Back to Life (30 page)

Brody
place a hand on my shoulder. “HcG is the pregnancy hormone, man.
Congratulations,
daddy
,” he said, giving me a shake.

Suddenly,
I felt very warm, and a strange feeling over took me. Every protective cell in
my body suddenly jump started. “S-she’s pregnant? Oh wow,” I said, and I ran my
hands through my hair and placed them behind my head. I started to feel happy,
but dread slammed me and almost knocked me down. “Oh God, is the baby okay after
what Erica did to her?”

Dr.
Kilpatrick nodded at me. “Everything looks okay on that front. In fact, we want
to do an ultrasound before she’s moved to her room to check how far along she
is, and start her on some vitamins when she wakes up.”

“Thank
God, okay. Thank you, doctor,” I said, shaking his hand.

“I
think I’m going to go tell Marissa that she’s okay. Do you want to wait for me
to let her know about the baby?”

“Well,
under normal circumstances I’d want to wait, but I think we all need some good
news after what happened today. You can tell her,” I said, and he gave me a
quick hug before heading off down the hall and through the doors leading to
Marissa’s room.

I
walked back over to our group, and everyone was waiting to know what the doctor
said. “Son, what did the doctor say? Is everything all right?” Mom asked.

I
sighed. “Rory is going to be fine, she’s going to make a full recovery.”

“Then
what did the doctor need to tell you?”

I
exhaled deeply. “She’s pregnant.”

Everyone
audibly gasped, and they all looked excited. “Oh, son, that’s wonderful! Is the
baby okay after what happened?” Mom asked. I told her that everything was fine
and after Rory was stable they would do an ultrasound, which I was not going to
miss. After waiting for the longest hour of my life, Dr. Kilpatrick came out
and told me I could go back and see her. I practically ran and when I reached
her recovery room, I almost fell to my knees. She was still out, but she looked
like she was just sleeping. A bruise was starting to form on her cheek, but
other than that she looked so beautiful. I walked to her bed in two big steps
and fell into the chair at her side. I buried my head by her hands and the
tears started to flow. God, I hope she came out of this. I know the doctor said
she would be okay, but I wasn’t going to relax until she woke up and stared at
me with those beautiful chestnut colored eyes.

Soon,
Dr. Kilpatrick, a nurse, and someone wheeling in a big machine came into her
room. “What is that?”

“It’s
an ultrasound machine. If it’s okay, we’d like to see how far along she is and
check for any problems,” Dr. Kilpatrick said.

I
nodded, and the nurse rolled her blanket down and lifted her gown. “I take you
are the father?” she asked me.

“Yes,
I am,” I said, and she squirted something on Rory’s stomach. I held onto her
hand as the technician placed some kind of a mix between a wand and a computer
mouse and rolled it across her belly. I fought back another wave of tears…Rory
should be awake for this. This was another important moment in her life she
would miss because of that woman. The technician rolled it around her belly for
a few moments, and all of a sudden I heard a whooshing sound that was repeating
over and over really fast. “What’s that sound?” I asked.

Dr.
Kilpatrick smiled. “That’s the baby’s heartbeat. Everything looks good, dad,”
he said. He wheeled the screen around so I could see. “See that there? The
little blurb in the middle of the black pocket?” I nodded, and he continued.
“That’s the baby. It’s really early on in the pregnancy, but I’m going to guess
she’s about four or five weeks. I will have an obstetrician visit her once
she’s awake, and I’ll order a transvaginal ultrasound to be done so we can get
a proper due date.” He smiled at me again, and said, “Congratulations.”

All
I could do was stare at the little blurb on the screen. Four to five weeks…that
meant we probably conceived the baby on the fourth of July, just like I
thought. I stared to tear up again, but this time, they were tears of joy as I
saw our little miracle floating around on the screen. “You’re sure everything
is okay? She had a previous pregnancy four years ago that didn’t end well,” I
said.

“I
read her records, and I did note she had an ectopic pregnancy, but as you can
see, the baby is safe in the uterus, and not in the fallopian tube. Everything
looks great so far,” he said.

The
technician handed me a little picture and said, “Baby’s first photo,” before
they said their goodbyes and wheeled the machine out of the room.

As
I sat by her bed holding the picture in my left hand and her hand in my right,
I took a deep breath. “Come on, angel, you have to wake up because I can’t wait
to show this picture to you and say I told you so,” I said, giving her hand a
squeeze. I looked at her angelic face and felt an overwhelming ache coming from
deep within me as she just laid there in a deep sleep. She had to pull through
this…she just had to. She
was
going to finally get her happily ever
after no matter what.

“So
you found out that Erica was guilty just about the time she was confessing,
huh?” Rory said. “That’s pretty crazy.”

“I
know. Are you really okay? I mean, you finally have your answers about who
killed Mason. How do you feel about all of that?”

She
sighed, and her eyes were sad. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to know what
happened, but if just feels like an empty victory. It never should have
happened, and nothing that we know now will bring him back,” she said, as a
tear streamed down her cheek.

“I
know, angel,” and I kissed her head. “Tell me something about him.”

“What?”

“Come
on, we never talk about him, and I’m curious. He must have been pretty awesome
to have a girl as amazing as
you
give him a second look,” I said, and
she smiled. “Tell me.”

She
sighed. “Well, he was a pretty straight laced guy. If he wasn’t wearing a suit
and tie, he was wearing a polo, actually,” she said, and I laughed.

“Figures,”
I said, smiling.

“I
know, right? He told the worst jokes ever, but they made me laugh anyway just
because they were so terrible. I used to say if he’d been a Muppet, he would
have been Fozzi,” she said, giggling. “Baseball was his favorite sport, and he
loved
the Red Sox which I teased him about all the time because you know I’m a
diehard Yankees fan. He worked out and ran at least two miles every day, but he
had such a weakness for cheeseburgers, so that was probably why he ran so much,
to keep the weight off. He loved his friends and family, and he would have done
anything
for them, including giving them the shirt off his back. He
literally did that once when a lady spilled mustard on her shirt at Sox game.
He just stripped his shirt off right then and there and gave it to her.”

I
smiled. “He sounds like he was a pretty cool guy,” I said.

“He
really was,” she said sadly.

“Thanks
for sharing that with me, angel.”

“Thanks
for asking. It felt good to talk about him again,” she said. At that moment,
there was a knock at the door. “Come in.”

A
doctor came in with a nurse and someone wheeling in a machine. “Hello, Rory,
I’m Dr. Jennings and I’m an obstetrician on staff here at New York
Presbyterian,” said a woman that looked she was maybe five feet five inches in
heels, and was possibly in her forties. “Dr. Kilpatrick asked me to come and
see you, is that okay?”

She
nodded. “Sure. This is my fiancé Liam Tanner, and he’s the baby daddy,” she
said, and Dr. Jennings smiled.

“It’s
nice to meet you, Liam. Rory, if it’s okay, I’d like to perform a transvaginal
ultrasound so we can get a clearer picture of your baby and get a confirmed due
date.”

“Sure,
that’s sounds great,” Rory said. The nurse pulled the blanket down and lifted
her gown. “Okay, sweetie, if you can, I need you to pull your knees up and relax
them to your sides. We are going to perform the ultrasound with this wand,” the
nurse said, “and it will go up into your vagina. This way we can get a much
clearer picture of the baby. Are you still okay with that?”

Rory
nodded. “Yes, of course. I want to see the baby,” she said. As they got the
wand ready, I held Rory’s hand as they slid the metal instrument into her.

“Does
that hurt?” I asked.

“Not
at all, it just feels…weird,” she said, grinning.

“Okay,
Rory, let’s fire up the machine,” Dr. Jennings said and she wheeled the machine
to face us. “Okay, everything looks great. You look like you are approximately
five weeks along, which means you probably conceived around July fourth or
fifth,” she said, and I smiled at Rory.

She
turned her face to mine and I whispered, “I told you so,” and she giggled.

“Whoa,
well, what do we have here?” Dr. Jennings said. “Lacey, do you see that?”

The
nurse nodded and smiled. “I definitely do, doctor.”

Rory’s
head snapped back to the doctor. “What’s wrong? What do you see?” she asked,
panic in her voice.

“Nothing
is wrong. However, it seems your baby already has a little playmate in there,”
she said, and pointed to the screen. “See? There is one baby, and there is
another baby.”

My
eyes went wide and Rory gasped. “Another baby?” I asked.

Dr.
Jennings nodded. “Congratulations, you two. You’re having twins.”

“T-twins?
How did Dr. Kilpatrick miss that the first time?” I asked her.

“Well,
he’s a surgeon, so he doesn’t look at ultrasounds all the time like I do, so he
probably didn’t notice it. Do you have your original picture?” I took it out of
my pocket and handed it to her. She smiled. “Uh huh, you see there? There is
one little dot, and then another dot, its right there,” she said, handing the
picture back to me.

I
looked at Rory, wondering what was on her mind, and she was absolutely glowing.
She looked at me, tears streaming down her face and whispered, “We’re having
twins, babe.”

My
heart melted for her all over again in that moment. “I know. Wow, when I do
something, I fucking do it right, don’t I?” I said, and she giggled. God, I’d
missed that giggle of hers.

“So,
when are the babies due?” Rory asked, sniffing.

“I’m
putting your due date at March twenty-seventh, but since you are carrying twins
and you had a prior miscarriage, that makes you high risk you will probably
deliver early, possibly at thirty-seven weeks.”

“Thank
you so much, Dr. Jennings,” I said, and they cleaned Rory up and got her
comfortable. They handed us another picture.

“Make
sure to follow up with your primary care physician or obstetrician of your
choice as soon as you are released, okay?” Dr. Jennings said.

“Actually,
do you have a practice? Because, actually, I’d like to stay with you through
the pregnancy, if it’s okay,” Rory said.

She
nodded and smiled. “I do, and I’d be honored to deliver your babies. We can
schedule an appointment as soon as you are released and get you started on some
vitamins.”

“Actually,
Liam has already been making me take them hoping I was already pregnant,” Rory
laughed, and Dr. Jennings smiled.

“Well,
you have a good man there, Rory,” she said. “I’ll see you both soon,” she said,
and they left the room, leaving me to hold my beautiful, glowing fiancé who was
carrying our babies. I placed my hand on her belly and kissed her lips.
Twins…wow, that ACDC tee shirt was going to be stretched a whole lot wider now.

Rory

“Are
you sure you are ready for this, baby?” Liam asked me, taking a drink of his
soda. “If you aren’t sure, you can change your mind.”

Taking
a bite of the most mouth watering cheeseburger I’d ever eaten (or maybe it
tasted that way because all I had eaten was hospital food for the past few
days), I chewed and swallowed before I said, “I’m sure. He’s my dad, Liam, and
it speaks volumes to me that he came to New York the minute he found out I was
hurt. I want to hear him out,” I said. I had originally planned on seeing Dad
the day after I woke up, but I decided I needed some more time to process
everything, what with his arrival and finding out about the twins. In all
honesty, my dad was the parent that always tried, albeit weakly, to get my mom
to ease up on me, and he was the one that told her not to press charges when I
punched her after the funeral. With impending motherhood looming over me, I
actually wanted my dad in my life again. I wanted our babies to have two
grandfathers, not just one. Although, between Grayson and Vivian these babies
already had the two best grandparents in the world. “Besides, I’m being
released tomorrow, and I want to do this before we go home.”

There
was a knock at my door, and Liam grabbed my hand. “No going back now, angel,” he
said, and I smiled at him.