Page 54 of A Love Most Brutal (Morelli Family #2)

MAXIM

Other than my brief stint in the hospital last month, I haven’t been inside an honest-to-God doctor’s office for years, and this one is different than any I can remember. It’s inviting instead of sterile, everything about it designed to be soft, light, and optimistic.

There are parenting guides and cardboard children’s books on the tables, photos of brilliantly smiling families on the walls, and two other couples in the waiting room.

I look again at Marianna’s abdomen, covered by the black overall dress she’s wearing, but if I press the fabric to her front, I know I’m not imagining the bump that’s visible there.

Marianna is a small, incredibly muscular woman. I admittedly know very little about gestation, but it seems early still for her belly to be rounding.

She bites the skin around her nail before stopping suddenly and stuffing her hands under her thighs. She’s been nervous about today, concerned that when they finally do an ultrasound, they’ll find nothing there.

“What if it’s a false alarm? Like maybe it’s been just a parasite making me sick instead of a fetus,” she said in the car ride here.

She drove us since my foot is still wrapped in a hard cast for a few weeks more and Samuel, while still alive, is no longer in our employ. I miss him more than I like to admit.

“A parasite that stops your period and gives you positive pregnancy tests?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

I didn’t tell her that she was wrong to worry, only put my hand on her thigh and lightly squeezed.

“Marianna Orlov?” a nurse in pink scrubs calls now from the door into the back.

My wife pops up from her seat mechanically and I follow behind her.

We’re overdressed for this little family practice, me in my button-up and slacks, her in all black, but the nurse doesn’t look surprised.

I’m still on crutches, after all, and that’s really what gives her pause.

“How are we feeling today?”

“Sickly,” Marianna says as she drops into one of the rolling chairs instead of on the exam table. I take the chair next to her. “But much less nauseous than I was this time last month.”

“That’s a good sign. Improvement!”

She gives Marianna a cup to pee in, draws her blood into three vials, and then instructs her to get undressed with the blanket draped over her waist and another across her chest in preparation for the ultrasound.

When the nurse leaves the room, Marianna unbuttons the metal clasps that hold up the overall straps and steps out of the dress left only in her long sleeve and bright red underwear.

I refuse to get an erection in the doctor’s office, so I keep my eyes on her face while she folds the clothing and sets it in a pile on the chair next to mine.

She settles a bit stiffly on the bed, first sitting, then laying down, half sitting up, then sighing and reclining back again. I scoot my chair to the side of the table and she doesn’t look at me, instead staring at the ceiling, her thumb spinning her wedding ring around in circles on her finger.

“Are you nervous?” I ask.

She turns her head to look at me. The height of the table puts her just about my eye level.

“What if it’s—” A knock on the door cuts her off and she calls out a “yeah” before the door opens to reveal the nurse and now an older woman with slight shoulders and a kind smile.

Dr. Simone Judd, who delivered Angel, Artie, and Clara, and is set to deliver Vanessa’s baby in the next couple of months.

“Mary Morelli,” she says, so pleasant.

“It’s Orlov now,” Marianna says, and nods in my direction.

“Of course,” the doctor amends, and offers her hand for me to shake, which I do. She turns to wash her hands at the sink, which I do not take as a personal slight. “Good to meet you Mr. Orlov. And based on the urine sample, congratulations are in order.”

“Thank you, it’s—” I exhale, unsure how to finish the sentence. That it was a surprise to me? The thrill of my life? That I’ve never been so concerned for the health of a human as I am of my wife who is so strong, yet so mortal? “Thank you,” I settle on instead.

“Shall we get started then?”

We both agree and she wastes no time getting to it. I hold Marianna’s hand and she squeezes mine while Dr. Judd gets the machine set up for the ultrasound.

She presses a tool at the bottom of Marianna’s stomach, moving it a few times while listening to the gentle whooshing sound of the machine. And then we all hear it.

Unmistakable and fast, an urgent sort of galloping.

“And we have a heartbeat!” she says, and Marianna looks at me with wide eyes, the same look I’m sure is mirrored on my face.

“It’s so fast,” Marianna says. The doctor smiles and nods, but she’s leaning to the monitor to listen closer to the sound. Her mouth is closed in a tight line, eyebrows slightly together while she does.

Dr. Judd opens her mouth but then closes it before she clicks a few buttons on the machine until the screen populates with an image I can’t begin to make sense of.

“Let’s take a look then,” she says before either of us can inquire if she thought something was wrong. The heart sounded normal enough to me, though Marianna was right it sounded like a fast little thing.

Dr. Judd moves the wand around Marianna’s abdomen, pausing, clicking a button, smiling like she can’t help it and repeating the process.

“Alright, here we have the baby,” she points at a spot on the screen before making it bigger by clicking a few buttons on the machine.

I do not see a baby, per se, but more of a blob in a black sack.

As she moves the view slightly, though, the blob looks more human-shaped than I anticipated, albeit wrapped up like a tadpole.

“What’s next to it?” Marianna asks and the doctor smiles.

“Well, that’s another baby.”

We both freeze, staring at the screen and waiting like the doctor might say “just kidding” at any moment.

“Breathe,” Dr. Judd reminds us with a slight laugh, and Marianna shutters in a breath and looks at my face. “It was sounding so busy because you’ve got two heart beats in there. Well, three including yours.”

She freezes the image on a view of them next to each other, the outlines of both of their tiny heads visible.

“Oh my God.” Marianna exhales, and squeezes my hand tighter. I look between the screen and her face, unsure which sight is more magnificent to me. Her eyes go glassy, and I have to blink because the same can be said for my own.

“Twins do run in families,” the doctor chimes. She smiles as Marianna laughs.

It is profound, watching the ultrasound, getting up close to the little blobs that are the not one but two tiny fetuses that we made.

I could watch it all day, but after the doctor has all the scans she needs, she has Marianna get all cleaned up and dressed again. As soon as Dr. Judd leaves, I kiss her half a dozen times, both of us astonished at the surprise.

“We made a baby?” I ask, though obviously we did.

“Two of them,” she says, and gives no protest when I pull her against me, peppering her mouth and face with more kisses.

“Careful, you look a bit too happy about this,” I murmur with my lips still against hers. “Someone is going to think you like me.”

“Didn’t you hear?” she asks, and rests her forehead against mine. “I don’t just like you, I’m terribly in love with you. Disastrous, really.”

“Say it again,” I say, and she smiles against my mouth.

“I love you, Maxim.”

I let out a long, wistful sigh. “I know,” I say.

When she pinches my arm, we both laugh.