in his voice when he says, “Got my sweet thing, our little man, and two babies. I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

Rendered speechless, all I can do is stare up at him with unconcealed love.

This is phenomenal news.

A miracle.

But I can’t ignore the shadow in my peripheral vision.

If Slash was here, as happy and overawed as Lazarus, things would be perfect.

The absence of my husband is a looming cloud dimming my future happiness.

Sophie reads the shift in my mood, and she covers for me by narrating the process of logging my babies measurements. As she speaks, I blink regularly, force myself to breathe, do my best to focus on the screen, while the walls close in on me. My wayward heart is a fractured. My duelling desires are bearing down each other, head on, like a red flag waved at a bull.

It’s wrong.

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