A loud, expelled breath came over the line. I wasn’t being very genteel. But her voice responded, “I promise. I’ll call back if the doctor tells me anything more.”
“Good,” I said, clipped. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line and I thought maybe she’d hung up. Until the voice came over the line one last time: “Don’t make me regret this, Mavros.”
And then I heard the click of the line hanging up.
I wouldn’t. For once in my life, I wouldn’t fuck things up.
I’d start being a good man today.
Chapter 6
HOPE
My eyes burned from all the tears I’d been biting back ever since I’d fainted and woken to find myself on the ground earlier.
“So the babies? They’re okay?” I asked the doctor for what felt like the hundredth time. “You’re sure?”
The ER doctor, a young woman in her mid-thirties with raven-black curls and olive skin smiled at me gently. “Everything looks just fine. Both of their heartbeats are strong. They don’t appear to be in distress at all. Now that you’ve taken the iron tabs and waited fifteen minutes, you should start feeling better.”
“But the babies weren’t moving after I fell. Usually I can feel them wiggling around in there—”
“But you’ve felt them moving since. We just felt together as a little foot poked out at my hand during the exam, didn’t we? And we listened to their strong heartbeats. Remember?”
I blinked rapidly, still trying to calm my racing heartbeat.
“Now, just take some deep breaths. I’m going to give you the number to our obstetrics department where we have doctors on call twenty-four hours a day.”
I nodded, my knees rapidly bobbing up and down. I couldn’t seem to stop shaking. I’d never been so afraid in my entire life.
“Now, as for the dizzy spells you’ve been having. It will take a few hours to get your bloodwork back. You said you’ve been taking folic acid, right?”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Every day.”
“Good. I’m also going to prescribe some iron supplements to take home with you. I suspect that’s our culprit though I’ll need the bloodwork back to confirm. You said you’ve been craving pastries but not eating a lot of red meat, right?”
I nodded. Now that she mentioned it, I guess I hadn’t been eating a lot of meat lately, other than the occasional pizza topping. Most often they just served pizza here with cheese and tomatoes, and I’d grown to love it.
I mean, that was an understatement. My third-trimester body seemed to crave it. It was something about the saltiness of the cheese. Not that my swollen ankles were thanking me.
And yet I still went back to Giuseppe’s shop every day for my daily slice. He was gregarious and he knew my whole life story by now. It seemed to give the man great joy to feed a pregnant American woman.
He was especially excited because I was having twins. He always said I “was not fat enough yet,” and he would have to “see to it.”
I think he liked practicing his English every day and having someone else other than his pretty, gap-toothed wife to flirt with all day long. It was one of the reasons I spent my afternoons at their shop. Giuseppe and his wife were both in their late sixties, having been married almost fifty years. They’d gotten married when they were both seventeen.
“My first bun in the oven,” Giuseppe joked, and Marta chased after him with the broom.
My heart squeezed in my chest at thinking of the way they loved each other so clearly after so many years. Their eight children and flurry of grandchildren were also often in and out, helping with and visiting the shop.
“Hope, did you hear me?” the doctor asked and my focus zeroed back in on her. It was as if, once convinced the babies were okay after so many hours of panic, I’d needed to check out with the pleasantest thing my brain could pull up.
Or maybe this scare with the babies just had me missing their fathers…
Even though Makayla had been by my side the whole way to the hospital and was only out in the waiting room because I’d asked her to stay there—I still felt all alone.
Which wasn’t a commentary on the state of our friendship. It was far more about who wasn’t there than who was.
I missed… them. I missed my boys.
Every day I woke up alone and cold in bed, I wondered if I’d been too harsh and abrupt in leaving.
I should have given them more of a chance to explain themselves. Janus kept saying it wasn’t his story to tell so maybe I should’ve just have tracked Leander down and sat on his face if nothing else worked.
I smiled at the thought as the doctor handed me a small bottle of tablets and instructions of where I could go to a pharmacy to get more.