The pressure of Jackson’s fingers around my arm wakes me from my sound sleep. “Tay? Taylor, baby, get up. We have to get going to the hospital,” she says as my blurry eyes try to focus on my surroundings.

How in the world was I able to fall asleep sitting up on the kitchen counter? I amaze myself sometimes.

“The hospital? Why?” I ask as my eyes finally come in to focus on her face.

She grimaces, her grip on my arm tightening as she does so. “I think the babies are coming,” she says when the sensation has passed. “We should head down there.”

As calm as she seems, I still feel a wash of panic over my body. The babies are coming... “I’ll go get Jesse,” I say hurriedly, jumping off of the counter and kissing her lips as I rush past her to the back of the house. My brain is so fuzzy, I need to just calm down, but I can’t swallow the nagging feeling that something could go wrong. “Jesse, let’s go, buddy,” I say as I scoop his still sleeping form into my arms and hoist him onto my hip. As an afterthought, I remember to grab his favorite blanket from the side of the bed before I hurry back to the living room. Our house may not be very large, but how I made it back to the front of the house in less than five steps, I have no clue.

“Taylor!” Jackson exclaims disapprovingly as I turn the corner into the living room where she’s waiting by the front door with her coat on and her hospital bag in her hands.

“What? Are you ready to go?” I ask, grabbing up my keys from the hook beside the door.

“Yes, but you aren’t,” she replies sternly, putting her hands on her hips. “Go upstairs and put some clothes on. You’re not going to the hospital in your boxers.”

“Jacks, we don’t have time, let’s just-”

“We have plenty of time,” she says, taking Jesiah from my arms and shooing me away with a wave of her hand. “These babies aren’t coming out of here any time soon. You go get dressed, and I’ll take Jesse to the car. And get the poor child some shoes, will you?” she yells after me as I fly to our bedroom.

Once we’re in the car and on the way to the hospital, I still can’t clear my brain. The babies are coming… I hear Jackson chattering with her mother and then mine on the cellphone, but the words don’t make it far enough to my brain to be comprehended. All I can think about is that possibly as soon as the end of the day, I’ll have three kids, three mouths to feed, three people completely and totally dependent on me. It makes my stomach cramp with nervousness just thinking about it. Since finding out Jackson and I were having twins this pregnancy, I had thought I had come to terms with it and gotten over that anxiety, but as I weave my way through the streets, all of those fears come roaring back. As we arrive at the hospital, Jackson is taken away in a wheelchair, and I follow close behind with the still asleep Jesiah on my hip, his blanket draped around his shoulders. I start to follow her into the labor room, but Jackson stops me. “Will you stay with him in the waiting room until our parents get here?”

“Why, Jacks?” I protest, feeling the look of confusion come over my face. “I want to be in there with you.”

“I know,” she replies, as she’s helped into a hospital gown. “But I don’t want him in here in case something goes wrong.”

“What could go wrong?” I ask stubbornly. “You said yourself we have plenty of time.”

“So then, just do this for me…please?” she asks.

Her big brown eyes can get her almost anything with me and she knows it. I crumble at the sight of them, which can be a problem sometimes, especially with Jesiah. He has the same eyes, and it’s so hard for me to tell either of them no. “Okay, fine,” I sigh, leaning down to kiss her.

Once we break apart, she kisses Jesiah’s cheek lightly, then turns those eyes to mine once again, grabbing my hand as she does so. “Taylor, I promise you…I won’t let these kids come out of me until you’re in here.”

Reluctantly, I take a seat in the waiting room. The television is tuned to some ridiculous infomercial about a knife that can cut through a hammer, and really why would you want to do that anyway? And my only other source of company at the moment is the sleeping five-year-old in my lap. Sighing in his sleep, he wriggles his hands in between our chests, and I adjust the blanket around his little body, settling in to wait impatiently. Twenty minutes go by before my parents appear, and it’s a wonder I was able to keep my eyes open the entire time…must be the adrenaline. “How is she?” my mother asks, her face already plastered with worry. The idea of Jackson carrying twins had never comforted her.

“I have no idea, I haven’t heard anything,” I say as Avery takes a seat next to me, holding her hands out for her sleeping nephew. I pass him over to her and greet the rest of my family, anxiously wanting to be in the room with my wife. As I follow the nurse to the labor room, the noise of the hospital is drowned out by the pounding of my heart in my ears.

__________________

Early morning light shines harshly in my eyes as I burst through the hospital doors and run. Running when I’m about to have a panic attack probably wasn’t the best decision in the world, which is why I’m probably being punished with the feeling that I can’t get enough air in my lungs as I lean against the warm brick building.

“I’d offer you a cigarette, but then I’d probably have to resuscitate you,” says a female voice from beside me.

I open my eyes and turn toward the voice, finding the owner to be a nurse dressed in hot pink scrubs leaning against the wall and taking a long drag from her cigarette. “I...I don’t smoke anyway. Are you a uh-”

“Yeah, I’m a nurse,” she laughs, taking another drag before dropping the cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with her toe. “I know smoking kills, but I can’t seem to quit. Are you okay? You look like you’re having trouble breathing.”

I can feel my body slowly returning to normal as my thoughts are temporarily pulled from the information I just heard. “I have panic attacks sometimes. I haven’t had one in awhile though…”

“Anything in particular cause this one?” she asks, her face becoming concerned as she steps closer to me.

“It’s…my wife,” I answer, looking down at the ground and feeling like a fool.

“You’re married?” she asks, the skepticism evident in her voice.

I nod before continuing, “They just told her they’re going to have to do an emergency C-section…our twins…they’re breech and one’s got the cord wrapped around her neck.”

“I can understand you being nervous, the first pregnancy and all, especially with twins, but-”

“We already have a son,” I interrupt with a sigh. “It’s not the pregnancy part that freaks me out so much as the twins and complications part.”

“Are you kidding me?” she asks, her eyes widened with surprise. “You barely look old enough to drink!”

“I barely am,” I laugh wryly. “I’m twenty two.”

“That’s what I would have guessed…” she says, her eyes returning to their normal size and her voice taking on a tone of comfort. “Listen, I know you’re scared about the babies and all, but think about your wife up there…she just got the same news you did, but she’s the one who has to have surgery. And with her husband taking off, I bet she’s a wreck. I’d say she’s more scared than you are at this point.”

“You’re right, I know,” I say, sighing and raking my hand through my hair.

“Good luck,” she replies, flashing me a smile and a wave as I make my way back into the hospital.

It’s not until I’m in the elevator that I realize I never got the woman’s name. But I guess it doesn’t really matter. Who knew that a nurse I caught outside smoking could put everything into perspective? I arrive on the floor just in time to see them moving Jackson to an operating room. She looks at me questioningly, hurt obvious in her eyes, as I fall in step beside the bed and walk along with them. “I’m sorry,” I say, squeezing her hand. “I’m sorry, but I’m here now.”

Before she can answer, a nurse pulls me away to get me ready to go into the room. The scene upon entering the room is enough to make the flood of panic come back, but I remember that nurse’s words as I see a reflection of panic in Jackson’s eyes as well. A drape is hung just below her neck, preventing her from seeing what’s happening, and tears are pooling in her eyes. “Tay, I’m scared,” she says, looking over at me as I kneel beside her head.

I try not to listen to the bustle of the surgery beginning, focusing instead on supporting her. “I know you’re scared, baby,” I say, brushing her cheek gently. “I’m scared too, but it’ll be over soon, and everything will be okay.”

“What if she dies?” she asks, her voice thick with tears.

“She won’t,” I insist, kissing her forehead gently. “I promise you, she won’t.” How in the world can I possibly have just made that kind of promise to her? I have to put it in God’s hands and hope He’ll take care of us…

The next few minutes until the baby wrapped in the cord is removed and freed from her constrictions, and until her first cry filled the room felt like years. Tears of relief fill my eyes, and a thankful sob escapes Jackson’s throat. “She’s okay, she’s okay,” Jackson repeats, squeezing her eyes shut. “Thank God, she’s okay.”

As the second baby is held into the air, wailing away, the nurses have cleaned off the first and brought her to me wrapped in a soft pink blanket with a pink cap on her head. “She’s beautiful, Jacks,” I say, leaning down so Jackson can see her. Just as Jackson kisses the baby’s cheek, the nurse hands me the second baby, situating one in each arm. The love I feel looking down at the two pink bundles in my arms is overwhelming. “I love you so much, Jackson,” I say, turning my eyes to her and blinking back tears.

“Have you guys picked any names yet?” asks the nurse, stepping back with a smile.

“Jordyn Rose and Jayden Cherie,” Jackson answers.

“You two like those J names, don’t you,” chuckles Dr. Lawson as she works on sewing Jackson up. “They’re beautiful girls.”

When the babies are taken away to be weighed and measured, Jackson nods her head towards the door. “Go tell everyone they’re okay. I know everyone’s worried.”

Before leaving her side, I kiss her lips tenderly. “I love you, Jacks.”

“I love you too.”

As soon as I step foot inside the waiting room, it overwhelms me to see that almost everyone in there is here for us. “They’re okay. They’re all okay,” I say, my voice tinged with relief. My mother pulls me into a tight hug, and I feel Jesiah’s arms wrap tightly around my leg. I lean down to pick him up, kissing his round cheek as I do so. “You’re a big brother now. You have two little sisters to take care of. Think you can handle that, Jesse?”

“Can I tell them what to do?” he asks, his eyes sparkling mischievously.

Laughing as I squeeze him into a tight hug, I say, “You sure can sometimes.”

Later that evening, I’m with Jackson in her hospital room as she nurses Jayden, holding the tiny Jordyn in my arms beside her. Everyone in the family has gone home, Jackson’s parents taking Jesiah with them, after having a chance to hold the babies. Jackson had seemed so happy at first, but now she seems distant, and I can’t figure out what it is that’s bothering her.

A knock at the door surprises us both, and Jackson throws the covers over the baby to cover herself at the unexpected visitor. I rise from my chair and pull the door open the rest of the way, and nearly fall over in shock when I see Charisma and Carter Prescott before me. Jackson hasn’t talked to Charisma even once since five years ago and the event that took place around Jesiah’s birth. The contact she kept with Carter was very loose…she hadn’t seen her in over a year. “Um…come in,” I say, stepping aside to let them pass, the surprise unable to hide.

Charisma smiles weakly and hugs me as best she can with the baby still in my arms. “I’m so sorry, Taylor…I’m sorry for everything. I hope you can find it within you to forgive me…”

For the first time since the first time I met her, I finally see sincerity in her eyes, and I smile. “It’s all in the past now,” I assure her.

After they fawn over Jordyn in excited whispers, they make their way more fully into the room where Jackson has since finished breastfeeding and is just gazing at Jayden, her finger brushing lightly over the baby’s cheek. She looks up to see who has come in and her face falls visibly. These were probably the last two people she’d ever expected to see. Charisma steps awkwardly to the bedside, her hands shaking. Before she can even muster the words for an apology, Jackson holds her free arm out for a hug which Charisma gratefully accepts. “I forgive you, Charisma,” she says quietly. “I love you.”

And as soon as those words escape her lips, it’s like nothing ever changed between the three of them. I hand Jordyn over to Carter, and Jackson gives Jayden to Charisma, and the three girls talk excitedly.

In a family as large as mine, tuning thing out becomes habit. And at this moment, I’m able to completely tune out their conversation, and instead focus on my beautiful wife, her face bright and animated as she talks. It’s almost as if I’m looking at her fourteen-year-old self across the crowded gym, wondering how I’m going to get the nerve to talk to her. And now eight years later, she’s given me three beautiful children, a purpose in this chaotic life I’ve lived, and she’s given me a family…a home to call my own.

<< INDEX