my doorway when the first cramp struck.
“I’m coming with you,” she said firmly. “The cab is already downstairs. What hospital are we going to?”
I didn’t even know the woman’s name. But suddenly she was my favorite person in the entire world. Because though I’d spent the last six months talking a very, very big game, I now realized that I didn’t want to go through this alone. I didn’t even want to take the ride to the hospital by myself.
The woman—whose name, it turned out, was Mara—was the best sort of company on the ride to the hospital. By which I mean she held my hand and let me lean on her shoulder, told me to breathe when I was having a contraction, and kept her mouth shut otherwise, offering me the comfort of her presence instead of making me talk.
Which was pretty freaking terrific, because I was in so much pain that I wasn’t sure I would have been able to handle a conversation.
Unfortunately, the silence left me with quite a bit of time to think about what was going on—and question my decisions up to this point. Because the simple fact of the matter was this: I was in labor. With twins. Twins that Ethan wanted to split.
Twins that Ethan might actually want to raise together, if I was going to agree to it.
And I’d known that for six months, too. I’d known about the babies for six months and I’d known about Ethan’s request to have one of them for a little less than six months.
Right, so I’d only known about his idea to raise them together for a few days, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d had this decision on my to-do list for months and I still hadn’t even bothered to really look at it straight on… or make a decision about what I was going to do.
Even at eight months pregnant, I’d thought I had more time. Another couple of weeks, at least. Plenty of time to sit down and do a pros and cons list. Plenty of time to figure out whether I could stand to let either of the babies go—and whether I wanted to make that permanent or not.
The universe, however, had evidently had other plans. Because now, the event was nigh, and I was woefully unprepared.
“Dammit,” I breathed, my hands fisted at my sides.
“Are you okay, sugar?” Mara asked quickly. “Is there anything I can do? Do you need anything?”
I gritted my teeth, wishing for once that I had a friend close enough to discuss all of this with. Wishing that Mara herself was that friend. Wishing I could ask for some advice. Give her the entire story and see what she had to say. And in that moment, I realized, I could do that.
No, I hadn’t even known her name until about ten minutes ago. But she’d come with me to the hospital without me even asking her, and she’d been exactly what I needed in the cab. She was obviously a very decent person. And, I thought, there was a chance that she could be a friend. If I let up on my need for isolation and allowed her to be.
“I need advice,” I said quickly. “I know we don’t know each other and that we’ve never even spoken before even though we work at the same firm. I know you don’t know anything about me. But I need advice.”
She chuckled. “Honey, I am terrific at advice. Shoot.”
I smiled—despite the pain I was in—and jumped in with both feet.
“I’m having twins,” I said quickly. “The thing is, the dad, he’s… Well, we only slept together the once.” (A lie, but I didn’t figure I needed to go into the trip to the Hamptons.) “He’s not my boyfriend or anything. When he found out I was pregnant, he… he asked for one of the babies for himself. Offered to pay me and everything.”
I heard a soft snort from her direction. “Pay you for a baby? I hope he was willing to give you an awful lot.”
“Millions,” I said quickly. “And the promise that he would take good care of him or her for their entire life. Probably better than I could do, honestly. The thing is… after we discussed that, we decided to try to get to know each other a bit better. Since we’re having babies together and all. And this weekend, he asked me if I thought we could raise these babies together. He… he