Page 70 of Sainte
The doctor reaches after him but then looks at me to go after him. Shaking her head, she says, “He is more than welcome to go in there with her, but I can’t wait. If he chooses to, he can talk to one of the nurses atthe station over there.” She points.“I gotta go.” She obviously doesn’t have any more time to spare andrushes back into the OR.
I run after Ice.
“Ice,” I call. “We’re gonna have to wait. Let’s get some coffee and calm down.”
He stops and turns back toward me with a nod.
“You can’t run off. Emma needs you. You know you can be in there with her if you want.”
“I can?”
“Yeah, the doc was trying to get your attention to tell you, then you ran off. You wanna go back?”
He thinks for a minute and then shakes his head. “I can’t. I can’t watch her or the kid die.”
“She said ninety-nine point nine percent. They are gonna survive.” I hesitate for a minute and then ask, “You sure you won’t regret not being there?”
“I can’t, Sainte. I just can’t.”
I nod. “You got this, and so does she.”
We head toward the cafeteria and each get a cup of coffee that we take back to the waiting room. We sit and wait.
An eternity later, which really is only a couple hours, the doctor returns. She approaches, and we both look up eagerly. Ice stands.
“Emma is doing just fine. She’s in recovery.”
“Oh, thank God!” Ice exclaims. “And the baby?”
The doctor smiles. “The babies have been taken to the NICU and are resting comfortably. They will need to remain here for several weeks until their heart and lungs get stronger.”
“Wait, what did you say? Babies?”
“Caden, you are the proud father of both a son and a daughter.”
“Twins?” he asks. “But the dopplers or whatever indicated one heartbeat—a strong heartbeat, but only one.”
She smiles again. “Emma found out about the twins at her first ultra sound. She made me promise not to tell you. She wanted to surprise you.”
“But I only heard one heartbeat.”
“It is very common with twins for their hearts to appear to beat in unison. Only a trained ear, like a doctor’s, can distinguish there might be more than one.”
He sits back down and looks at me. “Twins?”
I slap him on the back. “Yeah, it looks that way. You and Emma were both right, a boy and a girl. Congratulations, dad.”
“Can I see them?” he asks.
“Of course, follow me.”
We both follow the doctor. She takes us down a long hallway and to a glass window. Right smack in the front is a little baby boy and girl, and the tag on the front of the clear boxes they’re enclosed in read: Baby A Jackson and Baby B Jackson.” They are so tiny.
I watch Ice see his kids for the first time, and tears well in his eyes as he stares at them. Turning toward his son, he says, “Hi, Aiden.” Then he turns toward his daughter. “Hi, Cadi.” He is beaming. “I’m your dad.” He waits as if he’s expecting them to hear him and then says, “And this ugly guy is your Uncle Sainte.”
I laugh. “Aiden? Cadi?”
“Yeah, those were the boy and girl names we had come up with. Emma loved both names, so I’m sure that now she has both a boy and girl, we’ll use them both.”
