You Give Me Whiplash

Epilogue

Epilogue

I sighed, lazily flipping through some pregnancy magazine that I’d probably looked at a million times already, my eyes focused on the couple across from me. While the mother smiled up at her partner, the father had his hands over hers on her stomach, looking down at her subtle bump with adoration plastered all over his face. As for me, only one hand lay on my stomach, and that was mine.

I couldn't stop wondering when the father of my child would show his face.

His stupid, beautiful face, I thought to myself as my hands suddenly crunched up the magazine in my hands. Everybody looked up at me, their features scandalised at the now-ripped image of a newborn baby in my hands, but I just sighed again and rolled my eyes.

Axel was late. He was never, ever late to these things, but that was because we could usually get an appointment booked for a Monday when he wasn’t working. Only this time it had been me who’d spoken to the receptionist across the phone, and funnily enough, she didn’t seem to want to give me the same priorities as she did my deep-voiced husband and so we got a Tuesday booking instead. So here I sat, the clock ticking closer and closer to five-thirty as I waited for him to get here from work.

Finally, at five-thirty-nine no less, he made it. He came jogging through the door, his workout clothes still on and slightly dirty so I knew he’d taken a shortcut through the forest.

Fixing him with a stern glare, after he’d helped me up I whacked him harshly across the chest. “What is wrong with you, idiot?” I grumbled before gracefully gliding past him and into the room where the nurse beckoned me. I could imagine his face looking sheepishly at all the other disapproving mothers and fathers behind me.

Once I was situated on the bed, still mumbling to myself under my breath, and Axel had sat down next to me, the nurse smiled at us. Her name was Wanda, and she’d giving me check-ups throughout most of my pregnancy. They were a lot more frequent than what you'd get with just one baby, which I’d been told was standard when you were carrying twins.

“So how have you been feeling?” she asked kindly as she started up the monitor. Unlike the receptionist, Wanda didn’t feel the need to near-display herself to my husband, probably because she had her own ring on her fourth finger.

“Not amazing,” I chuckled, shaking my head. From the corner of my eye, I saw Axel raise his eyebrows but didn’t yell because I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of Wanda.

“Yeah, thirty-five weeks with two babies in your stomach does tend to take it out of a woman,” she agreed with a laugh. Once her back was turned, as she reached for some of that jelly stuff I still didn’t know the name of, I shot Axel a look as if to say, There. She said it. I have a right to be grumpy.

In return, he gave me a look as if to say, Are you sure about that?

Huffing, I looked back towards the monitor just as Wanda turned around again. After politely asking me to lift my t-shirt up, she squirted some of the jell onto my stomach and spread it around with the transducer (yes, I now knew some ultrasound terminology. That’s what happens when your husband is late and you get bored in the waiting room.)

After a moment, the grey, blurry image of our twins came onto the screen, and their thrumming heartbeats started to reach my ears. My eyes watered at the sight of our children, and I didn’t resist as Axel stood up to hook his arms around my neck from behind me. Smiling, I leaned back into his chest and gripped his forearms.

“They’re extremely healthy,” said Wanda, who smiled at our display of affection in amusement but didn’t comment on my sudden change of heart. Axel, on the other hand, was used to it- I yelled at him on a daily basis now, but I couldn’t stop touching him like always, too. I’d scream and shout at him, only to start crying and cave in when he comforted me- like I couldn’t breathe without him. I couldn’t, of course, and I felt just the same around him as I did when we first met, but pregnancy meant that I wanted to murder him sometimes as well. “Heartbeats are steady, and everything looks normal. I’d say it’s almost certain they won’t be premature.”