I reach one of the rooms on the top floor and sit heavily in the rocking chair in the corner of the room. My belly is so large now that even my thighs are screaming at me to get these babies out and give them a break.
“Not long now.”
I stroke my belly through my oversized T-shirt and mutter to myself. Or the twins. Or my thighs. At this point, I’m so used to talking to all three of us while I work that it’s like a three-way video call without the images on the screen.
This is how it will always be, and I’m so excited to meet the twins in a few weeks even though I’m still not prepared to deal with the diaper situation. I tossed it out there with Leo early in my pregnancy. He immediately adopted his pakhan expression, the one where his lips almost disappear, and he peers down his nose at the rest of the world simply waiting for them to acknowledge his top-of-the-food-chain status, and said, “Absolutely not.”
We’ll manage. We don’t have a choice, and Mel says it’s different when it’s your own baby; you’re not quite so squeamish. She also loves to remind me that I’ve faced far more horrific situations working at the refuge in Montenegro, so how can I let a bit of baby poop floor me.
“Here she is.” Mika bounds into the bedroom, still clad almost head-to-toe in leopard print, and perches on what’s left of my thighs. “Thought we’d find you playing hooky in one of these gorgeous rooms we’ve worked our butts off to finish before you pop.”
“I’m not playing hooky, I’m resting.”
A baby foot pokes her in the back for getting too close, and Mika sprawls across the floor like the drama queen she is.
“How do you live with that punishment, Gi? Your insides must be black and blue.”
I smile and cradle my belly with both arms like I can protect my babies from her insults. “I’m going to miss them wriggling around after they’re born. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
Soon Cartier comes in carrying a heap of fairy lights. “This is the last room to decorate.” Her eyes are already on the ceiling, figuring out how many lights she’ll need. “Don’t mind me. You two just carry on lazing around and chatting about babies. I’ll work around you.” To prove the point, she strolls between me and Mika trailing strands of tiny bulbs over our friend.
“Sorry, that last flight of stairs killed my legs.” I flash her an apologetic smile. “I might just sit here for a while.”
I’ve been on site every day since Leo and I signed the deed to the red-stone mansion. I’ve knocked down walls with a sledgehammer, scraped multiple layers of paint from walls, climbed ladders to catch spiders and de-mold ceilings, and sat on the floor to eat sandwiches picked up from the deli around the corner. And I wouldn’t change a single moment of it. Apart from meeting Leo, this has been the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.
But now that we’re ready to open, my body is yelling at me to give myself a break. I feel bone-weary but deliriously happy.
As if reading my thoughts, Mika jumps onto her feet and backs away. “You’re not going into labor, are you? I mean, I’m excited to meet our girls too. But man, I don’t fancy our chances of cleaning this carpet before our guests arrive if you decide to spill your waters all over it.”
I laugh out loud. “Firstly, we don’t know that they’re girls.”
“Yeah.” Cartier stares at me from the other side of the room while she untangles the wires. “Why didn’t you find out what gender the babies are?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise. And I read somewhere that the final stage of labor goes faster if you don’t know what to expect.”
“Well, hopefully they’ll both be babies and not two-headed aliens.” Mika can’t help chuckling at her own joke. “Although I’m still on the fence about whether Leo is human, or a creature created from the genes of every hot movie star in the history of time.”
While on honeymoon, Leo surprised me with a trip to Montenegro so that I could ask my friends face to face to come and run the refuge with me. They said they’d be sorry to leave behind the women we’d gotten to know so well, but coming to Chicago was a no-brainer.
Part of me still wonders if they agreed so that the three musketeers could be reunited, or if they’re here because they couldn’t resist Leo. The three stress grooves on the bridge of his nose have smoothed out since we got married, and I still wake up beside him every morning reassuring myself that this sex-god is all mine. Besides, I’ve seen the way they follow him around with their eyes whenever he comes to the refuge.
But having them here has made my world complete. The grand opening is planned for tomorrow. Our families will be here, and the dogs, who successfully managed to christen every room during renovations. The mayor will give a speech to commemorate the opening, and then we hope to start taking women in immediately.
Mika, Cartier, and I all feel strongly that the women who need us the most will be the women who find us. Our aim is to ultimately help them find themselves. To help them become the strongest versions of themselves, women who will take no shit off anyone, women who will walk back out into the world with their heads held high and a middle finger up to the men who tried to destroy them.
I just need my babies to stay safely cocooned inside me until after I’ve welcomed our first residents.
“Fair enough.” Mika shrugs. “I still think they’re both girls though. I can picture Leo with silver hair and a grandaddy beard surrounded by women in his old age.”
“God help him,” Cartier mutters. “Anyway, what’s secondly? The suspense is literally killing me, not to mention these lights might just end up being tossed out of the window if they don’t cut me some slack within the next sixty seconds.”
“Secondly, I still have three weeks till my due date.”
“Which is nothing in twin terms, I might add.” Cartier stops untangling wires and stares at me with the same expression as Mika is wearing.
I ignore them. “Thirdly, if my waters break—which doesn’t always happen—it’s literally impossible for me to choose when this might be.”
“Do you feel like this is about to happen?” Mika keeps her distance in case her boots get splashed.
“No.”
Cartier tilts her head to one side as if I’m a painting that hasn’t been hung correctly on the wall. “You’re not moving though. I haven’t seen you this still since the night you got hammered on Tequila in our apartment and ended up sleeping with your head out of the window.”
“That was a great night,” Mika adds.
“I’m pretty sure you said it was the worst night of your life,” I remind her.
“That was the next day. The night before was mwah.” She kisses her fingers to demonstrate.
“Why aren’t you moving, Gi?” Cartier isn’t letting it go. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”
Mika crouches on the floor and peers underneath the rocking chair. “Nope. No puddle on the carpet.”
“I’m fine.” Gripping the arms of the chair, I haul myself onto my feet.
Before I can straighten, something seems to click inside my belly, and it drops, causing me to catch my breath and reach out for my friends. Mika and Cartier grab a hand each, gap-mouthed, their eyes wide. I wait for my waters to trickle down my legs, and when nothing happens, I let go of their hands and smile.
“False alarm. Don’t panic.”
Then, my belly grows rock hard, solidifying into a mountain peak protruding through my T-shirt as pain grabs hold of my body and twists violently. I reach out for them blindly and remember to breathe, in through my nose and out through my mouth, eyes squeezed shut to avoid the look of sheer horror on my friends’ faces.
The pain seems to go on and on, relentlessly gripping my belly and tightening its hold. Finally, it starts to ebb, and I open my eyes to find Mika and Cartier both grimacing at how hard I’m clutching their hands.
I’m panting, and there’s a dull ache blooming somewhere deep inside me, but I’m fine. I just need to reassure them before they go into full-on panic-mode and call Leo to come get me and take me straight to the hospital.
“What the fuck, Gi.” Mika’s face is drained of color. “Are you in labor?”
“No,” I say with as much energy as I can muster, which isn’t a lot apparently, going by the expressions on their faces. “It was just a practice contraction. They can get a bit strong.”
“Fucking strong? I thought I was going to have no fingers left by the time you were finished.”
Cartier still hasn’t said a word; she’s just watching me as if she can read all the signs.
“I’m not in labor.” It sounds like I’m trying to convince myself as much as them, but I plough on regardless. I peer down at my dry legs. “See, waters still intact.”
“Yeah, but you said it yourself: they don’t always break.” Cartier is still clinging to my hand.
“Don’t worry, even if I was in labor, I’m not missing tomorrow’s grand opening for anything.”
“You’re in labor?”
We all jump visibly and turn to face the doorway and the worried lines framing Leo’s mouth. Marvel and Lucky bounce into the room and sit smartly at Cartier’s feet because she’s the one who always carries treats around in her pockets. Sure enough, she slides her hand inside the pocket of her jeans and tosses one each to the dogs who practically swallow them whole.
“Leo? I didn’t hear you coming up the stairs.”
He crosses the room in three strides and places a hand on my stomach. “Are the babies coming? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
“No,” I say at the same time as my friends both say, “Yes.”
“No,” I repeat. “It’s nothing. I need to be here tomorrow.”
But another contraction tears through my stomach. All I can do is focus on the pain as I hear Mika muttering from a million miles away, “They’re only a few minutes apart. I think we’re going to be aunties by tomorrow.”
By the time the contraction has passed, Leo has lifted me easily into his arms and is carrying me down the first flight of stairs. The dogs run ahead, taking the staircase in two or three leaps and waiting for us to reach the bottom like this is the best game ever.
“Leo, put me down.” I don’t want to admit that my legs probably won’t carry me all the way down to the ground floor; I don’t want to add fuel to the fire already burning in Leo’s eyes. “I can walk.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Mika yells from the floor above. “You go meet your babies. We’ll finish up here.”
Leo obviously believes my friends over me. He doesn’t stop until he’s lifting me onto the back seat of the car and climbing in beside me. The dogs are already in the trunk, peering at us from behind the mesh screen.
Before I can tell him to take me home, another contraction is already building inside my abdomen. This one feels even stronger than the one before, and I’m forced to accept that I’m going to miss the mayor opening the refuge.
There are tears in my eyes when I look at Leo. “I want to be there tomorrow,” I whisper.
“Our babies have other plans, my printzessa.” He kisses me on the lips. “They didn’t want to miss it either.”
“But—”
“No buts, Gianna. How lucky are we? We get to meet our babies and offer a safe place for women who need it all at the same time. And it’s all down to you.”
“I couldn’t have done it without—”
“Hush. You could’ve done anything you wanted Gianna, been anyone, gone anywhere, and you chose me. I will never ever stop loving you for this.”
I lean into him and listen to his steady heartbeat.
He is right and wrong. I could’ve done anything and gone anywhere, but as for being anyone I wanted, I was always going to be his. One way or another.
I stop fighting the contractions and leave the refuge in the capable hands of my friends while Leo and I prepare to meet our beautiful babies.
“Mika thinks they’re both girls,” I say.
“Three of you?” He kisses the top of my head. “My luck just keeps growing and growing.”
