Infertile Couple's Twins After Two Months

Start Reading

01

I stared at the crumpled ultrasound printout in my hands. The black-and-white image looked like a smear of fog, and yet there they were, clearly marked: two gestational sacs. The doctor's words were still ringing in my ears like a clap of thunder. Congratulations, it's twins, and by the position they look like a boy and a girl.

Beside me sat Jacob Dunn, my husband, the coal magnate worth hundreds of millions. His face had gone ashen. The string of dark sandalwood prayer beads in his hand looked about to snap under his grip.

Two months ago, at the matchmaking table, we'd laid our cards down. I produced the diagnosis for blocked fallopian tubes and premature ovarian failure; he slapped down the report for severe male infertility. Two people handed a death sentence, teaming up to share a life so we could each give our families an answer.

In the time since, we'd done what married couples do, but the times could be counted on one hand, and we never once took any precautions. There was no need.

And now here I was, throwing up until the world went dark, with two heartbeats inside me.

Jacob ground his cigarette butt hard into the spotless hospital corridor floor, lifted his head, and those eyes that had read a thousand faces locked onto me. His voice came out raw, like he'd swallowed a fistful of sand. "Miriam Powell, this isn't as simple as it looks, and we both know it. The day these kids are born is the day the truth comes out."

To the outside world, Jacob and I were a rose planted in cow dung. To the two of us, we were two broken boats lashed together, hoping to ride out the waves the world threw at us.

That day in the coffee shop, I'd worn a proper business suit. Across from me sat Jacob, a gold chain thick as a finger around his neck, a bulging leather clutch tucked under his arm. The moment he opened his mouth, out came a heavy country accent, but his eyes were unexpectedly sincere.

"Professor Powell, the matchmaker's told you already, right? I'm a rough sort, no education to speak of. Wrecked my body down in the mines when I was young. My last wife ran off with another man because I couldn't give her kids. I've got money now. I just want someone steady to build a life with."

Jacob pushed the exam report from the top-tier hospital across to me. The words on it were glaring and plain. Severe male infertility. Chance of natural conception: zero.

I took a sip of lemonade, swallowed down the bitterness in my chest, and drew out my own secret from my bag.

"Mr. Dunn, I'll be just as blunt. Odds are, I'll never be a mother in this life."

Jacob picked up my report and studied it for a long time, his brow knotting tight. Then all at once it smoothed out, and he slapped his thigh. "Well, that's just perfect! The two of us are two of a kind that found each other! Neither one needs to have kids, so neither one can look down on the other!"

His voice was loud, and people at the tables around us turned to look. My face went hot, but I felt the knot in my chest loosen too.

Thirty-five, divorced, no children, a body that had failed me. My parents had nagged me about marrying again until I was nearly depressed. Jacob was a bit rough, a bit older, but his circumstances were solid, and more than that, he didn't need me to bear children.

The day we got the marriage license, Jacob handed me a card. For household expenses, he said. There was a million dollars on it.

"Wife, I don't go in for empty gestures. From now on you're the lady of the house. Buy whatever you want. I've got just one thing to ask. Be good to my mother. The old woman's half out of her mind wanting a grandchild, so let's keep our story straight and say we're working on it. Just don't let her lose all hope."

I looked at this rough man and nodded.

On our wedding night, Jacob drank a fair amount. He came out of the shower smelling of sulfur soap. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands together, a little awkward.

"Wife, that thing... I know the two of us can't make a baby, but the, uh, the motions... we ought to go through them, right?"

I turned off the light.

That night he was clumsy, and careful, as if I were a piece of porcelain that might break. Afterward he dropped straight into sleep, snoring loud enough to shake the room. I lay there in the dark, my hand resting on my flat stomach, and inside me there was nothing but a bleak emptiness.

We were both people fate had cast aside, huddled together on this grand, luxurious bed for warmth.

02

Married life turned out calmer than I'd expected. Lavish, even.

Jacob had a three-story house out in the suburbs, done up in the classic new-money style. The rosewood furniture had to be the biggest size available, the crystal chandeliers the flashiest, right down to the gold-plated toilet seats.

But with me, he was genuinely good.

I didn't like the smell of smoke in the house, so he went out to the yard to light up. I mentioned offhand that I liked cherries, and the next day he had a few crates flown in from Ohio, each one the size of a coin.

The only hard part was getting past his mother.

My mother-in-law was a classic country old woman, small feet bound in the old way, but with a sharp, cutting look in her eyes. The second day after she moved in with us, she started laying down rules at the dinner table.

"Miriam, honey, Jake's had a hard life. Building all this didn't come easy. Now that you've married into this family, your first job is to carry on the Dunn line."

She held out a bowl of black tonic, the smell of it strong enough to turn my stomach.

"Mom, this medicine" I looked to Jacob for help.

Jacob was hunched over gnawing on a braised pork trotter. He caught my signal and reached over to take the bowl at once. "Mom! I keep telling you, these days you trust the science! The doctor said we're both perfectly healthy, it just hasn't been our time yet. This stuff is bitter as anything, don't go making Miriam sick with it."

"What do you know!" His mother rapped him on the head with her chopsticks. "This is a fertility tonic I got from the wise woman back home! Your ex-wife ran off because she wouldn't drink it! Miriam's an educated woman, she'll understand. Drink it! You have to drink it!"

For the sake of family peace, I pinched my nose and got the tonic down.

Under the table, Jacob gave my hand a squeeze, his palm rough and warm.

The days went on like that. Jacob was busy with business, often away on trips. When he was home, we lived like any normal married couple. He wasn't much in bed, and it never lasted long, but afterward he always poured me a glass of water, or rubbed my lower back.

"Sorry to put you through that," he always said.

I shook my head. Compared to the cold cruelty and cheating of my last marriage, Jacob's clumsiness actually made me feel safe.

Until that month.

Jacob went to Wyoming to negotiate the acquisition of a mine and was gone for two weeks. The day he came back he was flushed with good spirits, saying the deal had gone through and he wanted to take me to a celebration dinner.

"Wear the red dress, it's festive!" Jacob pushed the custom silk dress into my hands. "Everyone coming tonight is somebody. Help me put on a good show."

I changed and did light makeup. The woman in the mirror had fine lines at the corners of her eyes, but her color was good, that well-fed glow money buys.

The dinner was at the best seafood restaurant in the city.

The moment I stepped into the private room, the reek of smoke and liquor made me frown a little. Jacob led me around, introducing me to each of them.

"This is my wife, Miriam Powell, a college professor!" His voice was full of pride.

The men were all beer bellies and dirty jokes, but they were polite enough to me.

I was in the middle of waving off a toast when a waiter brought out one of the main dishes, steamed sea bass.

The lid came off and a thick, fishy smell mixed with scallion and ginger hit me square in the head.

In that instant my stomach clenched like a fist had grabbed it, everything churning up at once.

"Ugh"

I couldn't hold it. I clapped a hand over my mouth and bolted out of the room.

In the restroom I heaved until I was nearly bringing up bile.

Jacob came rushing in, sweat all over his face, tissues in his hand.

"Honey! What's wrong? Was that fish off? I'll go smash their place up right now!" He held me steady, panic all over him.

"It's fine, my stomach's probably been off lately, maybe I caught a chill." I waved weakly.

Jacob wasn't reassured. He laid his big hand on my forehead. "You're not hot. No, we're going to the hospital. Forget dinner, your health comes first."

He wouldn't take no for an answer, half carrying, half steering me out of the restaurant and into his big Land Rover.

At City General we checked into the ER.

The ER doctor listened to my description, then gave Jacob and me a strange look.

"How late is your period?"

I blinked, pulled out my phone, and checked my records.

"Two months... but I've never been regular. Sometimes it only comes once every three months." Because of the premature ovarian failure, my cycle had always been all over the place, so it hadn't even crossed my mind.

"Go get some blood work done first, then an ultrasound." The doctor wrote up the order.

Jacob took the slip, baffled. "Doc, my wife's got a stomach thing, what's blood work for? And an ultrasound? Isn't that for checking a pregnancy?"

The doctor didn't look up. "Rule out pregnancy first, then we look at the stomach."

Jacob gave a sheepish laugh and scratched his head. "Doc, you're joking. The two of us... the two of us can't have kids."

The doctor shot him a glance. "There are no absolutes in medicine. Go get it checked."

03

Jacob thought the whole thing was ridiculous, but he went and paid the fee anyway.

The hour I spent waiting for the results was the longest sixty minutes of my life.

At last the ultrasound room door opened.

The doctor was staring at the screen, her brow slightly furrowed, and then it smoothed out, and something close to a smile touched her face.

"Relax. Don't be nervous."

"Doctor, is there something growing in there?" My voice was shaking.

"There is something growing." She turned the screen toward me. "Look, here, and here. This is the gestational sac, this is the heartbeat. Congratulations, twins. And from the shape and position of the two sacs, very likely a boy and a girl. You're already eight weeks along. They're developing beautifully."

For a moment my mind went completely blank.

Twins? Eight weeks?

I turned my head with effort and looked at Jacob standing in the doorway.

He'd been leaning in to peer at the screen, and when he heard the doctor's words he froze where he stood, like he'd been struck by lightning. His mouth fell open, those shrewd little eyes bulging round.

"What? Doctor, what'd you say?" Jacob rushed in, jabbing a finger at the screen. "That's a kid?"

"Yes, they're children. Two of them." The doctor handed him the printout.

Jacob took the sheet with a shaking hand, looked down at it, then looked at me. His face changed at a speed you could actually watch, from shock to wild joy, and then, right after, into something like utter bewilderment and deep suspicion.

On the drive home the air in the car was suffocating.

On the way there he'd been humming a little tune. Now he gripped the wheel, knuckles white. He drove fast but steady, and he didn't say a word.

I sat in the passenger seat, clutching that ultrasound sheet, my own feelings all tangled up.

Was I happy? Of course I was. For a woman who'd been handed a "death sentence," having her own children was something she wouldn't have dared to dream about.

But the fear was greater.

I'd seen Jacob's report with my own eyes, the one that said his natural chance of conceiving was zero.

Two people with "incurable conditions" suddenly hit the jackpot, and with a double at that. To anyone, that looked like one thing. Cheating.

The car turned into the villa complex and pulled into the garage.

Jacob didn't get out right away. He lit a cigarette instead.

"Miriam." He blew out a ring of smoke, his voice cold and hard. "I might not have any education, but I'm not stupid. You know exactly what I'm like in that department, don't you? The specialist told me to my face that in this life, unless a miracle happened, I'd never have a kid."

He turned his head, his eyes like a wolf's. "You tell me. These two kids, where'd they come from?"

His look stung me. I straightened my back. "Jacob, you're suspecting me?"

"What else? You think it was asexual reproduction?" Jacob sneered.

"I've done nothing wrong, and I've got nothing to hide! These two months I went to the school to teach and came straight home, I never set foot outside! I have an infertility diagnosis too. I want to know how this miracle happened just as much as you do! But you don't get to insult me!"

Jacob stared at me for a long time, then crushed out the cigarette hard.

"Fine. I won't insult you. But I'm not going to be anybody's fool either."

He took a deep breath, and his tone turned strictly businesslike. "The kids, you carry them. I'll feed you, take care of you, the best hospital, the best nanny, I'll get it all for you. But"

He paused, and said it one word at a time. "The moment those kids are born, we do a paternity test."

"If they're mine, I'll kneel down and beg your forgiveness, I'll give you half of everything I own and put you up like a queen. If they're not"

His eyes went cold all at once. "Then you walk out with nothing, and you take your bastards and get lost. This hundred thousand in bride money, plus everything I've spent these months, you pay every cent of it back to me, with interest."

I looked at him, tears welling up in my eyes, but I held them back.

"Fine! It's a deal!" I said through gritted teeth. "Jacob, remember what you said. When the time comes, don't blame me for making you kneel where everyone can see."

The next seven months, we settled into a long cold war.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, was over the moon, hovering around me all day, finding new ways to cook me good food. She didn't know about Jacob's suspicions. She just figured her "miracle tonic" had worked.

Jacob kept a cold face, but he really didn't shortchange me on anything material. He just rarely came home, and even when he did, he only slept in the study.

I knew what he was doing. He was waiting. Waiting for the proof that would nail that "cheating wife" label to me for good.

And I was waiting too. Waiting to be proven innocent.

04

Nine months carried, and in one night, delivered.

The night I gave birth, a thunderstorm broke over the city. They wheeled me into the operating room for a C-section.

Jacob stood outside the doors, pacing back and forth. In his hands he held two paternity test request forms he'd prepared long in advance, and beside him stood the notary he'd brought in specially and the doctor from the third-party testing agency.

Two loud, ringing cries, and a nurse came out cradling two swaddled babies.

"Congratulations! One boy, one girl, boy-girl twins! Big brother's five pounds thirteen, little sister's five pounds three. Mother and babies are all fine!"

My mother-in-law pressed her palms together, overcome, murmuring thanks to God.

Jacob didn't so much as glance at the babies. He just cut his eyes to the testing doctor beside him. "Draw the blood. Now."

The doctor nodded, took a sample from each baby's heel, sealed it, and carried it away.

When I woke in the hospital room, the anesthesia hadn't worn off, and the incision hurt down to the bone.

Jacob sat on the couch, his face dark, smoking.

"Rush order. Three days at the fastest." He didn't look at me. His voice was cold.

Those three days were torture for me, and no less a torment for Jacob. He was hoping the babies were his, and at the same time telling himself it was impossible.

On the afternoon of the third day, the head of the testing agency delivered the sealed envelope in person.

The room went dead silent. My mother-in-law, rocking the babies, saw it and didn't dare make a sound.

Jacob took the envelope. His hands were shaking a little.

He drew in a deep breath, and as if it took everything he had, tore the seal open.

He pulled out the report, skipped straight past all the complicated numbers, and landed on the conclusion at the bottom.

His pupils shrank, his eyes almost bulging out of his head.

I forced myself up and pointed at the report on the floor. "Jacob, what does it say? Say something!"

Jacob didn't answer. He just pointed a shaking finger at the paper on the floor, and it was a long time before he forced out a single line:

"This... this... is the machine broken?"