screen.
“What are we looking at?” Lucky asks. He’s holding onto my hand but leaning toward the machine, squinting his eyes.
“Well, I’m just checking on her cervix first, making sure everything looks good . . . and it does.” There’s a long period of silence before she speaks again. “And now we’re going to go ahead and take a look at the uterus and see what’s inside.”
“Maybe it’ll be nothing,” I say, almost hoping I’m right. But there is a small piece of me that hopes there’s a baby in there. I guess I’ve kind of gotten used to the idea.
“Well . . . I definitely see something.” She says this with the weirdest tone to her voice.
I lift my head up and stare at her. “What’s going on?”
She looks at me and she’s grinning. “There’s nothing going on except for the fact that I have a little bit of a surprise for you.”
“We already know I’m pregnant.”
She winks at me. “But did you know you are pregnant with twins?”
“What?”
Lucky leans so far over me toward the screen that all I can see now is the back of his head. “What did you say?” He sounds like he’s ready to slap the girl.
She clicks a bunch of buttons on her machine and wiggles the probe around some more. “I’ll go ahead and take some pictures for you so you can bring them home and show your families.”
“But wait a minute . . .” Lucky says, “I thought I heard you say that there were two babies in there. That’s what twins means, right?”
I’m forgiving him that stupid question, because he’s echoing what’s in my head. Twins means two, right? Or is that some crazy medical term that means something totally different? Please let it be that!
“I’m going to go ahead and let the doctor discuss this with you. I’ve probably already said too much. But don’t worry—everything looks great.”
My heart is going nuts, as if it wants to beat itself right out of my chest. I swear it’s like I’m sitting in a movie theater watching somebody else’s life fall apart in front of my eyes.
“This is not happening.” I’m talking to the ceiling.
Lucky’s face appears above mine. “I’m sure it’s just a blip on the machine,” he says. The expression on his face tells me he’s not really so sure of that.
I shake my head, still staring at the ceiling, ignoring Lucky’s face there. “This is not happening. This is not my life. This is somebody else’s life.”
I’m so locked in my daze that I don’t even pay attention to the fact that the tech is gone from the room and I’m getting dressed. Somehow I’m going through the motions like a robot, but none of it is really sinking in. Lucky has to help me zip my pants. I’m too busy trying to figure out what the hell’s going on to focus on the mechanics of it.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go find this doctor.”
I follow him out the door, holding his hand. For once I’m glad he’s there and I have someone to hang on to.
“If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to the doctor’s office,” says a young girl, meeting up with us in the hallway. This is not the technician who probed me and took pictures of my insides, printing them in black and white on shiny paper. Lucky is holding one of the prints she made, but I can’t look at it. It makes it all too real, to see an image like that.
Lucky pulls me along and we walk into an office whose walls are covered in plaques. Shelves behind the desk are piled high with books. A man stands to say hello and he’s a couple inches shorter than I am, which is not something I see in a grown man very often.
I hold out my hand. “Toni. I’m Toni.” The girl who’s forgotten how to talk, apparently.
He shakes my hand. “I’m Doctor Ramandi.” He turns his attention to Lucky. “And this is . . . ?” He shakes Lucky’s hand.
“I’m the baby daddy. You can call me Lucky.” He nods his head and smiles, guiding me into a chair before he takes his own next to me.
The doctor sits with his hands folded on the desk in front of him. He smiles at both of us before beginning. “Congratulations. I hear you are pregnant with twins.”
I shake my head. “I think you’d better check the tape. I’m pretty sure that’s a mistake.”
He