Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Now I covered her stomach with one hand while pulling her head down to mine with the other so I could take her lips. “You feel so good sweetbaby. Before I forget, I have something for you.”
I maneuvered us over from the middle of the bed to the side where I’d hidden my surprise. “You have to help me out here baby. Lean over the side and grab that box I have there.”
I held her hips securely as she did what I asked. “Open it.” I held my breath and waited. It had been hard keeping her out of the basement where I’ d spent hours making them.
I wiped the tears as they fell from her eyes. “You never cease to amaze me. How did you remember this?”
“I told you, I never forgot anything about you, about us.” In her hand she held one of the two carousels I’d made. She’s always been fascinated by them for whatever reason. I think it was one of the books we had to read in High School that had set her on that path.
Whatever the reason, she always loved them and I’d promised her that one day I’d make one. “Turn the key in the bottom sweetheart.”
She did and a sweet lullaby floated through the air making her eyes light up and the tears flow freely. “I love you Nicholas Sheridan.”
“Not as much as I love you.”
“Nicky are you sure you’re okay?” I looked toward the hospital bed where she was holding our son and grinning at me. I looked down and the two little girls in my arms, still trying to make sense of what the hell had just happened in this room in the last few hours.
I remember getting the call while going over a case with my squad. The rush to the hospital with Rawlins telling me to breathe while he drove like a maniac to get to the hospital.
I even remember seeing my mom and hers, who was looking better and better as the days went by, and even our dads were there in the waiting room.
What I don’t remember is coming into the birthing room, or watching my kids being born. No that’s not true. I remember seeing the head of one of my girls coming out of her but then after that everything is a blur.
My throat was raw so I guess I had to believe her when she said I’d been screaming at everyone in the room every time she had a twinge. But most surprising of all, was the little bundle in her arms.
I knew about the two in mine, had been preparing for them for months, but… “Three?” How was she beaming after what she’d just been through? I can’t even feel my legs and all I did was hold her hand through the fog and tell her what a good job she was doing.
I felt slack jawed, like someone now waking up from a coma. Nothing seemed real, except the weight of the two precious little ones in my arms. I understood what the fog was, why it felt like I was seeing everything through a looking glass, when the first tear fell on one of the little pink blankets.
After that it was as if the floodgates opened up. “They look like me.” I looked from one to the other and knew we were gonna have trouble. There was no discerning difference between them. Only the nametags around their wrists told me who was who.
I had a moment of panic when I realized we didn’t have a name for my son. “What are we going to name him, wait did we name him already?” I couldn’t remember shit. The girls already had their names months ago. We’d decided on Hope and Grace for obvious reasons…
“Nicholas Brandon.” She had tears in her voice when she said it and I looked at her with all the love in my heart because I was too choked up to speak.
“Did you know? That he was in there I mean.” She shook her head and kissed our son’s head.
“No I didn’t, I was as surprised as you.”
“And he’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with him?”
“No he’s perfect, they’re all perfect. I told you I could do it.” Yeah, she’d fought like hell to take the babies to term even though the doctor had wanted to induce.
After learning that multiples hardly ever made it to full term and that they could be complications not least of all their birth weight, we’d both read everything we could get our hands on.
My Shelly had insisted from the beginning that if it had been done once then she could do it too. We’d found a few stories of women who’d been able to get close to the thirty-six week mark and that was our aim, though I had a heart attack everyday after we passed thirty-two weeks.