"HOW DO YOU THINK the girls are adjusting?”
“They fine,” I said sniffling and wiping my runny nose.
“Did they ask you to take them home? You mentioned that last week. They wanted to know why they couldn’t go home.”
“No. That was Jackie. Nikki and Mya...n’all they ain’t ask me that.”
She nodded like she understood. Couldn’t nobody know what it was like. Hurt every part of me to have my family torn apart. Seeing them cry and beg over and over again...seeing them smile and laugh like everything was how it should be. I couldn’t be happy either way. Everything had its own special kind of hurt. Her pen went right back to keeping track of whatever I’d said that she thought was important, gave me a few moments’ peace before the next question.
“Have you talked to them about your marriage? About your pregnancy?”
The doctor and Helen were the only ones I told the truth to. Heziah didn’t want to know and I’d take it to my grave before telling my girls what happened to me. They lived in a world where bodies were fragile. Couldn’t add this on top of it. Have one more thing for them to be scared of.
“Well, they might have questions...might feel like they’re being replaced. You’ve been apart now for seven months.”
“That’s just silly. Can’t replace one kid with another.”
“Well, Belinda, sometimes children don’t fully understand that. Sometimes they have fears—”
“Ain’t nobody afraid of that!”
Shut her right up. I was proud too. For all her schooling she didn’t know my girls. They were too smart to think anything like that. And I wasn’t about to put that in their heads.
“Have you and Heziah discussed it?”
“What? The girls?”
“No,” she blinked robotically and waited for me to follow her drift.
I figured most shrinks thought talking was the answer to all their clients’ problems. They probably read it in some book.
After a long breath she nodded and moved on. “Have you seen Ricky lately?”
I nodded.
“And what happened?”
“I told him the truth. That I never loved him.”
“And what did he say?”
“That the baby got me all confused.”
“Why would pregnancy make you confused?”
I shrugged. I’d given up trying to make sense out of Ricky’s sense a long time ago. For as smart as he thought he was Ricky ain’t understand a thing about pregnancy. He thought that was the reason I did everything he didn’t want me to do. Anytime I felt something that wasn’t conveient to him, he blamed it on me being pregnant. I didn’t even have to be pregnant for him to do it. But it always made him feel better. Maybe because it was a problem that he couldn’t do anything about. So, he got off the hook—ain’t have to treat me no better, just had to wait until I wasn’t pregnant any more.
“Then he blamed Heziah. Said he knew where Heziah worked. That he oughta be careful when he’s working late.”
“He threatened him?”
The woman was genuinely surprised like we hadn’t been discussing the habits of Ricky Morrow for seven months. Was right about then I decided I was done with therapy.
“Are we done yet? Heziah’s waiting on me.”
HEZIAH MET ME WITH a big old smile on his face. He said my other doctor, the woman’s one, had called to give us the news. Wasn’t going to be one baby, was gonna be two. We were having twins. Twin girls.
Heziah acted like we’d won the lottery. Wanted to go out and buy an extra one of everything. Don’t know where we got all the money from, but there we were, shopping up a storm. Squeezing stuffed animals and making funny voices, was like we were kids ourselves. Was a side of Heziah I hadn’t seen. Was a side of me I hadn’t seen.
“Maybe that’s enough. Belinda?”
“I like this. You like this?”
He grinned, leaning forward so all his weight was on the shopping cart. “It’s nice, I guess. For a dress.”
“I wanna get it.”
“Okay. Might as well get two. That way they’ll be matching.”
That was the point of everything as far as Heziah was concerned. Wanted the twins to have the exact same things. Same bibs. Same towels. Same car seats. We came in looking to get whatever was on sale but turned out they only had one of the sale car seats left. So, we had to get the next cheapest so they’d be the same. Same. Same. Same. He was obsessed with it.
“Should we get toys?” He was peering down the toy aisle.
“No. Be a while before they get any use outta them. They’d just be taking up space.” No sooner had I said it than something bright and fun caught my eye. “Oooo look!”
Heziah just laughed and pushed the cart into the toy aisle after me. “We gotta get them some toys that’ll make them think, Belinda. So they’ll be the geniuses they’re meant to be.”
My girls were gonna be geniuses. Heziah said it so it must have been true. He went on pointing out different ones he thought were good and explaining why. Some of them he’d gotten for his kids way back when. Said that the good toys ain’t never go out of style. They were classic. Ain’t make no never mind to me but I liked the way he saw things. Liked seeing the world and all the possibilities through his eyes.
Heziah was sure Nikki’d turn out to be a teacher on account of how good she was at taking care of other folks. I ain’t think much of it, in all honesty but it was possible. Heziah said he was sure she would make a good one, said he knew because that’s what he wanted to be. Before his ex-wife got pregnant and they got married that is. Said he was all set to get his degree and everything but life had happened instead.
“What about Mya? Think she’ll be a teacher too?”
He chuckled and guided the cart into the check-out line. “No, that is definitely not her path. Something a little more big picture...yeah.” I wanted to ask him what big picture meant but then he moved on. “Now, Miss Jackie is gonna be a politician. Can’t you just see her up there, convincing folks to do it her way? Standing on a podium, making her case?”
“Yeah...” Made me smile just thinking about it. My baby was gonna be just fine. They all were. “And Nat’ll probably be right there next to her. You know she don’t go nowhere Jackie ain’t.”
“I think she might just surprise you.”
Heziah dug around in his wallet, coming up with the money for all the things we’d piled into the cart. “Louis used to be like that with his sister. They’re still close but he doesn’t feel the need to follow her around like he used to when they were little. You’ll see. He’s gonna come up here in a few weeks. Did I tell you?”
“No.”
“Before the school year starts again. You don’t mind, do you?”
I shrugged and went back to setting the the toys and things in front of the salesgirl. She looked real bored by our conversation, just sat there smacking on her gum. Made me hungry but just about everything made me hungry. “Fine with me.”
“You ain’t gotta worry, you know. He’s gonna love you. Not like I do but...” Heziah’s lips brushed sweetly against mine and we ignored the salesgirl for a good minute.