21. Maggie
TWENTY-ONE
maggie
It was like everything just…fell into place.
All the things I’d been scared of, all the ways I thought people would judge me, it was all for nothing. It became clear in those days, those weeks after we started going public, that the world I’d come from was not the one I lived in now.
Juniper Hill was different.
It was where I belonged.
With Nash and Nell…my family.
We hadn’t told Nell yet that we were expecting; we didn’t want to disappoint her if it didn’t work out, so we waited those first few agonizing weeks and kept it to ourselves. Still…we got to do other things.
For the moment, Nash and Nell moved into my place—so that we didn’t have to live next to the bar.
We started looking for a house.
I made pancakes for Nell every Saturday morning, and Nash made love to me every night.
And on those nights, on those long and wonderful nights, he made me promises.
Lying on my back with his mouth between my legs, he told me he was going to keep me full of him, that I was going to be the happiest woman in the world.
Inside me, his eyes gazing into mine, he told me he was going to give me as many babies as I wanted.
Bent over the bed, he rasped into my ear that he was going to make me his wife.
And I believed every word.
It was a Tuesday in November when we sat in the waiting room of the only doctor’s office in Juniper Falls, a small, cozy office on the second floor of the hospital.
We had the benefit of having doctors here because of the influx of tourists in the fall—didn’t have to go all the way to Burlington, very much to my relief.
Nash kept his hand wrapped around mine, my knee bopping up and down with nerves.
“Hey,” he said under his breath. “You’re still doing that.”
“I know.” I sighed, shaking my head. “I’m nervous. My anxiety has just been…through the roof.”
“The baby is fine.”
“You don’t know that.” I closed my eyes, inhaling…exhaling. “I hate that I can’t feel it? Like…what if it doesn’t have a heartbeat? Or it’s—or something’s wrong with the way it’s growing—”
“It’s going to be good news,” he said, his thumb moving across my knuckles. “I’m sure of it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I have a sense for when things are gonna work out,” he said. “Plus…you cried at a cereal commercial yesterday.”
I frowned. “It was a good commercial!”
“The dog found his family, Maggie. It was thirty seconds long.”
“I said what I said.”
He smiled, his hand tightening around mine. I took a second to look around the waiting room…to remember that I wasn’t the only one doing this.
“Nash,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“What if there’s two?”
He side-eyed me.
“Twins run in my family,” I said. “Both sides.”
He shrugged. “Then there’s two, and you make a sparkly, colorful to-do list of the best possible way to prepare for that.”
I looked at him. At the clean cut of his jaw and his hazel eyes and the silver at his temples. I could trust him. He knew what to do. More importantly…he had complete confidence that I knew what to do.
“Margot Laine?”
We both looked up to find a nurse standing in the doorway, a clipboard in her hands. I smiled at her and stood, bringing Nash with me.
We were doing this.
It was going to be great.
We followed her down a hallway and into the dark ultrasound room, which was decorated like a living room—kids’ drawings and coloring pages on the wall, a homemade blanket draped over a chair.
The nurse told us to take a seat—me on the exam table, Nash in the chair—and that I could stay fully dressed.
I sat with my hands in my lap, twisting my fingers, letting my hands glide over one another.
Thankfully, the ultrasound tech didn’t take long to come in: a warm, smiling woman in her fifties, wearing scrubs with little snowflakes on them even though it was only November.
“First ultrasound?” she asked, pulling up her stool and getting her equipment ready.
“Mmhm,” I nodded with a tight smile.
The tech nodded along with me. “It’s okay to be nervous,” she said. “But this is all standard—just lie back and lift your shirt just a little. The gel is going to be cold, I’m sorry in advance.”
The gel was, in fact, cold.
I sucked in a breath. Nash dragged his chair forward enough to hold my hand, staring intently at the screen right along with me. The room went quiet as the tech pressed the sensor to my belly, dragged it over my skin, then—
“Is that—?” I started, but the tech was already talking.
“Yep! Heartbeat. Nice and strong.”
It was so fast, this thudding sound that I could almost feel. It actually made me feel secure for the first time in weeks, since I’d found out about the pregnancy. My baby was alive, safe, my body doing all the things it needed to do.
“Everything looks great,” the tech said, moving the sensor around. “Let me just get a few measurements—”
She paused.
Moved the sensor slightly.
Cocked her head.
“Hm,” she said.
“What?” I asked, more urgent than I’d hoped.
“Just a second,” she said, adjusting the angle, leaning closer to the screen.
“Something wrong?” Nash asked.
“No, no,” she said. “I just want to make sure I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing.”
“And that is…?”
“Okay,” she said, her smile widening. “Two heartbeats. You’re having twins.”
Nash actually laughed out loud, and the sound was happy…which made me happy, even if it was a little scary.
“Both measuring right on track,” the tech went on. “Strong heartbeats, good positioning.”
“You did say twins ran in your family,” Nash teased.
“I said it hypothetically,” I said. “Like—a fun fact.”
He squeezed my hand. “You good?”
I looked at the screen again: two distinct little blurs, side by side, each with its own heartbeat. Two separate heartbeats. Two separate people. Already existing in there like they’d decided together that they were coming whether we were ready or not.
Nash had said he would give me as many babies as I wanted.
He hadn’t been lying.
I started laughing, the sound coming out of nowhere. Nash looked at me sideways, then he was laughing too, his forehead dropping to my shoulder.
“I told you I wanted a full house,” I managed.
“You did say that,” he agreed.
The tech was still taking measurements. We were still laughing. Finally, we settled down enough to talk again…and I met Nash’s eyes, finding them just a little wet at the corners.
“We’re going to need a bigger house,” I said.
He nodded, his smile huge and bright. “And I think it’s high time we tell their big sister.”