Page 62 of Doctor Daddy

Why was I having two babies? Why hadn’t I told Mark? Should I tell Mark now?

“Oh my God. Angela, should I tell him? I mean twins!” I needed someone to tell me what to do.

She put her hand on my wrist and squeezed. “You haven’t told him that you were pregnant at all. Are you sure you want to tell him now that there are two babies involved? I’m not saying don’t, but I’m saying you had your reasons up until this point. Are those still your reasons?”

I groaned, leaning my head on the back of the couch. She was right.

I hadn’t told Mark for a reason. I didn’t trust him. Why would I all of a sudden trust him now that there were two babies?

I blinked up and tried to clear my vision and clear my brain all at the same time. I sat up and looked at Angela. “Should I tell my mom? Oh my God, how am I going to tell my mom?”

This time Angela leaned back with a heavy sigh. “I think your plan of not telling your mom until after the babies are born is still maybe a good idea. Maybe a better idea now that they’re two of them.”

“Angela, what am I gonna do?” I felt overwhelmed and lost.

“You’re gonna do the same thing you were doing when it was just one baby. I’m still going to be here to help. Now, I get to be the auntie to what though? Are they boys or girls? Do we know?”

“No. We don’t even know the gender,” I said.

She shrugged. “So now, we just need to double up on gender-neutral stuff. We can do this,” she said.

I nodded in agreement. “You’re right. We can do this.”

29

MARK

Four months later…

In a brief moment between my morning patients and my lunch break, I sat down and opened my email. My colleague and Chicago still wanted me to work on that women’s health initiative committee and reminded me of the presentation at the upcoming obstetrics conference.

“Fuck,” I said as I read the email. I totally forgot that I had agreed to attend that and sit on one of the panels. It was going to be a long weekend in Chicago.

A place I thought I never needed to go to again. A place I thought I would avoid simply because Brooke was there somewhere.

As I read through the email and checked the details, I realized I wouldn’t have to accidentally run into Brooke at the hospital. The conference was taking place at a hotel conference center. I quickly typed up a response and sent a cc email to my office manager with an attached note asking her to please make the appropriate arrangements.

After lunch, I did my patient rounds in the maternity ward. I pretty much had the rest of the afternoon open. I was on call for labor and delivery for the rest of the evening, but I didn’t expect any of my patients to come through today and the colleagues I was covering for said that there was the potential of only one or two.

When I didn’t get any calls in to catch babies by dinner time, I called Peyton to see if a previous invitation for dinner was still available. I didn’t feel like eating alone, and Karen was a good cook.

When I pulled into the drive at their house, I noticed there was another car already parked. Karen answered the doorbell and chastised me for not having my standard bottle of wine.

“I always count on you to bring the wine for dinner.”

“I’m on call tonight and I can’t drink,” I explained.

“That’s never stopped you before from bringing the rest of us something to drink.”

“Do you need me to turn around and go buy a bottle of wine before you let me in? Is that my entry fee? Is that the only reason why you only ever invite me over for dinner?” I teased.

“Now you’re just overreacting. Howard and Peyton are upstairs. I'll give you a holler when everything’s ready.”

I took the stairs to the home’s bonus room where both Howard and Peyton had game controllers in their hands and were yelling at the television. I sat back and watched as the small character avatars they’d selected attempted to push each other out of a designated fighting ring.

“I thought video games were for kids,” I said sarcastically as I joined them.

“Video games are for anybody who plays.” Howard paused as he shifted his whole body along with his controller. “Don’t tell me you didn’t play when you were younger.”

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