“Is my husband here yet?” She tried to turn her head to the side to look past the orderly toward the ER entry they’d just wheeled her through. But her prone position and the stupid neck brace they had her in limited her view and made everything look skewed and out of context.
“Is he supposed to be here?”
“Yes, but he doesn’t know where the hospital is . . . We’re not from around here. We were headed to Cape Girardeau when I rolled the car.”
“You’re a ways from home.”
She nodded. “Chase—my husband—was going to follow the ambulance but—”
“He’ll find you then. Don’t worry. Carrollton is a small town and there are signs for the hospital. I’m going to take you on back now so the doctor can check you over.”
“Will you be sure and let my husband come back when he gets here?” She’d seen the worry in Chase’s face.
After a blur of X-rays and lab work, they finally let her get out of the neck brace and wheeled her into a large tiled area where they pulled a curtain around her, creating an exam room. They transferred her from the gurney to another “bed” that looked more like a table. A nurse helped her into a hospital gown and asked Landyn many of the same questions the EMTs and lab techs had asked.
Shortly, the nurse left the room with the chart. But within a few minutes, a man who didn’t look much older than Chase pulled back the curtain.
“Mrs. Spencer?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Meier.” He pulled a rolling stool away from a desk just outside the curtained area and pulled it up beside the exam table. “I hear you got caught in the hailstorm. Rolled your car?”
“Yes.” She turned her head, trying to see past him. “Do you know if my husband is here yet? He was following the ambulance.” Surely Chase had had time to get here by now.
“I’ll let the nurse know to watch for him.” He pushed off with one foot and rolled the chair against the heavy divider curtain.
Landyn heard him tell the nurse to send Chase back when he arrived. She relaxed a little.
Dr. Meier looked at the clipboard with the list of questions the nurse had filled out. “So you’re five months pregnant? Have you felt the baby move since the accident?”
She shook her head, sobered by what the question implied. “But—I’m not really sure I’ve felt movement at all yet. I think I have but—”
“What is your official due date? The date your doctor gave you?” He waited with pen poised above the chart.
“I . . . don’t exactly have a doctor yet.”
“You haven’t seen a doctor since you got pregnant?” He looked taken aback. “So . . . you’re just going by your last period for your due date.”
She nodded, feeling like some backwoods country hick. “I used a chart I found online. We’re kind of in the process of moving so we just haven’t . . . found a doctor yet,” she finished lamely.
“You would probably have felt quickening—movement—if you really are five months along.”
“Well, maybe I have. Felt it, I mean.” She described the fluttery feelings she’d experienced in the past few weeks.
The doctor nodded. “Yes. It sounds like you are feeling quickening. Well . . . Let’s take a listen and just make sure everything is okay with the baby.” He called the nurse back into the curtained area. “You’re sure you don’t have any pain or anything unusual going on since the accident?”
“I’m sure.”
“Sounds like you are one lucky lady.”
She wanted to tell him that it was anything but luck but decided against it. She did shoot up a huge prayer of thanks while the doctor listened to her heart, then he had her lie back and moved a Doppler stethoscope to her belly. She suddenly had an urgent need to see Chase. If anything had happened to the baby . . . She couldn’t even let herself finish the thought.
The doctor moved the stethoscope to various spots on her stomach.
Her gaze intent on his eyes, she tried to decipher what he was hearing. What he was thinking.
Finally, on the third try, he smiled. “There it is . . . good and strong.”
Landyn released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Thank you, Lord.
The divider curtain parted behind Dr. Meier, and the orderly who’d brought her in appeared. “Someone here to see you, Mrs. Spencer.”
He pushed the curtain farther and Chase stepped in. He immediately went to Landyn’s side.
“Ah, this must be Dad.” The doctor greeted Chase. “Everything looks fine,” he assured. “We’ve got a strong heartbeat for the baby and—”
“Is Landyn okay?” Deep creases furrowed the spot between his eyebrows.
“She’s fine. Just a little shaken up. And very lucky from the sound of it.”
Chase nodded and swallowed hard. Landyn thought he looked like he might cry. She reached for his hand. He knit their fingers together and squeezed so tight she winced.
“What’s wrong?” Concern carved lines in Chase’s forehead. “Are you hurting?”
“Yes, but—” She wriggled loose from his grip. “Only because you’re about to break my fingers, babe.” She laughed and Chase looked sheepish.
“I think we should keep her overnight for observation,” Dr. Meier said, still moving the stethoscope around on her belly.“But she can probably go home in the morn—” He stopped mid-sentence and frowned.
Moving the stethoscope again, he listened. Then moved it again. Then back to where he’d first heard the baby’s heartbeat.
Landyn couldn’t read his expression.
“We can wait until tomorrow, but I think we might want to schedule an ultrasound while we have you here. Especially since you haven’t seen a doctor yet.”
“Why?” Landyn sought Chase’s eyes and saw in them the same fear she was feeling.
“Is something . . . wrong?” His voice strained, Chase squeezed her hand again.
Dr. Meier shook his head looking at Chase, then at her. “No, no . . . Nothing’s wrong. I’m hearing strong heartbeats.” A smile bloomed on the doctor’s face. “For both babies.”
* * *
“Are you sure?” Chase stared at the doctor, wishing there was a chair he could sink into or something to hang on to besides Landyn—who looked as shocked as he was.
“You’re not serious?” Landyn’s eyes were wide. “Two . . .? You mean like—twins?”
Dr. Meier and the nurse both laughed, but the nurse quickly sobered. “You both look like you could use some water. This kind of news takes a while to sink in sometimes.”
“Water, yes. And . . . maybe some Valium,” Chase said, not sure where he found the strength to joke about something like this. He hadn’t thought anything could surprise him more than the news that Landyn was pregnant. But twins? It was so far out of his scope of possibility, he didn’t even know how to start processing it.
Dr. Meier rose and pushed the stool he’d been sitting on over to Chase. “You look like you need this worse than I do.”
The nurse reappeared with two small bottles of water. She handed one to each of them. Landyn opted to place hers, unopened, on her forehead. That looked like a good idea, and Chase followed suit.
They stared at each other in bewilderment until Landyn started laughing. Or at least he thought it was a laugh. “Oh, Chase. I’m so sorry,” she finally said.
Moved, he touched his water bottle gently to Landyn’s cheek and kissed her hand. “Hey, don’t I get a little of the credit here?” he whispered. Then he started laughing too.
If he didn’t laugh, he might cry.
31
Audrey plumped the pillows in the parlor for the third time and checked her phone again. She’d expected to hear from Landyn and Chase when they got close. The last they’d heard anything was around four. It was already past nine o’clock. If they were still on schedule, they’d be here in about an hour.
She’d be glad when those two were safely back in Langhorne, but just knowing they
were back on familiar territory let her breathe a sigh of relief. If she’d voiced as much to Grant, he would have reminded her that most accidents happen within twenty-five miles of home—or whatever the latest statistic was. Sometimes she thought he liked to see her worrying.
They had three rooms booked tonight and all but one party was in for the night. The others had gone to a concert on the campus in Cape Girardeau and probably wouldn’t be in until late. Meaning they’d probably want a later breakfast in the morning. She made a mental note to fix something that reheated well. Chase and Landyn would no doubt sleep in too.
She put her phone on the counter and went to get some bacon from the deep freeze in the garage. When she came back, her phone was ringing. She deposited the bacon on the counter by the refrigerator and grabbed her phone. Good. It was Chase.
“Hey, Chase. You getting close?”
“Hi, Audrey. Sorry to be calling so late but—we’ve decided we’re going to stay here—stop for the night, I mean.”
“Oh? Where are you? I figured for sure you’d come on in tonight. But that’s fine,” she added quickly, knowing her disappointment was evident in her voice. “I’d rather you be safe and not push it. Is the trip going okay?”
“We’re both pretty beat and . . . It just seemed like a good idea to stop for the night. We’ll see you in the morning. I’m not sure what time.”
Chase sounded—she couldn’t put her finger on it, but he didn’t sound like himself. She hoped he and Landyn weren’t having an argument. Surely they could manage to get along since they were traveling in two cars. “Where are you guys, anyway?” she asked again.
“Oh. We . . . We’re in a little town . . . just off the Interstate.”
Well, that told her exactly nothing. “What town? Which route did you take? Grant will ask . . .” She wasn’t trying to be snoopy, but Grant would ask, and she was curious how far they had to drive in the morning. “Will you get here in time for breakfast?”
“We’re in—Carroll County, not sure what the town is—hang on just a second.”
Audrey heard him talking to someone. Did he not know where they’d pulled off? He must really be exhausted. And if he was, how must Landyn feel? Traveling that far—and driving the whole way, since they were bringing both cars—was hard enough when you weren’t pregnant. But if they’d been on the road since five, they had to be so close to Langhorne.
Still, disappointed as she was, if they were that tired, it was better that they stop and get some sleep. “Chase?”
More muffled discussion. “Yes? I’m here, Audrey.”
“Can I talk to Landyn for a minute?” Chase still hadn’t told her where they were. Maybe she could get more information out of her daughter.
“Oh . . . Um . . . Landyn’s not here right now. She’s actually—in the bathroom. Again.” He chuckled, but it sounded stilted.
Audrey shook her head. They must be fighting. She gave an inward growl. Those two . . . Sometimes she just wanted to smack their heads together and tell them to grow up. “So . . . everything’s going okay?”
A pause while he talked to whoever he was talking to. “Oh, and we’re in Carrollton, Audrey. That’s the town we’re staying in tonight. But we’ll be back there tomorrow . . . I’m not sure what time, but we’ll let you know. I need to run. See you guys tomorrow.”
He hung up before she could ask him where Carrollton was. She’d never heard of the town.
* * *
It was still dark outside the hospital window when a nurse came in and woke Landyn to take her vitals. “You’ve got quite the shiner going there,” the nurse said, adjusting the blood pressure cuff on Landyn’s arm.
“Do I?” Landyn put a hand to her eye. She hadn’t looked in a mirror since she got to the hospital.
Chase stirred in the recliner beside her bed. After they’d moved her to a regular room last night, Chase had called her insurance company, and then had gone out to check on her car—after he’d finally tracked down where they’d towed it to.
He’d transferred as much as possible into his car, but he seemed discouraged after he returned to the hospital. “I think we can safely say your car is totaled.”
He described the accident scene, but Landyn had a feeling he wasn’t telling her just how bad the damage to her car was—and how much of their stuff had been destroyed. She tried to remember what was in her car that was so important. Chase had retrieved her purse and the EMTs had found her phone. Those were the things that would have been hard to replace. They would worry about the rest later. Maybe that was one nice thing about being so poor—they had nothing to lose.
She’d heard Chase get up and putter around the small room several times during the night. She hadn’t slept well either with the bright lights and constant noise at the nurse’s station outside her room. But at least they had a room to themselves.
She put a finger to her lips now, asking the nurse to let Chase sleep, then eased her legs over the side of the hospital bed. She felt like she’d run a marathon. Every muscle cried out in pain, and when she got into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, she saw the bluish shiner that had developed under her right eye.
“I’m fine,” she told the nurse, who was hovering over her like a mosquito. “I’m going to get cleaned up and try to do something with my hair.”
“Okay. I’ll be back to check on you in a few minutes. Here’s the call button if you need anything.” She placed the cord on the bed near the pillow.
Landyn washed her face and wet down her curls enough to try to get them to cooperate. Gazing at her image in the mirror, the events of yesterday played in her mind like a fast-paced movie. She and Chase had talked briefly after he got back from unpacking the Honda, but mostly they’d just looked at each other and said again and again, “Can you believe this? Can you get over this?” Mostly they meant the news about the babies. Twins! It still hadn’t quite sunk in. But also they were exclaiming over her wreck and the damage the hail had inflicted on their cars.
Surprisingly, Chase didn’t seem as worried about that as she was. “I don’t care about the cars,” he’d told her last night. “The only thing that matters is that you’re okay.”
She knew he felt bad about hedging with her mom when he’d called her parents last night, but Landyn hadn’t wanted him to tell them about the wreck. They would only worry, and there wasn’t anything they could do from Langhorne.
She went to the window and pulled back the heavy curtain. Dawn had begun to paint the horizon in tinges of pink. Feeling suddenly weary, she went back to the hospital bed. She’d made Chase promise not to tell her parents about the babies. She wanted to tell them in person. And there was still a chance—she was holding out hope, if she was honest—that the ultrasound would prove the doctor wrong. He’d seemed pretty confident about those two distinct heartbeats he’d heard in the ER, but if he was wrong, she had to admit she would heave a sigh of relief.
She felt guilty for hoping he was wrong. The novelty of twins was a fun thought. But the reality of what it would mean for her and Chase was anything but fun. If she was having twins, the studio apartment in Bed-Stuy was out of the question. And she couldn’t even let herself think about the hospital bill, let alone diapers and daycare and trying to put two kids through college at once.
Landyn closed her eyes but opened them quickly. It seemed every time she closed her eyes, she felt that awful, helpless sense of falling, seeing the accident happen all over again in slow motion.
She finally dozed off only to have the nurse reappear, pushing a wheelchair. “They’re ready for you downstairs. Your husband will want to be there for the ultrasound.”
Chase struggled to sit up in the chair. “I’m awake.” He groped for the lever and put the recliner upright, then rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair, giving it that spiky style Landyn loved on him.
“Let’s go meet your babies,” the nurse said, smiling like it was the best news possible.
* * *
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The technician ran the wand across Landyn’s belly again, then swiveled the screen toward Chase. Judging from the woman’s smile, he was pretty sure she was confirming Dr. Meier’s diagnosis of twins. But he couldn’t make out—well . . . heads or tails of the image on the screen.
“Ooh, look, Chase!” There was awe in Landyn’s voice and he strained to make the black-and-white pictures look like a baby. Or two babies.
“You can see the head here”—the tech circled a haloed area on the screen—“of Baby A. And here is Baby B.”
“So . . . there are two? You’re sure?” Landyn sounded a little breathless.
Chase took her hand and squeezed it.
“Oh, yes, definitely twins.” The tech moved the wand again and the image shifted. This time the pieces all fit together and came into focus, and Chase saw the forms clearly. Two little heads and— “Is that . . . a spine?”
“Let’s see . . .” She adjusted the screen and moved the wand again. “It sure is. That’s a good shot,” the tech said. “Come on, baby . . . Let’s get a look at you.” She pointed out an arm and five little fingers—distinct as his own—and she talked to the babies all the while, as if they were already real people.
And of course, they were. It took his breath away.
The tech smiled at Landyn. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
“Can you tell if they’re identical? Or their gender?”
Chase hadn’t even considered gender yet. What if it was two little girls? He couldn’t even imagine living with three Landyns.
“It’s a little early to determine gender,” the tech said. “And we can’t conclusively determine zygosity—whether they’re identical or fraternal—via ultrasound. As you can see”—she pointed to the screen—“there are two placentas, but that’s just one factor for fraternal twins. I’m sure Dr. Meier will want you to see your regular physician right away.”
Chase couldn’t help but see dollar signs, but he pushed the thoughts to a back burner.
Landyn blew out a breath, her eyes glued to the screen. “Twins, Chase. Twins,” she whispered.
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