“Oh. Of course.” I drew in a sharp lungful of air, and my fingers tingled. Corra burst out from my ribs with an agitated squawk and launched herself upward to perch on the chandelier. “You’ll stop him.
Because next time he’s coming for me.”
I felt a pop, a trickle of liquid.
Matthew looked down to my rounded belly in shock. The babies were on their way.
31
“Don’t you dare tell me not to push.” I was red-faced and sweating, and all I wanted was to get these babies out of me as quickly as possible.
“Do. Not. Push,” Marthe repeated. She and Sarah had me walking around in an effort to ease the aching in my back and legs. The contractions were still around five minutes apart, but the pain was becoming excruciating, radiating from my spine around to my belly.
“I want to lie down.” After weeks of resisting bed rest, now I just wanted to crawl back into the bed, with its rubber-covered mattress and sterilized sheets. The irony was not lost on me, nor on anyone else in the room.
“You’re not lying down,” Sarah said.
“Oh, God. Here comes another one.” I stopped in my tracks and gripped their hands. The contraction lasted a long time. I had just straightened up and started breathing normally when another one hit. “I want Matthew!”
“I’m right here,” Matthew said, taking Marthe’s place. He nodded to Sarah. “That was fast.”
“The book said the contractions are supposed to get gradually closer together.” I sounded like a peevish schoolmarm.
“Babies don’t read books, honey,” Sarah said. “They have their own ideas about these things.”
“And when they’re of a mind to be born, babies make no bones about it,” Dr. Sharp said, entering the room with a smile. Dr. Garrett had been called away to another delivery at the last minute, so Dr. Sharp had taken charge of my medical team. She pressed the stethoscope against my belly, moved it, and pressed again. “You’re doing marvelously, Diana. So are the twins. No sign of distress. I’d recommend we try to deliver vaginally.”
“I want to lie down,” I said through gritted teeth as another band of steel shot out from my spine and threatened to cut me in two. “Where’s Marcus?”
“He’s just across the hall,” Matthew said. I dimly remembered ejecting Marcus from the room when the contractions intensified.
“If I need a cesarean, can Marcus be here in time?” I demanded.
“You called?” Marcus said, entering the room in scrubs. His genial grin and unruffled demeanor calmed me instantly. Now that he’d returned, I couldn’t remember why I’d kicked him out of the room.
“Who moved the damn bed?” I puffed my way through another contraction. The bed seemed to be in the same place, but this was clearly an illusion for it was taking forever for me to reach it.
“Matthew did,” Sarah said breezily.
“I did no such thing,” Matthew protested.
“In labor we blame absolutely everything on the husband. It keeps the mother from developing homicidal fantasies and reminds the men they aren’t the center of attention,” Sarah explained.
I laughed, thereby missing the rising wave of pain that accompanied the next fierce contraction.
“Fu— Sh— Godda—” I pressed my lips firmly together.
“You are not getting through tonight’s main event without swearing, Diana,” Marcus said.
“I don’t want a string of profanity to be the first words the babies hear.” Now I recalled the reason for Marcus’s expulsion: He’d suggested I was being too prim in the midst of my agony.