Tomorrow marks three weeks since we found out there were two babies inside Rose's belly. To say it was a shock would of course be a gross understatement, as cliche´ as that sounds.
We had an appointment for late afternoon that Monday, but it had to be rescheduled (Dr.'s orders, I guess) to an earlier time at which I couldn't attend. We arranged it so that Rose could have the car for the day and she'd pick me and my carpool partner up from work after the appointment. That all worked out, and she was waiting for my co-worker and I outside of my school at the end of the day. Standing by the car as I approached, Rose handed me the keys and said, "You have to drive."
Sure. No problem.
At this point, we were still keeping this whole thing from our co-workers and even most of our friends and family. So we said nothing about the ultrasound while taking my co-worker home. Once we dropped her off, I turned to Rose to ask her how it went as I pulled the car away from the curb. I got no response.
I tried again, "Well? How'd it go?"
She looked at me and said, "you better pull over." As I pulled the car to the nearest curb, she began to cry. This obviously isn't what I was expecting, and I began to think it was all over; something happened and she was no longer pregnant. "What's wrong? What happened?" I asked. She kept crying, only harder.
"What's going on? Tell me, please," I asked. Rose just covered her face with her right hand and kept crying.
Finally, she responded: "There's two of them..."
"Ha!! Are you fucking kidding me?!?"
I couldn't believe it. One moment I had begun to think about how we were going to cope with this whole thing ending before it began, and the next, I learn we're having twins. I just started laughing. It's the only response that made sense. Not that I could control it, it just came over me. "No fucking way!" I said, and kept laughing and slapping the steering with both hands over and over again. I was laughing and bouncing in the driver's seat. I think a tear even came into my eye. And I never cry. Ever.
"No fucking way! Are you serious?"
Oh yes. As serious as a heart attack.
It was a strange moment. In an instant I stopped being afraid of what lay ahead of us. There's nothing I can do about it now except deal with it, and that's not something I'm afraid of. I can deal. This whole experience is going to be a long, long flight by the seats of our pants. I can do that. But now it was Rose who seemed to be lying jack-knifed on the proverbial big square pillow. She kept crying, asking, "what are we going to do now?"
I have no idea. Three weeks later, and I still have no idea. I have a feeling I'll be saying the same thing 20 years from now. But for some reason, I'm not worried. It's too unreal to even try to come up with a real answer to that question.
