by Kelli Walker
But the smell of cinnamon turned my stomach.
My body froze in the middle of the kitchen. Headache? Nausea? Not liking cinnamon? I had it every morning. That was how I took my coffee. Cinnamon, a cardamom pod, and creamer. That was it. That was how I’d woken up every morning with Ryder for the past two years.
Yet everything inside of me wanted to heave at the smell.
I slapped at the coffee pot, turning the red switch off. I grabbed my keys and reached for my purse before I ran out the door. I slammed it behind me and stumbled over myself to get to my car, then I raced down the driveway. Spitting rocks from my tires as I raced to the nearest drug store.
I skidded into a parking space and ran through the automatic double doors. I ran down the family planning aisle and reached my hand out, grabbing the first test my hands landed on. I tossed it onto the pharmacy counter and paid for it with shaking hands, then I headed straight for their bathroom in the back.
It was the longest five minutes of my life.
I looked down at the pregnancy test and shook my head. Tears rose to my eyes and my mind started swirling with thoughts.
I couldn’t be pregnant.
It had to be a false positive.
What was I going to do if I was pregnant? I had a business I was starting! The office building had been rented and I had finally gotten Brendan on board with my plans. I was two months away from launching my own practice that offered protection services as well as divorce services. I couldn't have a child!
I felt like I was going to throw up.
I leaned over in the sink and began to heave. Nothing but bile came creeping up my throat and it stung. Badly. Tears rose to my eyes as I gripped the edges of the porcelain sink and I heard the pregnancy test clatter to the floor.
That couldn't be right.
I’d been on the pill for damn near a decade.
I rinsed my mouth out and picked up the test. I got back into the car and drove myself across town to my general physician. I needed to know. I needed to be seen. It was nine in the morning and Ryder was calling my phone to see if I had woken up yet and I didn’t have the guts to take his call. I cried to the front desk attendant at my doctor’s office and begged to be seen, sliding the positive pregnancy test towards them.
I was back ten minutes later with blood being drawn and yet another urine test being ordered.
As I sat there staring at the wall, my mind drifted to Ryder. My phone was ringing again and tears poured harder down my face. Was he going to want something like this? If I was pregnant, would he want the child? It was something we hadn’t even talked about. We’d been married for well over a year, and we hadn’t talked about fucking having kids.
How irresponsible was that?
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Mrs. Smith?”
“Yes?” I asked breathlessly.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.
“Nauseous. My head is pounding. I haven’t eaten yet today, so I’m hungry.”
“Then I’ll make this quick. You're pregnant, but your levels don’t make sense.”
I furrowed my brow as I turned my teary gaze up to the doctor.
“What the hell does that even mean?” I asked.
“Your hCG levels are very high. They’re consistent with someone who would be at least three months along, and it’s obvious you aren’t. I want to do an ultrasound immediately to find out what’s going on.”
“Is there something wrong?” I asked.
“There could be. I’m not sure. I won’t be until we have a look.”
There was something wrong?
In an instant, my mind went from regret to panic. Was there something wrong with our child? My hand migrated to my stomach and more tears rose to my eyes as the doctor opened the door for one of the nurses. She rolled in an ultrasound machine and I laid down, then lifted my shirt so they could prepare me for what was about to happen.
Guilt crashed down onto my chest. It was hard to breathe. Hard to speak. Hard to process what was going on. One second I was panicking because I didn’t think Ryder would want this child and the next I was worried for its safety. My hands were shaking and I felt that same nausea creeping up my throat, and the doctor took my hand to try and settle me down.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded, unable to speak.
The wand came down onto my stomach and he started pushing. Pressing. Molding the icy cold gel to my stomach. It was uncomfortable. Borderline painful. But it was necessary. My head lobbed over to the black-and-white screen and I couldn’t decipher what was going on. There were some wavy lines and a lot of blank space, and I gripped the doctor’s hand as anxiety flooded my veins.
Then, a small little bean popped up on the screen.
The pulsing of a rapid heartbeat echoed throughout the room and an involuntary smile crossed my cheeks. My tears of anxiousness turned to tears of joy, and I was giggling as I wanted the little thing bounce around. The doctor released my hand to click buttons and zoom in on certain aspects of the picture. Then without warning, he pressed deeply into my abdomen.
So deeply it made me grunt.
I almost smacked the damn wand out of his hand before I saw it. Another little bean come into the picture. It was darting around in a little cage of its own and another heartbeat echoed out into the room. Thumping in contrast to the first we had found.
“There would be the explanation,” the doctor said.
“Wh-wh-... what?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
He pressed buttons and zoomed in on pictures, doing things at such a rapid pace that I couldn't catch them. My heart was slamming against my chest as the doctor’s smile grew, then he hit a button that forced the machine to spit out a series of pictures.
“You, my dear, are pregnant with twins,” he said.
My entire world stopped. Twins? He had to be joking. I couldn't be pregnant with twins. I couldn't be pregnant. At all. That wasn’t the plan. I had a business to run and plans to put in motion and a life to live. I couldn’t put that on hold for a child.
For two children.
Could I?
My tears of joy turned to tears of fear and I bolted upright on the table. I wiped at my tears as the nurse gave me a warm washcloth and I wiped the gel off my body. The doctor handed me the roll of pictures and was rattling off all sorts of instructions, but I couldn’t hear him.
All I could hear was the vibration of my phone in my purse.
I reached my hand out for it and the nurse handed it to me. As tears dripped down onto my cheeks, I pulled my phone out of my purse. Twelve missed calls and four missed text messages. All from a husband who was probably worried sick about me.
I answered his incoming call as I grasped the pictures in my hand. I looked at the last one. The very last one. A zoomed in picture of the two little sacs with the small beans dancing around in them. I sniffled into the phone as my world began to tilt, but Ryder’s voice quickly pulled me from my trance.
“I’ve got you at your general physician’s. I’m coming to get you, Alicia.”
“What?” I asked breathlessly.
“You’re at your doctor, right?”
“Y-y-... yeah. How-?”
“You picked up the phone but weren’t talking. I traced your phone,” Ryder said.
“Oh.”
“You stay put. I’m coming to get you now.”
I hung up the phone and looked up into the eyes of my doctor. They were filled with a sort of hesitant happiness, but it was hard for me to find that same happiness. I felt numb. Sick to my stomach. Tired.
Exhausted, really.
I stared at the wall until I heard the door crash in. I felt a pair of warm, strong arm wrap around me and my tears started up all over again. The ultrasound pictures fell to the floor and I fisted Ryder’s shirt, sobbing into its fabric. He kissed the top of my head and ran his fingers through my hair, my body shaking against his.
But the pict
ures caught his eye on the floor and he froze.
He pulled away from me and his eyes fell to the floor. I watched him bend over to pick up the pictures as his eyes widened with shock. I wiped at my tears and drew in a shaky breath, waiting for his reaction.
“Alicia?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry,” I said breathlessly.
His eyes danced around the photos and my mouth quickly ran away from me.
“I’ve been regularly taking my pill, I swear. I don’t know what happened or when it failed or why. I know we haven’t talked about kids and we can’t have kids right now, Ryder. We can’t. I’m about to open my business. We signed the damn lease!”
He slid the pictures through his fingers until he came upon the last one.
The very last one that housed both of our babies together.
“Alicia?” Ryder asked.
“I’m so sorry,” I said again.
“Why are there two in this frame?”
My eyes looked up into his for the first time since he’d crashed into the room and his eyes locked with mine.
“Because I’m pregnant with twins,” I said with a whisper.
I watched and waited. For the anger or the resentment I knew was coming. For the talk about how we couldn’t afford to have children at the moment or the fight about how I simply needed to give up my practice and be a stay-at-home mother. I couldn’t do that. My heart was set on this practice. On the purpose it gave me and the hope it filled me with and the elation at the possibility that I could help other the way I had been helped by so many.
But when Ryder’s face changed, I didn’t find resentment or anger. I didn’t find disappointment or disgust.
Instead, I found delight.
“Holy fuck!”
Ryder wrapped me in his arms and crashed his lips against mine. My eyes widened with shock as his tongue pressed into my mouth, and I caved instantly to the heat of it. He bent me backwards so deeply I was practically laid back on the patient bed, and I could feel him smiling against me.
My brow furrowed as he pulled away, bringing my body closer to his.
“We’re pregnant,” he said.
“You’re not angry?” I asked.
“Why the hell would I be angry at something like this?”
“Because… this isn’t the plan?”
He pulled up a chair and sat down in front of me, my hands wrapped within his.
“Alicia. We’re pregnant. This is incredible news. Holy fuck, you had me so scared earlier.”
“But you’re not now?” I asked. “Because I sure as hell am.”
“I’m petrified, Ryder.”
The smile slid from his face and I sighed as I shook my head.
“I can’t have kids right now. I’m about to open my own business. How can I do that when I’m pregnant? How can I keep it running after I have these… these twins?”
I snickered the last two words. I still couldn't believe I was having twins.
“We’ll do whatever it takes,” Ryder said.
“But what will it take?” I asked.
“Effort. Energy. A bit of shifting around. But we can make it work. I know we can. Alicia, we’re going to have a family. I’m going to have a family with you. And I don’t know about you, but I’m happy as hell over that.”
“You are?”
“Hell yeah, I am.”
“How are you so calm?” I asked.
“Because you’re not calm. And that’s okay. There will eventually come a moment where I’m not calm, and you’ll be there to hold it down for me. That’s how we work. It’s why we work. You’re allowed to be scared, but I don’t want you sitting there thinking that I don’t want this. That I don’t want this family with you. Because I do, Alicia. I’ve wanted it since the night I proposed.”
“You did?” I asked.
“I did. And the business? We’ll make it work. We can hire a nanny. Or use one of the offices in the clinic as a nursery for the kids. We can find another person to hire on the spot so you can work part-time. Whatever it takes, we’ll do. Because that’s how we work. No matter what, for better or for worse-.”
“Through all that life throws at us,” I said.
Those were our wedding vows. And they hadn’t been any more beautiful or necessary until now.
“We’re going to be parents,” I said breathlessly.
“We are,” Ryder said.
“I’m going to be a mother,” I said as a smile slid across my cheeks.
“The best.”
“I love you, Ryder.”
“I love you too, Alicia.”
I leaned into his lips and lost myself in his taste as our tongues danced together. He stood up from the chair and pulled me into him as my hands ran up his chest. I felt his touch run down my sides as his arm wrapped around my waist, then slowly, I felt a warmth cascade over my stomach.
I felt his palm stretch over my belly button as our lips finally parted.
“I love you guys,” Ryder said with a whisper.
And the sentiment melted my heart.
We were going to be parents.
We were going to be the best of parents.
“Come on,” he said as he lifted me into his arms. “Let’s get you home.”
I giggled as he picked me up and carried me towards the door.
“What about my purse?” I asked. “It’s on the counter.”
“I’ll come back for it,” Ryder said. “And the pictures.”
“So I’m just going to sit in the car while you do everything for me?”
“Get used to it. Because you aren’t going to be doing much for the next nine months without me.”
“I shouldn't have expected anything different.”
“You really shouldn't have.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes as the rhythm of his footsteps settled my nerves. My hand migrated to my stomach and I cupped it as he sat me down. The leather cushions of his car were like butter against my thighs and I laid the seat back. My eyes were already getting heavy and my body felt like it was being weighed down by a ton of bricks. I fluttered my eyes closed as Ryder buckled me in, then the car door shut at my side.
I allowed sleep to take me back under as my hand cupped my stomach, and I saw my life flash before my eyes.
The rest of my life with Ryder, our businesses, and two young children running around our feet.
“I love you guys too,” I said with a whisper.
And in my dreams, they told me they loved me in return.
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