Mr. Player's Kids

Mr Player's Kids: Chapter 8

"What do you mean there's another baby? There was one, the ultrasound showed one there can't- there can't be another baby Chase this is a mistake!"

"It's a girl."

My breath stopped sharply going into my chest. I opened my mouth to speak again. Nothing was coming out. Chase gently placed his hand on the side of my head, moving his thumb slowly across my cheekbone to calm me down, to bring me back to focus.

"Tobias was positioned in a way that shadowed the second baby, and made her difficult to notice unless the operator was intently looking for twins after the first few ultrasounds."

The words made sense but they weren't processing.

"She's so tiny, Emma." Chase whispered. "When they took her away she wasn't making a sound, I couldn't see or understand what was going on until I saw them wheel her out of the room, no one told me." His head sank into my shoulder as his breathing picked up. I put my hand around his shoulder to his head and held him as he wavered around the brink of sobbing.

Ultimately, it was Chase that did it. My head finally grasped the situation and the pieces were fitting together in a convoluted way that I had to accept. Chase had spent hours watching me in pain, seeing the pain lessen and experiencing the joy of his son, only to repeat the process again in a more twisted way none of us had even began to be prepared for. It was my turn.

"Chase." I said quietly. No change.

"Chase." I repeated, loudly this time, pulling him out of the contemplative state he was in. He looked scared. Terrified. I took his hand in mine and squeezed it as hard as I could. "It's not just you and me now. It's both of us, parents, to a little boy who needs to be held and loved," I looked down at Tobias's sweet face, "and a little girl who has no idea where she is, why she's there, or where her parents are." I lifted his face up to mine once more, "she needs us now, even more than I needed you just hours ago."

That was the moment. We had already become parents, but looking into each other's eyes, holding the little boy we had been expecting and pining for the girl we had not, that was the moment we realized what that title meant. 

It's easy to say we were ready for it, because in a way we were, physically and comprehensibly. But feeling that clarity that had been missing so many months before, I'd imagine that no one is ever ready until they're completely forced to be. I was ready now. I had no doubts anymore.

"Let's go see her." Chase said, decisively.

I nodded.

*                    *                    *                    *

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do. And frankly, it's irresponsible of you to attempt to break medical protocol just to see her, not to mention selfish." The nurse responded to our request to see the baby girl as if we were asking to participate in an open heart surgery. Snarky and bleach blonde, the young nurse picked pieces of lint off of her scrubs as she denied us, signally just how much she didn't care for our cause.