Page 74 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

I watch anxiously as the ultrasound tech comes around the table to check Hannah’s vitals, her blood pressure, and her oxygen level, and then when she’s done, she lugs over what looks like the TV’s the classrooms had in the 90s, a squeaking monstrosity of tech.

Hannah puts her feet in the stirrups so the tech can perform the transvaginal ultrasound, which I understand is generally done in the earlier stages of pregnancy in order to see as much detail as possible.

I can’t help myself. I have to say something. “Hannah.”

“Mmm?” Her eyes are on the screen, waiting.

“I just have to say – I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She turns her head to me, her green eyes wide. “Sorry for what?”

“Sorry that you’re in this position. I know you’re trying to start a business, and the timing here isn’t ideal.”

I hold my hands together, cracking my knuckles as I look into her eyes.

She’s beautiful in this moment, something about being on tiptoes between one moment and another, knowing that life might soon change in a very large way.

“Chris, do you not want this?”

Her voice is hoarse, her question whispered. It’s been weighing on her.

“You keep telling me that you’re sorry. If you don’t want this, please tell me.”

“I do. But I’m in a very different stage of life than you are. And if…if this isn’t what you want—” I don’t know if I’m using the right words.

I don’t know if I’m scaring her more or if I’m reassuring her, but I don’t want to her to feel like a burden and I also don’t want her to feel like she has to make choices based on me.

She reaches her hand out to me and grabs mine with her long, thin fingers. She has fingers like a pianist, I often think, and I love that she uses them for art and math.

I wonder if she ever looked down at her fingers as a little girl and thought, ‘I have good fingers for adding things together.’

She blurts out, “It is! It is what I want. I’m a little scared, but if this is real, if I am really pregnant, I’m just scared you’ll think this is ruining your life.”

Her admission of fear, her anxiety around me and my ‘ruined’ life brings tears to my eyes.

She’s so gentle, someone who felt her very innocence and virginity had marked her, had somehow made her less than she truly was, and who felt unsure of everythingng but her mathematical abilities.

I only wish I could adequately express my feelings. It doesn’t feel like enough to communicate them. I want her to absorb them, to feel them, to trust them. To know that nothing could be further from the truth than to think this will ruin my life.

“God, no. No, no, no. If you’re happy, Hannah, I’m ecstatic.”

I rest my cheek on her chest in an awkward hug while she lies down and I sit, and I tell her, “Don’t ever for a second doubt that I’m happy, please. You will make a wonderful mother.”

“Even if I can only make peanut butter sandwiches?”

“Even if you can only make peanut butter sandwiches,” I reassure her, and she laughs.

I look up at her and tears stain her cheeks, resting in the pools of her clavicles.

“Actually,especiallyif you can only make peanut butter sandwiches. What kid wants roasted vegetables? You can be the favored parent. I’ll make the vegetables he or she can play around with on the dinner plate and hide under the table for Noodle.”

Hannah sighs deeply, letting her cheek rest on the top of my head. She runs her fingers over my head and through my curls. “For Lucy,” she whispers.

“We’ll talk about it.” I lift my head up to kiss her, then move back into my seat.

“I’m so glad to hear that, Chris, really. I was so scared that you’d resent me forever.”

“Never, Hannah. You have done nothing but make my life better in so many ways.”

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