‘Hi, you made it.’ She was waiting outside the entrance to Radiology, relief beaming out of those beautiful eyes.
And drilling into his gut. Reminding him of how well they fitted together. Not only physically, but also they seemed to agree on the most important things. Suddenly the stress of getting here, of even having to be here, fell away and he reached for her hand. ‘Let’s go do this.’ He wanted the first glimpse of his son or daughter more than anything.
Her fingers slipped between his; warm, soft, Alesha.
‘Now, there’s a surprise.’ The girl pushing her scanner into Alesha’s stomach grinned. ‘There are two in there.’
‘What?’ The word exploded out of Kristof. ‘Twins?’
‘Two?’ squeaked a stunned Alesha. ‘Two babies. Oh, my.’
The girl nodded as she studied the screen in front of her. ‘That explains your exhaustion, I’d say.’
Alesha murmured, ‘Are you sure?’
Kristof wrapped an arm over her shoulders, held her tight. This was colossal. One baby in their situation was big, but two? They had a lot to consider. Not that anything had really changed. ‘Do we know what we’re getting?’
‘Do you want to?’ The girl looked from him to Alesha.
Alesha nibbled her bottom lip. ‘I think I do. When it was only one baby I thought I’d like to be surprised, but two? I want to know.’
The scanner pushed against her belly and the images on the screen showed two tiny figures. ‘How can you tell whether they’re boys or girls?’ Kristof asked. A dumb question. The woman was well qualified for this, but right now that picture seemed fuzzy to him and those babies so tiny they blurred before his eyes. He rubbed them and his hand came away damp. He was crying? Hadn’t done that since he was a kid. He slashed harder at his face. It didn’t do to be seen sniffling.
Alesha had no problems with crying. Buckets were needed to collect her tears. The tissues the girl passed her were quickly turned into a sodden ball and another box had to be found. Then she turned into him, buried her face against his shoulder, and saturated his shirt as well.
A boy and a girl. It was as though fate had caught him out and was playing a full hand in case it didn’t get another chance. His lungs weren’t coping. His heart had lost the ability to do slow and steady. Those images told him what Alesha hadn’t been able to, what he hadn’t been able to grasp fully. ‘I’m going to be a dad.’ As in raise, mentor, play with, cherish for ever, those babies. Love them regardless. ‘Want to share those tissues?’
* * *
‘I might have to agree to that apartment around the corner,’ Alesha told Kristof over a cup of tea back at his place. ‘Two babies are going to be a handful and if you’re close by that’d help.’
‘We’ll get a nanny.’
Oh, Kristof. ‘No, we won’t. I am going to bring up my children. I will not leave them in someone else’s care.’ All the angst over being abandoned roared up through her and she was on her feet staring into Kristof’s startled eyes. ‘Never.’
‘Whoa. Take it easy. I was only trying to make things better, not worse.’ He sank onto a kitchen stool so he was at her level when she returned to her seat.
‘Well, you weren’t. Never, ever, suggest that again. You hear?’
‘I think the whole street heard.’ Then his lips flattened. ‘Sorry. Not the right time for flippancy. But I’m out of my depth here. What do you want?’
He was trying to help. She had to drop the anger. It wasn’t his fault her parents did what they did. ‘My turn to apologise.’ She retreated to her stool and tried to pick up her cup without sloshing tea everywhere. That was a fail.
‘Talk to me, Alesha. How are you going to manage? Financially, for one. Raise two children while working, for another. There’s something more going on here that I have no clue about.’
‘I have my grandmother’s money. She died when I was eleven and I couldn’t touch the money till I was twenty-one. The lawyer she appointed invested very wisely for me.’
‘There’s more to this. Someone’s hurt you, haven’t they?’
As if he told her things about his past? But they’d get nowhere if they both kept this up. One of them had to start letting go and revealing what made them tick. It wouldn’t be Kristof. He was too tight, too removed once the fun stopped. But could she talk to him about her family? Could she not? Her babies were depending on her getting things sorted before they arrived. Sorted properly, not doing a shoddy job that they’d all live to regret.
This time the tea didn’t go over the edge of the mug when she picked it up, though it was now lukewarm. Guess she couldn’t have it all. Sipping, she hoped her stomach didn’t choose now to make a nuisance of itself. ‘My brother died of AML when I was ten.’ She hesitated. Took another sip. ‘It was horrible. My parents couldn’t deal with it.’ She blinked, stared all around the room but not at Kristof. If his eyes filled with sympathy she’d fall apart.
His hand covered her one on her thigh. He didn’t say a word. She still nearly fell to shreds.
More tea, more deep breathing. Then, ‘They were lost in their grief, and I—from the day Ryan’s bone-marrow result was delivered I didn’t have parents any more. Not ones who were there for me. I was nine.’
‘Who took care of you?’
‘I did. I ate when I was hungry, shopped with the money Dad left lying around when the cupboards were bare, attended school to get away from the gloom pervading our house. I didn’t go without, but it wasn’t fun either.’ No one asking how did school go, or questioning why she wanted to change schools. No acknowledgment she existed.
No love.
She could’ve handled everything else if her parents had only shown her half what they gave Ryan, even after he died.
Were those swear words spilling from Kristof’s mouth? For her?
Finally Alesha looked at him. A mix of anger and sorrow twisted his mouth, darkened his eyes. He leaned closer, both hands held out to her.
It would be so simple to lean in against him and let go of her own anger and disappointment, let Kristof take charge. Too easy. Because ultimately she had to be strong for herself, and those babies. Leaping up, she paced across the room, back and forth, back and forth.
‘Alesha, go easy. Let me help you. Now, and later with the babies.’
Babies. Not one, but two. She’d thought it would be hard raising one, now there was another one to think of. Could she do this?
She had to. Wanted to. But now she was afraid. Double trouble was what people said of twins. Double worry that she’d get it right. Twins. ‘Are there twins in your family?’ As far as she was aware there weren’t any in her family.
‘I don’t recall any. Guess we managed them all by ourselves.’ His light tone was forced, as though trying to pacify her.
It wasn’t working. The agitation churning her insides got faster, harder, meaner. She had to get out of here. ‘I’m going home.’ Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she headed for the front door. Until her stomach warned it had other ideas. A quick detour took her to the bathroom.
* * *
Kristof left Alesha alone, knowing full well he was not welcome this time. But he was biting to get in there and hold her. Except no amount of caressing or soothing was going to work. Her story about her family appalled him. They’d done a lot of damage to Alesha, back when she was a child, and again tonight as she’d laid out the bare basics.
He was furious for her. How could parents do that to their daughter? Grief could paralyse a person, but to cast their child adrift? When she was so young? Actually, it didn’t matter what age she was; it was wrong, and horrid, and totally incomprehensible. No wonder she never talked about her past.
Ten minutes ticked by. He couldn’t stand waiting any longer. A light tap on the bathroom door and he let himself in. His heart hit his boots.
Ale
sha looked so forlorn he felt as though he’d been slapped by a raging elephant. Having lowered the lid of the toilet she sat huddled with her arms around her knees, drowning in tears. Silent ones streaming all over her face and onto her arms.
She didn’t raise her head when he said, ‘You are going to be the best mother ever.’
Not a movement, not a whimper. Just those blasted tears.
Kristof sank down onto his haunches beside her and held the tissue box at the ready. How he hated tears. He didn’t know what to do about them. How to stop them. How to obliterate the pain that caused them. He was useless. He waited some more.
Until a shaky hand reached for the box and tugged out a handful of tissues.
He watched as Alesha began mopping up her face, her chin, the backs of her arms. He handed her more tissues and removed the sodden ball from her hand.
She yawned. Her eyes were swollen and dull, exhaustion drew at her cheeks. Another yawn made up his mind.
‘Come on. You’re going to bed.’ Leaning down, he lifted her into his arms, ready to put her down gently if she tried to get away.
Instead she snuggled into him, surprising the breath out of his body. Hope soared. She’d turned to him, not away. They might be able to work something out where Alesha had all the help she needed and he was there in the background to look out for her and the babies. She was right. Everything had got harder now that there were twins on the way. Solo parenting, even with him there for her, was hard, and that was with one child.
In his bedroom he toed the bedcover aside and laid Alesha down.
Another of those enormous yawns pulled at her.
Pulling the cover up to her chin, he kissed her hot cheeks. ‘Get some sleep.’