9. Mel
— ? —
Mel
Present Day
The numbers are wrong.
I’ve been staring at this spreadsheet for two hours, trying to figure out how an orchard that’s been in business for forty years can have books that look like they were assembled by a particularly enthusiastic raccoon, and I think I’ve finally found the problem.
Someone, probably Hattie herself, based on the handwriting, has been categorizing pesticide expenses under “miscellaneous snacks.”
“This isn’t a snack,” I mutter to myself, highlighting another line. “Pesticide is definitively not a snack.”
My stomach churns.
It’s been doing that all morning. Churning and roiling and generally making it clear that the toast I forced down at breakfast was a mistake. I press my hand against it, breathe slowly, and try to focus on the screen.
Concentrate. You’re good at this.
It’s true. I’m good at this. The past three days have proven it, I’ve already untangled six months of misfiled invoices, created an actual filing system, and convinced Hattie that keeping receipts in a coffee can isn’t, in fact, “a perfectly good system that worked for my daddy.”
This is the first thing that’s felt solid since I left Italy.
The first thing that makes sense. Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t sign divorce petitions behind your back or hand your baby to their mother or answer phone calls from their mistress while you’re begging them for the truth.
Numbers are safe.
My vision blurs.
I blink hard, grip the edge of the desk, and wait for the world to stop spinning. This has been happening too, waves of dizziness that hit without warning, usually right after another wave of nausea, like my body is conspiring against me.
“You’re fine,” I tell myself. “You’re just tired. You’re just-”
The cramp hits like a fist.
Low in my belly, sharp and sudden, and I double over before I can stop myself, gasping at the intensity of it. My forehead hits the desk. Papers scatter. The whole world narrows down to this single point of pain and the terror that comes with it.
No.
Please, no.
“Please,” I whisper, and I don’t know who I’m talking to. God, maybe. The universe. The tiny flutter of life inside me that I’ve only known about for a week. “Please be okay. Please-”
Another cramp. Worse this time.
The edges of my vision go gray.
“Mel?” Hattie’s voice, somewhere far away. Then closer, sharper: “Mel!”
I try to lift my head. Try to say I’m fine, I’m okay, I just need a minute. But the words won’t come and the gray is spreading and the last thing I see before everything goes dark is Hattie’s face, lined with worry, hovering over me like an avenging angel.
***
I wake up in a truck.
Hattie’s truck, specifically, I recognize the smell of it, leather and hay and the faint sweetness of apple blossoms. The engine is running. We’re moving. The Texas hill country is streaming past the window in a blur of green and gold.
“What-” My voice comes out cracked. “What happened?”
“You fainted.” Hattie doesn’t look at me, her eyes fixed on the road, but her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. “In my office. Scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m fine. I just-”
“You’re going to the hospital.”
“Hattie, I don’t need-”
“Did I ask what you needed?” She glances at me now, just for a second, and her expression is fierce. “You collapsed at my desk. You were out cold for nearly a minute. We’re going to the hospital, and you’re going to let them check you over, and that’s the end of the discussion.”
My belly still aches. My head is pounding. And under it, the fear, so big I can’t get a full breath around it.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
Hattie’s hand finds mine and squeezes, brief and firm.
“You’re going to be fine,” she says. “Both of you.”
I don’t ask how she knows about the baby. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except getting to the hospital and finding out if that tiny heartbeat is still there.
***
The hospital is small and kind.
That’s the phrase that keeps circling through my mind as the nurses check me in, as they take my vitals, as they hook me up to monitors and ask gentle questions about my medical history. Small and kind. Like the town. Like Hattie. Like everything about this place that I didn’t know I needed.
“Mrs. Bianchi?” The doctor is young, probably around my age, with a warm smile and steady hands. “I’m Dr. Reyes. How are you feeling?”
“Scared,” I admit. “Is the baby-”
“Let’s find out.” She pulls up a rolling cart with an ultrasound machine. “This is your first pregnancy?”
“Yes.”
“And you haven’t had a prenatal visit yet?”
“No.” Shame heats my cheeks. “I just found out. And then I… I moved. Things have been complicated.”
Dr. Reyes nods like this is the most normal thing in the world. “Well, that’s what we’re here for. Let’s take a look and see what’s going on in there.”
She squeezes cold gel onto my stomach and presses the wand against my skin, and I hold my breath, watching the screen, waiting for the worst.
“There we go,” Dr. Reyes says softly. “There’s the heartbeat. Nice and strong.”
Relief floods through me so intensely I almost cry. “It’s okay? The baby’s okay?”
“The baby’s fine. Your bloodwork shows you’re significantly anemic - low iron - and you’re dehydrated. That’s what caused the fainting and probably the cramps too. We’ll get you started on supplements and I want you to rest for a few days, but there’s no harm to the pregnancy.”
“Thank you.” Tears are streaming down my face now. I can’t stop them. “Thank you so much.”
“Deep breath.” Dr. Reyes smiles at me. “You’re doing great. Now, since we have you here and you haven’t had a prenatal visit yet, let’s do a proper ultrasound. Get some measurements, make sure everything looks good.”
“Okay.” I wipe my face with the back of my hand. “Okay.”
She adjusts the wand, moves it across my stomach, and frowns slightly.
Everything in me seizes. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Her frown shifts into surprise, maybe. Or wonder. “I’m just… let me get a better angle here.”
She repositions. Types into the machine. Repositions again.
And then she laughs.
“Well,” she says, turning the screen toward me. “This explains why your iron is so low.”
I stare at the image. Gray and white, fuzzy around the edges, two distinct shapes where I expected one.
“I don’t…” My voice trails off. “What am I looking at?”
“Two heartbeats.” Dr. Reyes is grinning now. “You’re having twins.”
The room goes weightless.
Not from dizziness this time, from shock. Pure, absolute, overwhelming shock.
“Twins,” I repeat. The word doesn’t make sense. “There’s no mistake?”
“None. See here?” She points at the screen. “Baby A and Baby B. Both measuring right on track. Both with strong heartbeats.”
“Oh my god.”
“Is there someone you’d like me to call? The father, or-”
“No.” The word comes out too fast. “No. There’s no one.”
Silence falls.
I stare at the screen, at the two tiny shapes that are somehow growing inside me, and I feel myself fracturing. Splitting apart. Half of me wants to laugh and the other half wants to scream and all of me is so overwhelmed I don’t know how to process any of it.
Twins.
I’m alone in the world with no money and no support and I’m having twins.
“Mel?”
The voice comes from the doorway.
Hattie.
She’s standing there with her arms crossed and her jaw set, and she’s looking at me with an expression I can’t read.
“Do you want me in there?” she asks.
I should say no. I barely know her. She’s my employer, not my family, and this is private, this is personal, this is -
“Yes,” I say, and my voice surprises me. “Please.”
She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t ask questions. Just walks across the room and sits down in the chair beside my bed and takes my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Twins,” she says, looking at the screen.
“Two of them,” I manage.
“Well.” Her grip tightens on my fingers. “That’s something.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to-” My voice cracks. “I don’t know how to do this. I can barely take care of myself right now, and there’s two of them, and I’m alone, and-”
“You’re not alone.”
“Hattie-”
“You’re not alone,” she repeats, and her voice is fierce. “I don’t know what happened to you, girl. I don’t know who the father is or why you ran or what kind of mess you left behind. And I’m not asking. Today or ever, unless you feel like telling.”
I stare at her. “Then why-”
“Because you showed up at my orchard looking like something the cat dragged in, and you asked me for a chance, and you’ve worked harder in three days than my last assistant worked in three years.
” Her eyes are bright, almost wet. “Because everyone deserves someone in their corner when the world’s falling apart.
And because I’ve been alone too, and I know what it costs. ”
“Hattie.” The tears are back, flowing freely now.
“So here’s what’s going to happen.” She sounds like she’s reading off a list. “You’re going to take those supplements.
Rest. Let me help you, because that’s what family does, and that’s what we are now.
Family.” She squeezes my hand hard enough to hurt.
“That’s not a sentiment. That’s a schedule. You understand?”
I can’t speak.
I just nod, crying too hard to form words.
Dr. Reyes clears her throat gently. “Should I give you two a minute?”
“No need.” Hattie waves a hand. “Print out whatever pictures you’ve got of those babies. We’re going to need them for the fridge.”
The doctor smiles and starts clicking buttons, and I lie there on the hospital bed with Hattie’s hand in mine and the image of two heartbeats on the screen, and I feel a shift inside me.
Not hope, exactly.
Harder than that. More stubborn.
A voice that says: you can do this. You’re not doing it alone.
***
The truck is quiet on the drive home.
Good quiet. Peaceful quiet. The sun is setting over the hills, painting everything gold and rose, and I’m holding a strip of ultrasound photos in my hands, staring at them like they might disappear.
“You got names picked out?” Hattie asks.
“Names.” I laugh, and it sounds almost real. “I just found out there’s two of them. I haven’t exactly gotten to names.”
“Well, you’ve got time.” She glances at me. “Not a lot of time, mind you. Twins come early more often than not. But enough.”
“How do you know so much about twins?”
“Had a set myself.” She doesn’t look at me. “A long time ago.”
“You have children?”
“Had.” Her voice is quiet. “Lost them both. Car accident. They were thirty-two.”
“Hattie.” My hand finds her arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“Long time ago,” she says again. “But you don’t forget.
You just… learn to carry it different.” She’s quiet for a mile, then adds, gruff, like she’s handing me an egg: “They left me babies of their own, at least. Rose had a boy, my other one a girl. Grown now, both of them, scattered off to cities like young folks do - they call on Sundays and visit when they can, and it’s not the same as having a house full, but it’s not nothing.
It’s why I know what a house full is worth.
” A pause. “And why I’ve got a spare room going empty. ”
We drive in silence for another mile.
“I was married,” I say finally. I don’t know why I’m telling her. I just know that I need to. “To an Italian man. His family didn’t want me. They did things - said things - and eventually he…” I can’t finish.
“He believed them?”
“I don’t know.” My voice is hollow. “I thought he did. I still think he did. But sometimes I wonder if…”
“If what?”
“If I should have stayed and fought harder. If I gave up too easily. If running was the right choice or if I just-”
“Stop.” Hattie’s voice is sharp. “You listen to me. You did what you had to do to survive. That’s not giving up. That’s not weakness. That’s strength. The hardest kind there is.”
I look at her.
“You’re going to have moments,” she continues.
“Moments where you wonder. Where you doubt. Where you think about going back. And when those moments come, you’re going to remember this: you got yourself out.
You got your babies out. And you’re building a new life, a real one, one that belongs to you.
” She reaches over and grips my hand. “That matters. Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t. ”
I’m crying again.
I seem to do nothing but cry these days.
But this time it’s different. This time it’s not grief or fear or despair.
It’s gratitude.
Pure, overwhelming gratitude for this stranger who took me in, who asked no questions, who held my hand in a hospital room and called me family like it was the simplest thing in the world.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For everything.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” Hattie pulls into the driveway of the farmhouse. “You haven’t seen how I feel about names. I’ve got opinions.”
I laugh, actually laugh, genuine and surprised, and the sound of it startles me.
I didn’t think I could still do that.
“Opinions about names?”
“Strong ones.” She parks the truck and turns to look at me. “We’re going to argue about it. Fair warning.”
“I can handle an argument.”
“Good.” She opens her door. “Because you’re stuck with me now. And I don’t do anything halfway.”
I watch her walk toward the house, this fierce, stubborn, impossible woman who has known me for less than a week and already loves me like I’m hers.
And I put my hand on my belly, where two heartbeats are growing, and I let myself believe, just for a moment, that maybe everything is going to be okay.