Page 76 of Just Say (Hell) No
“No,” Ella said. “At least, I have wicked heartburn, but I doubt that’s it.”
“It’s normal not to be able to feel the babies kicking yet,” the tech said. “Especially for your first. Wait a month. They’re both good and active, that’s the main thing. Your…” She looked at Marko. “Dad?”
“Cousin,” he said. Geez. Maybe he should shave more.
She looked like she was wondering whether to be shocked or not, and he sighed and said, “Big brother, you could say.”
“Well, I thought it must be something like that,” she said cheerfully. “But we never know. You see some things here that might surprise you. Anyway, you’re right. They’re both kicking. Ticking along nicely, it looks to me, so you’ll feel them soon, love. It’s a bit hard to describe it. Like a tickle inside, or butterflies. Lovely, really. But let’s have a wee wander round down here and see what I can show you. We’ll see who’s cooperating.” She moved the paddle around, then smiled and said, “It helps if you breathe.”
Ella expelled awhooshof air. “Sorry. I’m nervous.”
“No worries,” the tech said. “But we don’t want you passing out and falling off the table, making this big fella catch you. Too much drama for me.” Ella laughed, breathed, and the woman moved the paddle some more as the seconds ticked by.
“Ah,” she said, when Marko was wondering how much longer this could possibly take. “Have a look.”
Ella peered at the screen. “What am I seeing?”
“Penis,” the woman said. “Scrotum. See, here where the cursor is? You’ve got a wee boy, and unless they’ve changed the rules for identical twins on me, I’m guessing you have another one, too. I hope nobody’s bought anything pink.”
The only noise in the car for the five-minute drive home was the slap of the windscreen wipers and the spatter of rain on the roof, until Marko said, “Venison burgers and kumara chips tonight, I reckon. Maybe roast some greens with them as well.” Which Nyree realized was the perfect thing to say. Letting Ella know that life went on, and family was forever.
“Sounds good,” Ella said, and when they got home, she seemed to hesitate, then followed Marko into the kitchen and sat at the counter.
Maybe it was his confidence, maybe it was his calm, or maybe it was just his size, but Marko had a way of making you feel that things would work out. The kitten wasn’t the only one who wanted to be where he was.
Nyree poured Ella a glass of orange juice, handed her the container of carrots and punnet of hummus she’d started keeping on hand, then turned the oven on and started peeling kumara and stripping stems off a packet of baby kale. That had been a good thought of Marko’s, too. Vitamins, and satisfying Ella’s teenage cravings. Comfort food for the cold and rain, and maybe even for the fear and doubt.
Ella said, between crunches of carrot, “I didn’t think it would be boys, somehow. But maybe boys are better for the adoption thing. Do you think, Marko? Men want boys, right? If they want kids.”
Marko glanced up at her, then back down at the ground venison, onion, parsley, and egg he was mixing in a bowl. “Some men, maybe. But a man who’d rather have boys probably isn’t one you want to choose. Or one who’s just going along with his partner, either. You want a man who knows what it means to be a dad and wants to do it. Girl or boy, one personality or another, problems or not, whatever it is. Not a man who has some checklist of what he’ll take.”
Wow,Nyree thought and didn’t say.
“They’ll probably be big, though,” Ella said. “Big genes, I mean. Me and Julian, because Samoan. They could be rugby players. That would help. You know it would.”
“Professional, you mean,” Marko said. “Hard to say. It’s about more than size. Heaps of smaller fellas playing good footy, and heaps of big boys without the discipline, or the desire.”
“Your driving force,” Nyree said. “That’s what Marko calls it. The thing that pushes you, and the direction it pushes in.”
Marko had begun to shape his mixture into patties. Another squall was battering the windows, so he pulled out a frying pan instead of going for the barbecue. Nyree started to cut the kumara into chips, working the knife through the dense flesh, and Marko looked over and asked, “Need any help?”
“Nah,” she said. “All good.” This kitchen would never win any “cozy” prizes, but right now, it felt warm. Safe. There was that word again.
“It’s weird to think that…” Ella said, and trailed off.
Nyree took a guess. “Could be a bit weird, maybe, to have those thoughts about the babies—or dreams, even, about what they may be. About who they are already.”
“Yes!” Ella sat up straighter. “Like—seeing the fingers and toes and all, watching them kick and thinking about them being together in there, and especially knowing they’re boys… it makes it real. Not that it wasn’t real before, because obviously, and look at my belly, but it does anyway. Maybe it’d be better if I go on and find them parents, so I can sort of imagine them in their new family. Do you think?”
“I think so,” Nyree said. “But I think it would be normal to be a bit… confused. Conflicted. You know you’re giving them to somebody else, but they’re still yours. Of course they are. It’s almost like magic to see them growing in there, isn’t it? Even over just a few weeks, how much bigger they are. Identical twins, especially. Rare, and special. But sad, too. At least, I’d feel that way.”
“Anyway,” Ella said, determination evident in the very way she stabbed her carrot into the hummus, “I think I need to start looking at parents. I haven’t yet, because it seemed too far away. Also because Mum keepsaskingme, like I’ll go past the sell-by date and nobody will take them. Peoplewantbabies. But what if I find the right people, and they don’t want both of them?”
Nyree glanced at Marko, but he wasn’t coming up with anything, so she said, “Who is it that you talk to about it? In the… ministry, or whatever?”
“Social worker,” Ella said. “I’m supposed to ring her, but I haven’t. That’s mostly for later anyway, for forms and things. There’s a website to choose the parents. Like used cars. Pages and pages of them. I looked with Caro before, but then I haven’t. Like I said.”
“I have an idea.” Nyree arranged her kumara chips onto a baking sheet, scattered leaves of baby kale around them, sprinkled the whole thing with olive oil and salt, and slid it into the hot oven. “You could narrow the parents down. Say—five or six couples who look right to you, and who are in the North Island, if that’s still what you want. You could ask the social worker to ring all of them and see if they’d be interested in twin boys. And more than that. If theywantedtwin boys, were excited about them. Then your list would either be narrowed down, or you’d know they were all good with it, whoever you chose.”
