Page 67 of Secret Babies For My Brother's Best Friend

Scarlett laughed, and I sat back while they went through the usual list of questions. Halliwell made notes and Scarlett answered diligently—her last period, symptoms she’d been experiencing, smoking, drinking, chronic conditions…

It felt like forever before Halliwell finally perked up and announced, “Time to take the table!”

She ushered Scarlett over to the examination table and motioned for her to hop on.

“Do I need to…?” Scarlett pointed to her nether regions, eyebrows raised.

Halliwell laughed and shook her head. “No internal today, so you don’t have to undress. I’ll be using this.” She waved the ultrasound wand at Scarlett.

I gave Scarlett’s hand a squeeze as the grainy image appeared on the monitor. She squinted at it and cocked her head to the side in an attempt to decipher it.

“It’s there, trust me,” I said with a soft laugh. “Tell her, Doctor.”

“Am I supposed to be looking at that blob over there?” Scarlett asked, pointing at the screen.

Halliwell remained quiet, though, moving the wand to different angles on Scarlett’s body. Her own head was also tilted to one side, and she bit her lower lip in concentration.

“Doctor?” I pressed. Her silence was beginning to scare me, and I could feel Scarlett’s own anxiety rising.

“Oh, sorry, it’s nothing,” she replied. “I just… I’m trying to get a clearer… Let me turn this up.”

She turned a few knobs on her control panel, and I kept a close eye on the monitor. Nothing changed in the picture, but all of a sudden there was a burst of sound in the small consulting room. A rapid thudding that I recognized instantly. Leo’s mom used to call it a heartbeat under water.

Tears sprang to Scarlett’s eyes, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Is that it? Is that our baby?”

Halliwell said nothing for a moment and listened hard. Then a slow smile spread across her face and she said, “Yes, that’s your babies all right.”

I blinked my own emotion out of my eyes as Scarlett and I both broke into relieved laughter. But then her face dropped, and she looked at Halliwell, her fingers digging into my hand.

“Babies?” she asked.

Only then did the obstetrician’s choice of words hit me. What the hell did she mean, babies?

“Two, to be exact,” Halliwell said. “I picked up a second baby on the monitor but wanted to be sure. If you listen carefully… two heartbeats. Clear as day.”

She turned up the volume, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t hear anything over the thundering of my own heart in my ears. Twins! I wouldn’t have been more surprised if she told me there was a grand piano in there.

“Are—are you sure?” I asked, struggling to find my words.

Halliwell nodded, typing something up on her laptop. Scarlett’s phone buzzed with a notification soon after. “That’s an email of the recording,” the obstetrician said. “It’ll have the image as well as the sound of your babies’ heartbeats.”

“I can’t wait to see Chris’ face,” Scarlett said, looking up at me. “Can you believe it? Neither of us have twins in the family…”

“My mother,” I said plainly, recalling a feint memory of her sister, my aunt, with whom she’d had a falling out when I was about Leo’s age. I’d never seen her again.

“Your mother?” Scarlett asked, shocked. “You never told me—”

“There’s nothing to tell.” I patted her hand lovingly. “I’m just relieved everything is okay. Times two.”

***

Julia was alone when we arrived for visiting, baby Diana sleeping soundly in the bassinet beside her bed.

“I sent Chris on a burger run,” she said as we came in. “I could call him to bring you guys something?”

“I’m not hungry,” Scarlett replied, shifting onto the bed beside Julia and curling up comfortably. “What about you, Luca?”

I shook my head and went to sit down in the armchair looking over Diana. My mind was still reeling with the news that in a few months we’d have two of those in our lives. It was too much to process.

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