What If...?

Chapter Ten

My hair was back, and my face was flushed. I felt sweat dripping down my temples, and the pain was beginning to grow, but I kept going. One, two, one, two, one two. My feet pounded on the treadmill and I tried not to look at the doctor in front of me, knowing I wasn't in good form. I couldn't do it. I had to stop.

I jumped off, panting heavily, tears now joining the sweat. "I'm sorry," I wheezed. "I had to stop."

Dr. Bernstein passed me a towel. I rubbed it all over my face and neck, letting it soak up the sweat.

"Now, Mrs. Louis. How did that feel?"

"Well, it hurt a little, but it felt pretty good. How long did I last?"

"That was ten minutes. You're doing very well."

"That was ten minutes? It felt like two!" I cried happily.

"There was a lot of improvement from last week," she said, making a note on her clipboard. "Now, you only have one more session, and we're going to work on some yoga, and then Dr. Keeble will do your final examination."

"Sounds like high school," I laughed, regaining my breath.

She smiled. "It'll be pretty standard. You'll do some stretches and some running exercises, and then he'll examine the damage and refer you back to your gynaecologist."

"Thank you so much, Dr. Bernstein," I said, going to the change room. Once I was back in normal clothes, I went to the lobby where Jasper was waiting.

"You're almost there," he said, kissing me. "You've made it nine weeks! Only one left."

"I can't believe I even survived. When Dr. Robertson first said 'physiotherapy,' I almost passed out."

"But you made it. You're doing so well."

"Thanks, baby." We walked out to the car together, hand in hand. "Oh, did Élise call back?" I asked, remembering.

"No, not yet."

We had long since learned the history with Jacob and Annabelle. They had secretly been dating for a long time until Élise came along, and Jacob dumped Annabelle. But the latter managed to convince Jacob that sleeping together one last time was a good idea, and Jacob had unwittingly become once again involved with Annabelle.

I still couldn't believe that my brother would do such a thing, but Élise had forgiven him as long as he gave her his word that he would never do anything with Annabelle again. Now he and Élise were starting over, and Annabelle was thinking of moving to Toronto.

I was happy that Élise and Jacob were going to try to make things work, even though their engagement was off for the time being.

Right now, we were trying to just have a nice dinner, just the four of us. Jasper would cook.

***

The kids were now almost five months old, and Halloween was upon us. I had bought the girls matching bee costumes, and they looked adorable wearing them.

We were having a small Halloween party here, just close friends. Jasper and I were going to wear our matching bear costumes.

Before the party, we were getting dressed, and Jasper said something that surprised me. "Are we going to have more kids?"

I blanched. "Well... it went so well last time," I laughed nervously.

"No, I'm serious. I mean, you're going to talk to Dr. Robertson next week about everything.... Should we even bother asking him if we can have more kids?"