Twenty: Tradegy and Ecstasy

JAMES' PERSPECTIVE

   "Surprise!" I exclaimed, walking into the classroom that was decorated with alphabet posters and chairs brightly painted with different animal's likenesses. Lavender had informed me that one of the teacher's had taken ill, since it was the last day of school and the children weren't doing much of anything anyways, the headmistress felt that hiring a substitute was quite pointless, and asked her to fill in.
   "Aww, James." Her face lit up, "Harrison! How's my big boy?"
   "Good, mama." He smiled, reaching his arms out for her.



   "Do you like mama's work? Soon you'll go to this school with me." She cooed, tickling him, sending him into a rage of laughter.
   "Yay!" He clapped, "I go to scoo, I scoo!"
   "Yeah, school! You'll go to school." She kissed the top of his head, gently placing him on the rug with the toy box. "I can't believe that he's been three for three months. He's growing up so fast... I remember when he was in diapers." 
   "Don't make nappies out to be luvvly-jubbly, 'sides, we'll have quite enough in three months. How's our girls?"

   "They've been so active, twenty-nine weeks is exhausting." I placed my hand on her stomach, feeling the twins kick. After discovering that Lav had completely missed the first trimester things with Harrison, she'd wanted to ensure that she wouldn't again, she didn't want any surprises her second pregnancy or for the second pregnancy to be a surprise so, after a bit of holiday eggnog and snogging, we decided why not get right to the rumpy pumpy and give Harrison a sibling.
   "Harrison wanted to see his sisters so badly, I couldn't resist leaving him with your parents during the doctor's appointment."
   "He's got you wrapped around his finger." She replied, fondly gazing over towards our son.
   "I 'pose." I shrugged, picking him back up again, taking Lavender's hand, leading her out the door, the appointment was in fifteen minutes, the office ten minutes away.
   It was a cliche, every man not wanting to be his father, than them reluctantly turning into him anyway because of bloody biology or what have you, though it was true enough. 
   My father was a whiskey sipping, cigar puffing, negligent man who I was anything but fond of, therefore I spent most of my teenage and early twenties attempting to spite the six feet deep bastard. I didn't want Harrison to think for one moment I didn't give a rat's arse about him, I didn't want to be like my father and I didn't want my son to fear turning into a man like him. I couldn't change my childhood, I couldn't erase the memory of the bladdered twit hitting my mum when she asked if he'd attend my sister Poppy's ballet recital, I couldn't change the fact that he acted like a madman, but I could be sure that my children knew how much I loved them, that they knew I'd never harm a hair on any of my family's head, that they knew I'd go to hell and back for them, that I'd always try to give them the best.
   I held Harrison tightly, as we entered the office, Lavender signed herself in, then she was called back, I lingered in the waiting room, as Harrison questioned what the posters were depicting.

 
   "That's a drawing of a mummy, see she has a fetus in her uterus, that's what Grammy mean's when she says that there's a baby in mama's tummy."
   "Ahhkay... Why does mama get the fee-us, not you?"
   "Well," I paused. He was a rather intelligent three year old, he wouldn't listen to me explaining that that was just the way nature intended things to be. "Mamas are quite stronger than daddies, it takes a lot of work, growing a life and sometimes there'll be ouchies, daddies aren't strong enough to handle the ouchies, mamas are."
   "Mamas are strong?" He gasped, his eyes expanding into the size of olive saucers. "Was I a fee-us?"
    "Yes mamas are, they're stronger than we recognize. See, we all used to be fetuses, you were and mama and I loved you very much, before you were even born, before we even knew that you were going to be Harrison."
   "You did?" He looked at me, his tiny face scrunching up into thought. "Then I musta loved you and mama before I knew that you were daddy and mama." He said it with such simplicity, he didn't understand how important him saying that was to me, he didn't know much much that made my heart swell with elation, he didn't know that I'd loved him the minute Lavender gave me the blasted yellow duckie with the note card announcing that she was having a boy, he didn't know that I loved him and mama and the siss-tas one and two, as he referred to the twins, so goddam much, that the thought of losing anyone of them, even just for a second, was so painful, it was unbearable.
   "Let's go see mama and your sisters." I carried him into the room, where Lavender was stationed, the ultrasound machine depicting a grainy, black and white image.
   "Mama, you have fee-uhs because you strong." Harrison told her, as we stood on the pastel and white tile, the walls painted a buttercup yellow, duck adorning the trim. Something was awry, squiffy instead of radiating unadulterated happiness like rays of the golden sun, Lavender's eyebrows were bent up, her lips pursed, her pale purple eyes darting in such a worrisome, such an anxious manner from her stomach, to the ultrasound machine, to me.

   "James, James, I..." 
   "What, darling, what's wrong?" I placed Harrison on one of the white chairs, clasping her hands with mine. 
   "They, they share a placenta, they're identical, monochorionic, we knew that, but, but, they, they aren't developing normal, I guess, I guess they couldn't diagnosis something because of the way they were positioned, but the doctor said that the size, they finally saw, abnormal size difference, I don't know, but, but they had to go get a specialist."
   "Wh-what?" Abnormal size difference. Aren't developing normal. Specialist.
   I stood completely discombobulated, holding her hand, as Harrison, who had managed to get an ink pen off of the counter, scribbled on himself, as the specialist told us what was going on.
   TRAP sequence.
   Pump twin.
   Supplies blood.
   "I, I, I feel faint, I'm a horrible mother, horrible, I can't handle saying the word, can't handle talk, sight of b-b-b, I feel faint, I'm going to faint or throw up or, I, damn, hemophobic." Tears began welling up in her eyes, as she began blubbering on about what a horrible, horrible mother she was, she couldn't even hear what was going on with her sick children without almost passing out.

   "Hush, no, no, darling, you're a great mum, you can't help that you cannot handle bl- you cannot handle it, you're a great mum. Everything's going to be okay." I took my thumb, wiping away the black streaks that had fallen across her paling cheeks.
   "Pardon, sir, but this is serious, we need to discuss the complications, perhaps-"
   "The hallway." I gestured towards the door. "Tell me there, my wife looks like she's going to pass out, tell me in the hallway, I'll tell her in terms that won't trigger her hemophilia."
   "Alright, sir." I followed them, in their navy scrubs, white lab coat, out into the hallway, as they continued speaking.
   Twenty five percent survival.
   Acardiac twin.
   No heart.
   No upper body.
   No chance of survival. 
   Selective bipolar cord coagulation.
   Excessive amniotic fluid.
   Preterm labor induced.
   "What, what, no! This, this can't be happening, how, how, isn't there anything you can do?"
   "I'm sorry sir, we can schedule the procedure as soon as possible, usually we attempt to preform a selective bipolar cord coagulation in the second trimester, but since she's already two weeks into her third trimester, we need to schedule it as soon as possible, if she consents. I understand it can be a difficult choice to make, however after the operation, the pump twin's chance of survival goes up to eighty-seven point five percent.
   We'll preform the surgery, we'll monitor her, if she's doing well, we'll induce labor. Usually after the procedure, we attempt to monitor the pregnancy until thirty-five to seven weeks, we'd induce labor then, but due to the fluid build up, there's a chance of her going into labor now, for the fetus' health, we need to ensure that it's induced."
   "Are you, are you, the acardiac twin, what about her?"
   "Sir, ideally we'd be having the conversation with your wife, she needs to know exactly what's going on with her bod-"
   "Dammit! She'll know, she, what about the acardic twin? What about my wife? You said the pump twin's survival rate will go up to eighty-seven point five fucking percent, what about my wife? Will she be okay? Dammit, she has to be okay! And the other twin, what, what, she doesn't have a heart, but, but, transplant? Or, dammit, what the hell?"
   "Sir, I know it's difficult, please calm down, your wife will be fine, provided that we can monitor her."
   "I will not calm down, my wife's in that room, she feels guilty as hell that she'll, there's complications, bloody hell."
   "Sir, no one should have to go through losing one twin."
   "Losing, losing... We're, are you sure? There has to be something you can do!" I loved Lavender, I loved the twins. She, she'd be devastated, I there had to be some mistake, something I could do.
   "TRAP is rare, it occurs in one percent of monochorionic pregnancies, I'm afraid that there isn't much we can do."
   One twin.
   One twin.
   Lavender and I had prepared to become a family of five, we'd bought two cribs, a double jogging stroller, we'd told Harrison he was getting two sisters, we, we had this future, this perfect future as a family of five envisioned, for four months, we'd spent the first two not knowing it was twins, we'd envisioned this future. A false future.
   We cried. We wept. We asked why, why us? We scheduled the operation. Six days from the doctor's appointment. Six days of tears, of grief, of mourning. Six days off of work. Six days of Chuck and Jolenne coming over, playing with Harrison, cooking us warm meals, putting Harrison to bed, keeping the house clean, finishing the nursery. Six days of having both twins.

   I drove Lavender solemnly to the hospital in my police cruiser, in my police officer's uniform so I could speed, put on the wailing, blaring lights and step on the gas pedal. We checked in, the Coltons. They prepped her, went over the risks, the procedure with her, she was ghostly white, listening to the cold medical terminology that, in her mind, was utterly gruesome.

   She was instructed to stay still, on the hospital bed, in her thin, beige gown, as they monitored her, waiting until the operation room had been completely prepped. They said the cord coagulation wouldn't take long. An hour. The labor would be longer. We whispered "I love you" to each other, as they wheeled her off to the room. I wasn't aloud to be present during either operation. I'd be stuck pacing that goddamn hospital corridor, the smell of antiseptic filling my nostrils, observing the crisp white tile, the white walls. Why was it, whenever people were stuck in the hospital, it was always how white everything was? The bitter scent of antiseptic, the hollow sense of fatality, the whiteness of it all. That's what everyone always observed. Why?

   I peeked inside an empty operation room, an operating room that was next to the one Lavender was in. White, green, gray. Tile, fabric, cold, curtains, metal. Scalpel, gauze, stitches. Operating table, bright lights.
   I couldn't be trapped outside the room, pacing, my head was spinning, I needed air. Fresh air. Five minutes. Five minutes, then I'd return as close to Lavender's side as I possibly could.

   Fags, cigarettes, Lavender told me to call them. A dirty habit. Glamorized by teenagers. Glorified by teenagers. I'd been one of those teenagers. Daff dimwits, they were, the teenagers who smoked, the people who smoked. Lung cancer, second hand smoke, I knew it could kill me. I didn't miss the irony, me puffing away in front of the building where life began, where they attempted to restore life, where life ended, as my wife, my daughters, were under the knife, in a clean, sanitized, white room, on a metal table, where someone had probably died and someone would die again.
   I wasn't a teenager. I'd smoked as one, my father hated fags, he said that the only thing for men were cigars, fags were for Audrey Hepburn and pansies. So I smoked to spite him, two cigarettes a week, I never wanted to develop a bloody nicotine addiction, so I smoked two a week, one Friday afternoon, in the park with my mates, the day my father ritualistically went to a pub and came home smashed, one Saturday morning, in my backyard, the morning my mother would weep, having to care for my hungover father. I never smoked when my sister was around, I knew second hand smoke wasn't what her young lungs, six years younger than I was, needed. I'd quit once I went to uni, it was difficult, quitting, but I did. I was twenty-eight and it'd been ten years since I smoked, I bought the red and white pack yesterday at the shady gas station near the grocery store, I knew how stress relieving it was, smoking. I... I needed to get my head out of my arse, needed to quit reverting to old habits.

   Lacey, my ex-wife, she'd started smoking habitually, when the modeling agency picked her up. She'd crassly encourage me to do the same, I never did. I was smitten with her, partly because she was a somewhat intelligent, attractive woman, partly because my father would have hated her, she was smitten with me partly because she equated my sarcastic, deadpan commentary charmingly witty, partly because I was foreign, territory for her to explore. We were both smitten, we dated a bit, marriage seemed logical. Not loved fueled, logical, so we wed. I presumed that we couldn't make it through a career change because love faded.
   After I married Lavender, I loved Lavender, I'd known her four months and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, being with her was like sitting in front of a warm hearth, it was comforting, it wasn't like fireworks, with constant explosions, it was a lit fireplace cozy cabin during a frigid winter, I realized that I'd never loved Lacey. I'd lusted after her, she lusted after me, but it wasn't love.
   I stubbed the cigarette out, twisting it in the pile of ash, leaving it mostly unsmoked, as I ventured back into the hospital, towards the maternity wing's waiting room.

   There was a different type of love, a fatherly, parental love in my heart for Harrison and the twins. I'd created something, not something, life with a wonderful woman, there would always be another piece of me, a piece of Lavender, roaming the world, a piece of her I wanted to protect, a quilt, stitched with the best pieces of us, a quilt that'd grow and change, as we nurtured and loved it, we'd add scraps of fabric, we'd add the fabric, but the quilt would decide, in the end, what it'd look like.
   I watched the ten pm news, I tapped my foot, glanced at my watch, paced the room, until finally a doctor emerged, calling for Mr. Colton. I jumped up, exclaiming that that was me, I was Mr. Colton, I was Mr. Colton, how was my wife. I was told that Mrs. Colton and the baby were doing fine, she was still out from the anesthetic, they'd moved her back to a sterile room, but I couldn't see her yet, they'd monitor her for a few hours, then induce labor.
   Baby. Singular. There was only one baby, now.
   The pump twin.
   The pump twin's heart was strained, but it'd be fine. She'd be fine.
   Veronica Violet Colton. Three pounds, seven ounces. Forty-seven and a quarter centimeters- roughly seventeen inches. Premature, born at thirty weeks. She'd spend two weeks and three days in the neonatal intensive care unit, the NICU. Veronica was the pump twin, her heart was strained, but she was fine.
   Paisley Penelope Colton. The acardic twin.
   Bittersweet melancholy. Tragedy and ecstasy.

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