I stared at her in awe. She was the mother of my children and I had to make things right between us. I approached her side, probably riding the high of finding out I was about to be a dad. She didn’t meet my gaze, not that it mattered much. She was probably going through all the same motions I was.
All I knew was I had to say something… anything.
“Marry me,” I blurted out.
Not entirely the eloquent words I had wanted to use, but it was short and sweet and to the point. And once they left my mouth, I became more confident in them. The longer I thought about it, the more I believed in what they stood for and became surer that they were the right words to say.
She blinked her eyes as though she wasn’t sure what I had just said. But as the words dawned on her, her blinks turned into a glare. Her voice came out sharp when she said, “What?”
“It’s the right thing to do,” I said. “Don’t you think?”
She sarcastically laughed. “Oh yeah, sure. In that case, why not? Let’s just jump right in and keep me barefoot the entire pregnancy.”
“You can say no,” I said and shrugged. “I wouldn’t hold it against you. Just seemed like the right thing to do.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” Her voice was shrill. “A shotgun wedding is the right thing to do?”
I huffed and ran my hands through my hair. I started pacing the room, growing more and more frustrated with the situation. With her stubbornness. Finally, I said. “I’m serious.”
“How could you possibly think marriage is the appropriate next step?” she snapped.
I stopped pacing at the foot of her bed and stared at her. I was at a loss for words, yet again. This woman drove me crazy in the best and worst of ways.
Another knock on the door and the doctor walked in, pulling a large machine behind him that looked like nothing but a glorified computer on wheels.
“Okay, are we ready to check on our little twins?” he asked as he clicked off the lights.
“I guess so,” Cadence said.
I turned my attention to her. She shrugged.
“We’re so not done with this conversation,” I said, keeping my voice low.
The doctor sighed as he took a seat next to the machine and started pushing a bunch of buttons. He then grabbed a bottle from the machine and squirted it onto Cadence’s belly. The screen lit up with a wedge of static and unrecognizable shapes.
The doctor took a strange rectangular-shaped wand and pressed it onto Cadence’s lower abdomen. The screen flickered with other unrecognizable shapes. Soon, two small circles with a small white mass filled the darkness centered within the wedge.
“There you go,” the doctor said. “Twins.”
He used his index finger and pointed each one out and labeled them baby a and baby b with the keyboard.
I stared in awe. The lives that grew inside Cadence took my breath away and they had barely begun to live. And more astoundingly, they were lives I helped to create.
The doctor spent over half an hour taking random measurements and checking the blood flow of the babies. He walked us through each one he was doing, but I couldn’t remember after he was done. I was too awestruck by the two itty-bitty creatures that grew within my mate. My babies. My bloodline.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop staring. I was beside myself. I found my mate and I helped to make two babies.
Once the doctor was done with his exam, he printed out a few pictures for us and handed them off to Cadence.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said as she stared at the pictures. “I think.”
“Once you are able to go home,” the doctor said. “Which will be in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, you will have to be on bed rest.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“Oh, she won’t be on her feet for anything,” I said.