Secret Triplets(29)

 

“Yeah… It’s a long story. It’s just…I’m worried I might be pregnant.”

 

I hung my head, and next thing I knew, Frank was beside me, his hand on my belly.

 

“Don’t worry,” the gruff nurse said. “Frank’s hands are magic. Word round the ward is that he can detect just about anything.”

 

Frank laughed but didn’t argue with her. His touch on my belly was firm yet gentle.

 

Then, after a minute of slow, gentle feeling, he turned to the nurse and said, “Linda, can you get Alex ready for an ultrasound?”

 

“Sure thing.”

 

The door closed behind her with a sharp click, and I glanced at Frank, my heart falling.

 

“Really?”

 

Moving away from me, he nodded.

 

“Afraid so, Alex. You said you just missed your period, right? And that your…encounter was a little over a month ago?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He nodded again.

 

“Right. Usually four weeks is way too early for an ultrasound, but…I don’t know, I’ve got a feeling about this one. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong and we can do the more standard urine or blood test. But if I’m right…”

 

I said nothing, just stared at the white-tiled floor. He didn’t have to say it. If he was right, I was pregnant. If he was right, then my life as I knew it was over.

 

The next second the door was opening. Linda, the nurse, bustled in, a water bottle in hand.

 

“Go to the bathroom,” she instructed me, “and then drink this. Then, after an hour, we’ll see you and do the ultrasound.”

 

I took the bottle without a word. Halfway out the door, Frank stopped me.

 

“Hey, Alex? It’s going to be okay.”

 

With a nod, I tried to smile.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Then I headed to the bathroom. I went through the motions fast enough, emptied my bladder, went back into the waiting room, gulped down the entire water bottle, and then filled it up again. The numberless line clock on the wall ticked extra slowly for me, but, after a while, it had no choice but to admit that an hour had passed. And, sure enough, a few minutes later Linda poked her frizzy head out the door and said, “Alex Combs, please.”

 

I trudged behind her like a prisoner on death row heading to the electric chair. As I passed through one door after another, I thought, This is it.

 

And it was.

 

The tall white machine with the screen on top was already all hooked up and ready to go. I stared at the black screen as I climbed onto the bed.

 

So, that was what was going to decide my fate.

 

“I’ll leave you with our sonographer, Dr. Bailey,” Linda said.

 

I turned to see a well-mustached man in the corner I hadn’t even noticed when coming in. He nodded to me, I nodded back, and Linda disappeared.

 

After instructing me to lay down and pull up my shirt so my belly was exposed, Dr. Bailey got out a bottle of clear gel.

 

“This gel is going to help the machine do its job,” Dr. Bailey said.

 

He squirted some cold, clear goo onto my belly. Then he placed a hand-held device attached to the ultrasound machine over it and started rubbing it around.

 

I strained to look over at the screen, but from where I was lying down, it was difficult to see anything; the screen was tilted away from me.

 

“Hmm,” Dr. Bailey murmured.

 

Then, a few seconds later, he laid the hand-held device to the side and picked up a phone on the wall.

 

“Yes, Linda? Can you have Dr. Somnabellus come here? There’s something I think he needs to see.”

 

Another minute passed, then Frank strode into the room.

 

“Hello again, Alex. This should just take a minute,” he said in a soothing tone that terrified me.

 

What had Dr. Bailey seen?

 

Next thing I knew, Dr. Bailey was rubbing the hand-held device over my belly once more while Frank clucked approval.

 

“Yes. Yes, just as I thought. Alex, can you see this?”

 

He tilted the screen toward me, and I felt my heart drop to the pit of my stomach.

 

There, in the sonic picture of my uterus, it was unmistakable: three black blobs.

 

“Triplets,” Frank said, his voice a hush. “You’re pregnant with triplets.”

 

As he and Dr. Bailey spoke, I lay there, the word “triplets” ping-ponging around my head. Then I let my horrified gaze stop on Frank a moment before I tore myself off the hospital bed and ran out of the room.

 

As I ran, calls of my first and last name dogged me. It was all footsteps behind me and turned heads before me and nurses dodging out of the way just in time. This, however, was all background noise to the real soundtrack, the refrain playing in my head, appropriately in threes: triplets, triplets, triplets.