PEEK: Mothers of Twins — A 3rd Tale From Sandcastle and Other Stories

She came right up to my bedside and stuck out her hand, which appeared fragile, tiny, with tan veins crossing along the back and gold rings with emerald green and diamonds on two of her fingers. “Hel-lo,” she said, and the cheer and welcoming she put into her voice startled me, made me think of the voices telephone solicitors use when you first respond to them with a puzzled tone, when it’s too late and they have you in their verbal trap.

“You look marvelous now don’t you?” she added, the last word tilting upward. “The radiance of a new mother of twins! I must say: Wow!”

I didn’t immediately know what to say but I certainly knew I did not look as good as this woman said I looked. Since the birth was cesarean and my abdominal and uterine walls were cut up, the doctor told me my stomach and everywhere would bloat even more until the gas could be released. Now I had to read up online about the current C-Section recovery tips, another thing to add to my ever-growing list of mommy chores (maybe Jack could handle this one, research it all at home, find out what the doctors aren’t telling us, place me into a paranoid papoose, and I know he means well, but it’s still very hard for me to actually do what he tells me to do, so maybe not—the deranged pre-birth mommy thoughts filling my head as I confronted this strange woman in front of me). They had told me ten hours into labor that natural birth, the event Jack and I had practiced once a week and on our own after class, would damage one of the boys because of his position. I was still getting bigger and bigger, my skin color tinged a sickly yellow—and maybe that’s what she confused me with: the radiance of a human lemon. I felt unclean after having only one sponge bath since the delivery. All I wanted was an explanation for the strange intrusion so I kept quiet and waited for the woman to go on speaking.

Because my arms were under the blanket and I didn’t bring them out to shake hands, her fingers jittered a little dance in the air before lowering. She winked like a mime telling me she understood my weakness, my rudeness. “Well, I do say you look splendid after giving birth to twin boys.” Again, she spoke the last word louder than the rest, as if she’d been a cheerleader in her younger days and the habit never dissipated; I finally asked her who she was.

“Connie Yonker, of East Point. You know—the small subdivision past Adams Road, near Cranbrook, the one next to Christian Hills. I’m in charge of all recruiting in this region; I’ve been President of the Mothers of Twins Club for going on almost ten years this June.” She let that sink in.

I thought she worked fast. Who was her connection at the hospital? Who was the person on the Labor and Delivery staff who informed this—I was growing ever-so-prickly now in my discomfort—cheery woman of all the twin births at St. Lukes Hospital. Wasn’t it against the law to divulge patient information? I certainly thought so and for a second I was on the verge of really getting angry. I breathed deeply two times, counting to ten in my head, with sound effects and made myself calm again. If I started shouting I didn’t want this happy woman to tell me I wasn’t feeling well because of bad postpartum feelings. I felt the awkwardness in the air and Connie brightly persevered through my darkening mood.