THE CALL came, as you’d expect, when you least expected it.

“Simon,” Paddy said, panicked. “It’s started, and they’re coming so fast they’re probably going to be here in an hour. You better hurry up. I tried calling Dec, but he didn’t answer.”

I was already grabbing the car keys and running up the stairs to the second floor. “He’s in the shower. We’ll be there as soon as.”

“Okay.”

“Is Nyssa okay?”

“Ours never came so fast! She’s in a state, as she thought she was going to give birth in Fitzroy Gardens.” The whole family had come over to Melbourne for the impending birth and had been planning a relaxing day of quality time together.

“Imagine if she’d given birth in the Captain Cook cottage,” I mused.

“Simon! Focus!”

I was running through the bedroom now. Maggie watched me, her ears flattened with annoyance. “We’ll be there!”

I threw open the bathroom door and yelled, “They’re coming!”

“Very funny, Simon,” he said above the water, his back to me. But he must have recognised the hitch in my voice, and whirled around, shampoo stinging his eyes.

“Get your fucking fit body out of there and get dressed!” I told him and ran out.

I ran back in, and he was just stepping out of the shower. “I can’t believe I just said that!”

A very naked and wet Declan Tyler shook his head as he wrapped a towel around his waist. “Get the car started, I’ll be down in two minutes!”

After running down the hall, I skidded to a halt outside the nursery. A lot of changes had taken place in there: two cots stood side by side, and we had papered one wall with a forest motif. Every item you could imagine for the arrival of twins was stacked up against the walls, some of them still in their boxes. Dec had insisted on a jogger’s pram for when he went running. I had let him handle that, because there was no way that thing was going to be used by me. The only things missing were the babies, and they were going to be here sooner than expected.

The room looked comfortable and designed with love. It felt totally different to the night I thought I saw the ghost in there. Maybe it had been just a fevered dream, or tired eyes inventing a human shape out of some boxes and blankets. Whatever it was, I hadn’t seen it since. If she had existed, I liked to think she’d recognised that the house was ready for a new family and had moved on. Which Dec and I’d better start doing, or else these kids would enter the world without us being present.

Dec was at the car in a minute and forty-eight seconds, shoes and socks in hand, as I was on the phone with Roger. Wet patches showed through Dec’s clothes; he hadn’t even dried himself properly, and his hair was still plastered against his head.

“I hope you put on deodorant,” I said, and the person on the other end of my phone squawked in my ear. “No, not you, Roger. Dec. Yes, Dec always wears deodorant. Just get to the hospital so you can help look after Nyssa’s kids!”

Dec watched me with amusement. “Good thinking.”

I turned the key in the ignition. “I’m capable of it sometimes.”

“I never doubted it.” He seemed remarkably calm as he pulled his socks on and slid his feet into his sneakers, as if it was just any old day.

“Are you nervous?” I asked, my eyes on the traffic as I pulled out onto St. Georges Road.

“Are you?”

“I asked you first.”

“Of course I fucking am!”

He laughed. “Always to the point.”

“So answer my question.”

“I’m not just nervous. I’m scared shitless.”

“Too late now.”

“Drive faster,” he urged.

At least he wasn’t wanting me to drive to Mexico, as the old Dec who ran away from problems that scared him would have. Getting the car over the water would have been impossible.

When I pulled up to the emergency section, he stared at me.

“I’ll go park, you get up there now.”

“No,” he said.

“Dec, stop arguing with me, and go before you miss it!”

“Go and find a proper parking space,” he instructed me. “We’re going up there together. If we’re late, we’re late together. But we’re going to both be there.”

I threw the car back into gear, and we were pretty lucky with finding a space that wasn’t too far away. Still, Dec grabbed me by the hand and pulled me along as he ran for the main entrance.

Out of breath, I sagged against the wall of the lift as it climbed to the floor of the maternity ward. “Do you think we’ve made it?”

“I’m sure they probably would have called us by now if the babies were here.”

“Okay.” Declan watched the numbers crawl along the LCD screen. It seemed to be taking forever.

Life was going to change for us as soon as we walked out of these doors.

Maybe life had changed as soon as we received Paddy’s phone call.

Or maybe it had changed all those months ago, when Dec and I had stumbled home from our engagement party to find Nyssa sitting on our doorstep, willing to offer us the opportunity of a lifetime.

The sliding doors gave us a view into the maternity ward. Even from this vantage point, it looked peaceful, despite the frenetic energy of the nurses as they moved between rooms and patients.

Dec came to a stop just before the sensor would read us and let us through. “I was thinking about Margaret.”

It could definitely be considered mystic that Dec brought up the Piedimonte’s Psychic when I had been thinking of the ghost only minutes before. “Uh, Dec, don’t you think we should be going in?”

“Just a sec. I need to say something.”

I dreaded to think what it could be. I hadn’t seen the ghost woman since that night months ago and thought it might have been a dream. I still wasn’t sure. But I knew if she did exist, she was harmless, and at the very least was a good omen. All I knew for certain was that there were two babies coming much quicker than expected, and I didn’t want us to miss their first breaths in this world. “What about Margaret?”

“She told me three of my dreams were going to come true.”

“So, the job and the kids,” I agreed.

“Yeah, and that means my third dream will come true as well.” He looked at me with such love in his eyes that it was almost overbearing. “You. You’re going to be okay. The tumour, being scared about becoming a father. You’re going to be fine.”

“You really think that?”

“Hey, everything else happened. But you know something?”

“What?”

“I already knew it. There was never any doubt in me about you. There never has been.”

“I suppose it seems anticlimactic to just say ‘ditto’?” I asked.

He laughed. “I had no doubt that you felt the same. So it’ll do just fine.”

I wanted to say something more, to give the most flowery purple prose about how much he meant to me, but it wasn’t needed. He already knew those things. Instead I took his hand.

“Are you ready for all this?” Dec asked, nodding towards the doors. His hand gripped mine, whether due to his own nervousness or not wishing to give me the opportunity to run. But we stood there, overcome by the enormity of the moment.

“If you’re here with me, I am.”

He squeezed my hand reassuringly. “Same here.”

But we still stood there for a moment, taking it all in, until I stepped forward, pulling him with me. The doors took a moment to register that we had finally made up our minds, and slid open to let us through.