Chapter Text
Life moves in contradictions—so fast and yet so slow. The days drag, but the months vanish. My due date is in early June. October passes and Finny marries me in the same courthouse as Angie and Preppy Dave. Angie, Preppy Dave, and Guinevere are in the second row on my side. My mother is in the seat closest to me. My father sits next to her. I was so surprised he showed up I actually teared as he walked me to the front. Aunt Angelina sits on Finny’s side. All of the women are tearful, and the single boy besides Finny is smiling and rubbing his wife’s shoulder as he holds Guinevere. I wear a dress tailored to my shape that my mother took me to buy the day after he proposed to me.
The proposal came out of nowhere— just a week after my first check-up. I think he had been reading my mind. Finny got off work early and took me to the diner. The same one where I once ate a hamburger and fries for breakfast after Jamie broke up with me. He held my hand on the drive over, just as he always did. He opened my door, just as he always did. Just like the perfect gentleman he was. My boy is the most perfect gentleman that ever existed, I think. And he would ingrain that into our children as well. After I went to the bathroom for the nth time that day, the small velvet box sat casually on the table in front of me. He said his mom gave it to him the day he got discharged and casually asked the question that had tortured me for the last week. “Autumn Davis, will you marry me?” The whole thing was casual. So casual. I thought I’d be mad, he asked me in the middle of this old diner, with a hamburger and fries sitting between both of us! But it was us. And Finny was asking me to marry him. And that’s the only thing I keep thinking about. I think even if he asked me in front of the abandoned gas station near the outskirts of town I would’ve said yes. Because it’s Finny, and I get to marry him anyway.
I was right. Finny and I were destined to raise a boy just like Finny. On my next prenatal checkup, the fact was made aware to us all at once.
“This is fairly common in multifetal pregnancies. It’s called ‘vanishing twin syndrome.’ The surviving twin has absorbed the tissue of its other twin. It occurs usually in the first trimester of pregnancy. There really is no treatment for it; we’ll just have to keep monitoring the remaining fetus more regularly.”
Finny didn’t blame me. In fact, he encouraged me. “Well…now we can focus all of our efforts. It’s okay. We can always have another.” He whispered into my hair in the car as he stroked my belly softly. I gazed down at his hand, and then at his eyes. They still held all of his love.
But he doesn’t understand. This happened in my body. I was robbed. My body was supposed to protect them both, but instead, one just... disappeared—absorbed like they were never even here. I will forever live with the ghost of what could’ve been in my body. And the ache will continue to live in my body for years to come. There’s no way of remedying that. I know I should be grateful that one of them survived, but all I can think about is the tiny heartbeat that never got the chance to grow, to exist outside of me. Finny says we can always have another, but he doesn’t understand—this isn’t just about having another baby; it’s about the one I lost, the one no one will ever get to meet. We can have as many children as we want, but I will always live with the ghost of this first time. There’s no way of remedying it, but it will get better. Because I will love this child as best as I can, and Finny will love me as best as he can, and the ache will diminish with every day I learn to love myself through this child again.
Finny bought us a small apartment near his work two months after he started working there. It wasn’t much, but it was a home. He came home every night and made me dinner, or ate the measly dinner I made him, and kissed my lips and my stomach until I smacked him fondly and told him to finish his dinner. He was like a little boy in front of me again, anytime he would see me his face would instantly light up and he’d run over before kissing me softly. Some nights he would come home with presents. My mother kept a lot of stuff from when she was raising me, so naturally that got passed down to us. Aunt Angelina had some of Finny’s stuff as well, but not nearly as much as my mother. She was always the more sentimental of the two.
I got my license just a week before I would be six months pregnant. My father was on a business trip, but he sent me congratulations in the mail and the dealership information of my car that mom would drive over the very same day. It was a practical Ford SUV—much more useful for driving children in than Finny’s two-door convertible. I’m glad my parents had a good head on their shoulders. ‘
I spent most of my day’s just as Finny had imagined. Reading, writing, resting. I took up cooking in an effort to convince myself that I would be able to do this—that I could be a good mother. Finny was busy enough with his job and taking care of me; it was the least I could do for him really. I decided to wait to take night classes until I was settled into this lifestyle.
The days were slow but I found a sort of fulfillment in our peaceful life. The ache got better as the weeks passed and I focused on taking care of my now single child as best I could. It’s only necessary as it’s new mother. We still haven’t found out the sex. We both agreed from my first appointment that we wouldn’t find out the gender until it was born. Even though we were both somehow convinced it would be a boy. There was still some kind of thrill of the doctor saying, “it’s a beautiful ____!” That shook us to our cores. This would still be our child, regardless of sex anyway.
Finny was offered a small business trip to a lab two towns away from ours. It was a six hour drive, for three days. The summer months had just started, after a long spring that stretched till the end of May. My expected due date had passed one week ago.
“Don’t go…” I pouted, tugging on the edge of his sweater. He sighed slightly, looking at me with a small smile.
“I don’t want to either, especially in this state. But…this could be a really good opportunity. If I make a good impression on this lab, we can give our futures a shot. You can start going to those night classes, we won’t have to worry about spending too much money at the store, you can become a writer that stares out the window of a coffee shop and read all you want.” He smiles hopefully, stroking my cheek softly. He kisses me softly, then.
I sigh, blinking back tears. I am so ready to be done with this pregnancy. These hormones are making me a mess. “Okay. Be safe. Text me when you get there.” I forfeit, Finny wiping the tears staining my eyes.
“I’ll call.” He whispers, kissing my eyes as I laugh softly in response. My boy is a dork. My boy is so in love with me. Just as I am with him. That’s enough to keep me going.
He calls that night as soon as he walks into his hotel room, and I fall asleep to the sound of his breathing and the TV in the background. The next two days I spend missing my boy and wondering what he’s doing at that very minute. The third day feels like a catharsis because I will see my husband the very next day and I will kiss him all over his face and tell him how I can’t wait to stop being pregnant.
And then I wake up to pain. I clutch my hand over my stomach and flip over the covers to see a wet spot. “Oh, shit.” I grab my phone from my bedside table, bringing my phone to my ear as I call my mom.
“Mom?”
“Honey, what is it?” My mom sleepily replies, probably rubbing her eyes.
“It’s—it’s time. Can you get over here? And call Aunt Angelina.” I groan out, standing up from the bed and grabbing my luggage.
“Oh—oh my gosh, yes. Just hang tight sweetie, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I hang up the phone, and try to breathe like my books taught me. I wish he was here. I wish it wasn’t happening like this. But Aunt Angelina would call Finny and let him know, and I’m sure he’d drive here as fast as he could, because his child is coming into this world and he needs to be by his wife’s side as soon as possible.
If I wasn’t living it right now, I would think this makes a great scene in a movie. The pregnant girl wakes up one night and finds that her water has broken and that her baby is coming out right now . But since I am living it, all I can think is how I’m so ready to get this child out of me so I can do all of the things I want with Finny and release all those pent-up feelings I’ve been feeling for the past six months. The ride to the hospital blurs past in a mix of pain and panic. Mom grabs my hand, murmuring reassurances, but all I can think about is Finny. He should be here. He needs to be here. By the time we pull up to the emergency entrance, a fresh contraction rips through me, and all thoughts of anything else disappear.
When Aunt Angelina holds my hand in the hospital though, I cry and say I want Finny here so badly. She says, “I know. I know it must be scary. But we’ll be right here, and you’ll make it. It sucks but you’ll make it.” Tears fall to my cheeks, and I nod, and they bring me into the delivery room where a doctor is washing his hands before putting on surgical gloves. He asks about the father, and Aunt Angelina explains all that she needs to, and my mother chimes in with how she’s my mother and Aunt Angelina is my mother-in-law. Weird, considering that she’s my Aunt Angelina, but I don’t focus on it.
“Okay, honey. You’re at three centimeters right now. You have to wait until you’re at ten centimeters to start pushing, alright?” The nurse advises me so helpfully, and I feel like my body is ripping apart. I can’t do this. Why did I ever think I could do something like this? I was too naïve, and I believed labor would be difficult but never this difficult and I want my husband by my side, kissing my hair and telling me how proud he is of me and how I can do this.
One minute in pain rips through me, unbearable and all-consuming—worse than I ever imagined. The pain comes in waves—sharp, relentless, tearing through me until I don’t know where I end and the agony begins. My hips feel like they’re being pried apart, my body splitting open with every contraction. Just when I think I can’t take another second, the doctor checks and says I’m at five centimeters.
Five more to go. Five more. My vision blurs as a sob wracks through me. I don’t care that I’m a mess. I don’t care about anything except making it through the next contraction, and the one after that, and the one after that . I just want my husband to hold my hand so badly, and tell me that we’ll make it, and that I’ll never have to do this again if I don’t want, even though I want to give Finny all the kids my womb can carry.
I’m drowning in the pain, gasping between contractions, when the door bursts open. My heart stutters. I don’t believe it at first.
Then I see him.
Finny is there, chest heaving, eyes glassy with unshed tears. He looks at me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters. He made it. He’s here.
Something inside me cracks, and I let out a sob—not from pain, but relief. I reach for him blindly, my fingers grasping at air until his hand finds mine, warm and steady. My lifeline.
“You’re here,” I whisper, voice raw.
He presses his forehead to mine, breath shaky. “I’m here. I’m right here. Oh, you’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you. You can do this. I love you so much. I love you, and we’re gonna make it. I swear to you we will make it.
His words fill the cracks in my resolve. I think he was reading my mind again. I squeeze his hand, and with the next contraction, I sigh.
“Ten centimeters,” the doctor announces. “It’s time.”
It’s time.
Everything inside me is screaming—my body, my mind, my fear. But then Finny squeezes my hand, his lips brushing my temple.
“You’ve got this, baby. I swear, you’ve got this.”
I shut my eyes and gather every last ounce of strength I have left. I push.
My body is wrecked, shaking, spent. But I hear him crying. I need to do this because I’m crying, and he’s crying, and the head is almost crowning, and I’m too far to go back now. So I push, and I can feel the blood seeping out of me, but I don’t care because the pain rippling through my hips is too great to think about anything else. I cry against Finny’s shoulder softly as I take a break from pushing. His tears fall onto my scalp and he tells me how I’m almost there, how our beautiful child is almost here, and how he loves me so much. I inhale his words and exhale my exhaustion.
I suffered for five hours. I held my mother’s and husband’s hand the whole time. I cried, and pushed, and looked at my husband so many times. I felt like giving up for good. When I was close to finishing, my legs and hips cramped and ached. I breathed as heavily as I ever had, and it reminds me of a fantasy I had of one soccer game where Finny’s team was so tired but they still won against our rivals from that year. How Finny’s chest would heave proudly as he was cheered on by his team and he held the trophy up in victory. I love that fantasy. Not like how I love this moment—the only way I love this moment is because my Finny is right here cheering me on.
And then, just like that, it’s over. A sharp cry fills the room—loud, angry, alive.
“It’s a beautiful boy,” the doctor says, cutting the umbilical cord and lifting our child out of me.
The nurses wrap him in a baby blue blanket and I cry as I fully lay in the bed with a wide smile on my face. Finny kisses me passionately on the lips, and I continue to catch my breath as the doctor lays him in Finny’s outstretched arms. He cries softly as he smiles at our son, laying his finger in his tiny hand and covering his mouth gently.
Once the tears stop falling from his eyes, he looks down at our son once more, “Hey, little guy,” Finny whispers, voice thick with emotion. “It’s me. Your daddy.”
He lets out a soft, choked laugh, eyes flicking up to meet mine. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
He tilts his head towards our son, a shaky smile on his face. I cry out softly at his declaration, before outstretching my aching arms to hold him. Finny passes him to me, and I shakily hold him in my arms as tears swell in my eyes.
“I love you. So much. I’ll protect you no matter what. We’re gonna make it. Your daddy and I love you so much, and we’re gonna love you forever.” I whisper, leaning my forehead against my son’s forehead, tears falling to his face. I huff a proud breath out of my chest and smile towards my husband, who leans over to kiss me on the lips softly. We both kiss our son tenderly, causing him to stir in his swaddle lightly before yawning.
“Welcome to the world, Casey.” Finny whispers, causing me to laugh wetly. We had agreed on a gender-neutral name almost a week ago now. And now that name has come into this world.
All at once, it’s over, and I can hold my husband and my son in my arms.
Fin