Page 76 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

“Gran was a twin? And you’re shrugging? Don’t shrug!” My voice goes up an octave. It’s shrill even in my own ears.

“Well, what? Did you want me to tell youbeforeyour accidental pregnancy? Would that have changed anything?”

I’m about to fire back at her when the ultrasound technician, who has seemingly mastered the art of fading into the background while families go through every possible emotion, cuts in. “Oh, Miss Jackson?”

“Yes?” My mom and I say in unison, turning to face her.

“Oh, sorry, I meant my patient Miss Jackson.” She smiles slightly, pointing at me with a gloved finger. “Miss Jackson, did you have an IUD?” She tips her head at me.

I shrug, even as the worry creeps in. I look at the screen, trying to see what she sees. “Yeah, but I figured it fell out or something.”

“No, darling, you would know if it fell out. Your IUD is still in place. We need to get it out or this will become a high-risk pregnancy very quickly. Okay? Do you understand? We need to go ahead and schedule that as soon as possible.”

Fear grips me as I detect the serious tone in her voice. She must see the look on my face because she rests a warm hand on my arm and scoots her rolling chair closer to me.

“Hey. It will be okay. We just need to take it seriously. Okay?”

“We will,” my mom says from my other side, and even without looking at her, I can see the motherly stance she’s in. I remember it well from all from my doctors’ visits as a girl, though they weren’t many with our limited income.

Still, I can see her with one arm crossed over the other, gripping her elbow and her lips pursed, her glasses pushed up on top of her head. She looked that way when I got the flu and when I was told I needed braces and when Tyler broke his arm playing chicken on the monkey bars. Always that same crouched forward, scrunched lips face like she was trying to read the fine print of an invisible document.

On the drive back to Chris’ house, my mom twists in her seat and asks, “Hey, how come I’ve never been to your place?”

I’m so taken aback that my first instinct is to lie, badly, as though I’m in high school and just got caught coming back inside my bedroom window.

She hasn’t been to my place because there is no my place. If she were to find out that I’m sleeping n my office, it would likely really upset her.

She’d want me to move back home or she’d want to send me money, and I just want to make it, or not make it, on my own terms.

“You have,” I say automatically, and Chris chuckles.

My mom looks over at him momentarily, but he keeps his eyes on the road and tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

“No…I most certainly have not. I’ve seen your office but not your home. How is that funny?”

“Yeah, that’s really funny,” I say in a monotone voice, my mind still whirring with the events of today. When my mom raises her eyebrows at me, I tell her, “I mean, I just work a lot, Mom. I don’t know.” I shrug at her. “Sorry. I’m tired.”

“Well, why don’t we go over there now? I can stay the night and then we can go shopping for baby things in the morning.”

Her face lights up and she slaps Chris’ arm eagerly. It’s nice to see her being happy with him again for a moment. I wonder how momentary it is or if the twins really did turn her opinion around this dramatically.

I meet eyes with Chris in the rearview mirror, and I can see his eyes sparkling. He’s been wanting me to tell my family about my living at the office.

No better time than now. She’s still high off the idea of twins. Chris is here. It’s perfect. Tell her. She’ll understand.

“Well. About that, Mom.”

“What? You don’t want your old mom cramping your style? You two have a lot to plan, I know, but I could call in to work. You might find you need some help. There’s a lot to do, Hanny.”

“Yeah, Hanny,” Chris says jovially, smiling at me in the mirror, to which I roll my eyes.

“No, Mom, it’s not that at all. It’s just that I don’t really have a space for you anywhere at my place.”

“You don’t have a couch? I don’t mind sleeping on the couch.”

Her insistence is heartbreaking. And a little annoying.

“Mom, I don’t have a place. I’ve been staying at my office.”

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