Grandpa’s grizzled face fell just a bit. He muttered under his breath as I manually steered his chair toward the door. “Spoilsport.”
“And for heaven’s sake, don’t let him out of your sight for a minute!” she called after us as the door closed with a solid
snick.
“That woman is going to be the death of me yet,” Grandpa G grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t do this, don’t eat that, don’t breathe, don’t think, don‘t, don’t, don’t.”
I ruffled his sparse silvery hair. “She loves you and wants you to take care of yourself.”
He leaned back and arched an eyebrow up at me over his shoulder. “I suppose that’s what you tell yourself every time she gets a little high-handed with you, is it, missy?”
I laughed. “Well . . . maybe not. But it’s probably true.”
“Where should we go?” Marcus asked.
But before we could go anywhere, the doors to one of the labor rooms down the hall opened. Through the doors backed a man suited up in blue-green surgical scrubs, his surgical cap still in place but his face mask pulled down under his chin. He was a nondescript man in every way except for one: the light of deep, utter, profound joy that was etched into the sun-worn lines of his face as he gazed down into the little bundle he held in his big hands. It was that expression that stopped me in my tracks and compelled, no,
dared
me to look. My heart started to beat faster, and my chest squeezed tight. He scarcely noticed us as we stepped out of the way so that he could reach the family waiting room. He knocked on the window and held up his little bundle, backing up in self-defense as Joyce came hurtling through the door, her face aglow like a candle. Harold followed at a slightly more measured pace.
“Mom. Dad. I have a son,” the man announced, awe reverberating through his voice. “Can you believe it? This is my son!”
There is something about a moment of purest joy that commands the attention of those fortunate enough to witness it, even from the sidelines. Neither Marcus nor I nor even Grandpa moved. We all just stood by with silly little grins on our faces, watching the scene unfold.
“Ohh!
Let me have a look at the little bean sprout!” Joyce squealed like a pro. A professional grandmother, that is, with her smile on high beams and her hands making the universal “gimme, gimme” gesture.
“That was certainly fast,” I heard my mother say as she came to the doorway to see what all the ruckus was about. “Bless her heart.”
“I’m sure your new grandbaby will be along any second now,” Joyce said reassuringly in between cooing in delight over the tightly wrapped newborn in her arms. “Just look at you, little man, how precious you are. Have you ever
seen
anything so precious, Harold? Oh, he looks just like you, Junior. Don’t you think, Harold?”
New Grandpa Harold looked down over her shoulder at the baby. “Naw, he’s got a whole headful of his mother’s dark hair, and he has her dark eyes, too.”
“Oh, but
around
the eyes, dear. And the nose. And the little mouth.”
Clearly she was too enraptured to remember that newborns rarely resembled anything more than each other, with the same button nose, swollen eyes, and rosebud mouth that every other newborn baby sported. Grandmotherly love. It was a wonderful thing. She began pulling the blanket away, exposing tiny, pink flailing arms with the most perfect little fists. Awing again, she took one between her thumb and forefinger. “Would you look at this? Have you ever seen anything more exquisite? Oh! There’s something he did get from his mother,” she said, rolling his armband around. “His blood type. Junior’s is A positive. But that doesn’t matter, does it?” she cooed, tucking arms and fists back inside the warm flannel. “No, that doesn’t matter at all.”
Somewhat less tolerant of all the baby mush, Grandpa G was starting to get restless, so Marcus and I tiptoed away, closed the door to the waiting room and, smiling, pushed Grandpa toward the bank of elevators.
“You don’t have to push me around,” Grandpa grumbled. “This is a fully operational hoverchair, you know.”
“You could just enjoy the attention,” I told him.
“I’d enjoy it more if it came with one of them there chocolate chip cookies I saw in the machine downstairs when your hunky man here pushed me on past.”
“They’re not even good chocolate chip cookies.”
“But they are cookies,” he said with a wink and a cackle.
“Oh, Grandpa.”
We veered off into the little hallway that led to the main elevators
(not
the service elevators—I wasn’t going anywhere near those anytime soon), and I reached around Grandpa to push the call button. As I turned back to warn him about the addictive evils of cookies, I was startled to find a face looking out at us through the narrow pane of glass set into the stairwell door behind us. A young man with dark curls that flopped down over his forehead and dark eyes that burned into mine.
My breath caught and my hand flew to my throat.
“What’s the matter?” Marcus turned around to see what I was looking at. He saw the man just as he backed away. The man seemed to catch his gaze with a slight nod, and then I saw a flash of movement deeper within the stairwell as he retreated.
Marcus gasped. Dramatically. His reaction made me clutch at him and press my body up against his side. “Did you see him, too? What? Oh, jeez ...”
For a moment, I honestly believed his reaction was true... and then he dissolved into laughter, and I thought I was going to have to smack him. “The look on your face!” he gasped, only this time with half-suppressed laughter.
“Yeah, yeah, very funny,” I sniffed, pouting.
He grinned. “Sorry. It was just the maintenance guy, Maggie. Probably checking on the elevators, after all the trouble.”
“Oh, the maintenance guy.” I felt a little silly. “You mean the one who fixed it earlier?”
“The one and the same.”
Okay, so I was feeling a lot silly. I couldn’t help being jumpy. It is just something that happens to me whenever I’m startled. Humph.
“Yeah, yeah, less yakking, more snacking,” Grandpa sassed, switching on the power to his hoverchair and maneuvering into the now-open elevator, leaving me to hurriedly get on myself or risk the doors closing with Marcus and me left out entirely. The door tried to close on Marcus, but he held his hand up and—now, I know I’m an imaginative person, but I know I did not imagine this—well before the rubber bumper got to his hand, it reversed. No, the heavy metal door was
repelled
back as though by some invisible force, allowing him to walk through unimpeded.
I gaped at him.
“What?” he asked, all innocence.
I couldn’t ask him how he did it—not in front of Grandpa G with his big ears all cocked and primed. But let me get Marcus alone for a minute and that would be another story. And I for one couldn’t wait to hear it.
Down on the main level, we found Grandpa his cookies, then took him for a stroll outside beneath the grand colonnade that had been added to the front of the hospital with the last big-dollar renovation to give it a progressive, trust-
Us
-with-your-health appeal. The heat of the day was still oppressively present even though the sun had finally sunk to its resting place for the night. If anything, it somehow felt even hotter, as though there were some sort of invisible shield over the town, holding the heat in place beneath the starry evening sky. “Hot,” “damp,” and “cloying” were all words that came to mind. Not to mention the mosquitoes. Grandpa seemed impervious to both the heat and the needle-nosed varmints, but even Marcus seemed to be getting tired of fending off their persistent dive-bombings.
By then it was nearly midnight, so my dreams of time alone with Marcus this evening had fallen by the wayside. And still no baby from Mel. Girl had better get her baby mama move on.
We were about to head back in when my cell phone rang in my purse.
Mom,
the front screen read. I scrambled to flip it open. “Hello?”
“Maggie, it’s time! They’ve taken her into surgery for a C-section.” She was hyperventilating, her breath puffing excitedly against the mouthpiece.
I looked at Marcus. “It’s time. Mel’s being taken into surgery.” Grandpa just yawned. “We’ll be right there, Mom.” And no stopping for coffee this time!
Marcus took over pushing Grandpa’s chair—Grandpa whooped like a boy as we rounded the first speedy corner—and we hightailed it for the elevators for what felt like the umpteenth time of the night. We had just made it back to the waiting room when Greg burst through the door, still covered in the head-to-toe scrubs he’d hurriedly donned before heading into surgery with Mel.
It was the first I’d seen of him since walking through the hospital doors, hours ago now, and who knows how long he had been there with Mel, but somehow overall he managed to appear the same pristine, well-kempt man he always was. He didn’t even have a five o’clock shadow—how did he do that? The only sign of his lengthy bedside watch was the cobweb of red veins in his eyes and a slight tic at his left temple. He was a handsome guy, though not really to my taste as his style leaned a little too far in the direction of male elegance, which in some men tends to come off as ... effeminate... but Mel didn’t seem to mind, and I supposed it was part and parcel of the controlled, by-the-rules “legal ease” (
heh!
) necessary in order to command respect and influence in the courtroom.
Greg’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again, but still mustered no voice. Bewilderment swam in his pale eyes.
“Well?” Mom demanded, ending on a shrill note in the urgency of her own need to know.
“T—” Greg choked, then coughed.
“I’m sorry, dear, what was that?”
“T—” Greg tried again.
Mom’s patience left her. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Greg, get it together!”
“Twins!” he exploded at last.
Chapter 7
With the expulsion of the word, his strength seemed to leave him, along with his equilibrium. He staggered slightly on his feet, then dropped heavily into the nearest seat, looking stunned.
“What?!”
Mom cried. “What do you mean, twins?” My mouth had fallen open. “Oh my gosh.”
“Hot damn, son!” Grandpa said, shaking his head in admiration. He reached over and poked Greg in the shoulder with a gnarled finger. “How on earth didja do that? Didn’t think you had it in you. I mean, look at you. Did any of you think he had it in him?”
Leave it to Grandpa G.
Dad looked at least as stunned as Greg, but his surprise dissipated faster. “Well, that’s just wonderful news,” he said. Mom burst into tears, and he put his arm around her, rubbing her shoulder. “Isn’t it wonderful, dear?”
Mom nodded. “Wonderful.”
“Well, don’t just sit there!” I told him. “We need details.
How is Mel doing? The babies? Are they girls? Boys? One of each? And most importantly, how did this happen?” Marcus arched a dark eyebrow at me, his blue eyes sparkling with humor. “Well, I know
how
it happened,” I amended quickly, blushing, “but how on earth did she not know about it?”
Greg just shrugged, at a loss. “I can’t explain it. A miracle of modern medicine, I guess.”
Some kind of miracle, that was for sure. Mel had received the works as far as medical care went—the best OB/GYN, ultrasounds, vitamins, the best home care when she had experienced problems with her pregnancy...
Hey, wait a minute.
I was no expert—obviously, since I’d never actually gone the pregnancy route myself—but weren’t ultrasounds fairly foolproof these days? I’d heard they actually have imagery so high res that you could see actual faces and details in 3-D.
“Anyway, Mel is fine. She was awake through the whole thing. Doc is stitching her up, and the babies—both girls, by the way, Mel has already named them Sophie June and Isabella Rose—are being run through the battery of tests, but I wanted to make sure you all knew. They’re fine, too. Now I’m going to go call my parents in Arizona, and then I have to get back in there or Mel will have my hide.”
My mom was beaming, her earlier anxiety for her youngest and most favorite daughter forgotten in light of the relief of Greg’s news. In a moment of sheer grandmotherly pride, she threw herself into my dad’s arms and bounced—
bounced!
—up and down on her tiptoes. I couldn’t remember the last time she had done anything so uninhibited. “Did you hear that?” she asked, leaning back in his arms and touching his face in a way so intimate that it almost made me feel guilty for watching. “Did you hear?
Twin girls!”
Dad grinned right back at her, years stripped away from his face in the process. In that moment, I could see the young married couple in the two of them. “Two at once. Who would have thunk it?”
He kissed her several times on her cheek, over and over again until she chuckled.
“Now, stop that, Glenn, before you embarrass Mr. Quinn.”
“Mr. Quinn?” Grandpa G squawked in protest. “What do
I
look like, chopped liver?”
Even Marcus was swept up in the glow of the enthusiasm and excitement surrounding us. “I would never have thought your sister was expecting twins. She looked so petite when you introduced us last month. You know, you two don’t look like each other much at all.”
Now, I know he didn’t mean for that to sound the way that it came off, but it still stung. Yes, Mel was my tiny and perfect sister. Yes, she was built like a fashion model, even while pregnant, whereas I resembled a more sturdily built model . . . like a boxy Model T Ford. But every once in a while, it might be nice not to be constantly reminded of that fact.
He saw my face fall, and backtracked immediately. “I mean, your hair is darker, like the color of honey, or whiskey”—he leaned closer to whisper in my ear—“and you are definitely curvier.” His voice made a purr of the first part of the word; it sent a shiver zipping along my spine. “Which, in case I never mentioned it, I happen to really enjoy about you.”