The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,81

“Looks like you carrying one too many. You need to go to the hospital.”

Months later, deep in anesthesia and dead to the world, I was delivered of twins at Mercy Hospital in Charlotte. This time, I was not afraid. Gracie and Rosie were normal and bright. There was no need for subterfuge.

In the hospital, hours after the birth, I emerged from my twilight sleep of drugs to find Adam and Momma in the room with me. Momma dozed in a chair at the foot of the bed. A silken evening light shone through a break in the drawn curtains. From a chair next to the bed, Adam leaned into the column of light. He held up two fingers. “The doctors are not sure. But I saw them. We have two more girls. Like Gracie and Rosie, like you,” he whispered.

The moldy cotton of anesthesia filled my mouth. I shook my head and croaked, “Like you. Bet they’re ugly like you.”

He held a cup of water to my lips and nodded. “They’re healthy and all there. But, yes, they look like Gracie and Rosie did, only a little smaller and skinnier.”

The tepid, chlorinated water did little to slake my thirst. “What do the doctors say?” I tried to sit up straight, but felt the soreness in my bottom and slouched back down again.

“They had to stitch you up. You tore some. You okay?”

I nodded.

“They want to keep the babies for observation,” he continued. “They’re puzzled, of course.”

“I want to go home. I want them with me.”

“You should all stay for a few days and rest. Momma and I can take care of the girls at home. Rita and Bertie are with them now.”

Momma stirred, woke with a startle, then oriented herself. Adam stood up to let her sit on the bed beside me. She smoothed my hair away from my face and took my hand. “Has Adam told you?”

He cleared his throat and spoke up. “Evelyn, the doctors are very puzzled. They think something may be wrong with the girls.” He spoke in a level and serious voice as he grinned over Momma’s shoulder.

I hiccupped and stifled a smile.

“Oh, honey.” Momma rubbed my hand. I felt terrible. The moment should have been a joy for her.

I slid back into sleep and woke later, to a darkened room. Momma was gone. Adam snored softly in a recliner next to my bed, his hat tipped over his face.

The next morning, Adam and Momma brought Gracie and Rosie to see their new sisters. The five of us stood looking in the nursery window at a row of babies sleeping in plastic bassinets. Pink, not blue, blankets swaddled Jennie and Lillian—a good sign. The doctors agreed with Adam on the sex of the babies. I pressed my face to the glass and stood on my tiptoes to get a better view. Both of them slept. Not much was visible between their blankets and the knit caps. But their cheeks had the same roughly dimpled skin I had seen on Addie and their two older sisters.

“Are they all right, Momma?” Gracie leaned against me and put her arm around my hip. Momma had pulled her hair back in a single tight braid. She looked up at me, her broad face solemn.

“Of course they are. They’re fine. Perfect like you and Rosie were when you were born,” I said.

“Maybe we got a bad one, so they gave us another one to make up for it,” Rosie volunteered, hopping up and down beside us.

Adam and I laughed. Momma rubbed Gracie’s shoulders sympathetically.

Two nurses in surgical masks came into the nursery and picked up the twins. The younger nurse gave us a brief, anxious glance.

Adam put his hand on my back. “They were early, Evelyn. It may take a day or two longer to lose the newborn look.” The two nurses took the twins into an adjoining room and shut the door.

“Adam, I need to have them close to me. I need to hold them like I did Gracie and Rosie. Like I held you. I want them,” I whispered.

“Wait here,” Adam said.

Still a little groggy from the anesthetic, I let him go without further comment. My engorged breasts ached. I wanted to hold my babies. Momma and the girls, exclaiming over the other babies, hadn’t noticed Adam leaving.

Across the nursery, another glass wall revealed a parallel hall. Adam appeared opposite us on the other side of the nursery and knocked at a glass door near the room the