“Wife, this pregnancy is making you suffer so much. Even if the child is born, what if it isn’t well-behaved? I don’t want to see you go through all this pain for nothing. Maybe… we shouldn’t keep this child, alright?”
As soon as the words left my mouth, that childish voice echoed again. “Yes, Dad, I’ll try harder. Let’s hang in there together!”
“Ah! It hurts… it hurts so much…”
In an instant, my wife’s face turned pale. She curled up on the ground, her body writhing in pain. Her eyes, red and filled with tears, locked on mine with fierce desperation.
“Lucius, there’s no father like you in this world! If you don’t want me and the baby, then let’s get a divorce right now! I’d rather walk away with nothing than give up this child! Otherwise, just let me die here!”
“Dad, don’t believe her! She’s lying to you!”
But guilt had already consumed me. I gathered my wife into my arms, holding her tightly.
“Young man, you’re really lucky. Your wife is carrying twins!”
As I helped my wife into the car, an elderly woman’s voice came from behind me. I turned and saw the badge on her chest that read “Postpartum Recovery Specialist, Director Rosalind Turner.”
Noticing the surprise on my face, she quickly explained, “I’m the director here at the yoga studio, in charge of postpartum recovery. Young man, you haven’t done a proper prenatal checkup yet, right? I’ve seen tens of thousands of pregnant women, and I won’t mistake it; your wife is definitely carrying twins.”
I stared at her, stunned. “But we just had a prenatal checkup yesterday. Nine weeks and three days… the doctor said only one fetus.”
“Impossible! Your wife’s belly is already too big. If it’s not twins, then the months must have been miscalculated.”
My wife had already sat down in the car, not hearing a word of this. She looked at me with a joyful smile, but at that moment, her smile felt like a dark hole ready to swallow me whole.
Seeing the panic on my face, the elderly woman tapped her badge. “Search my name online. You’ll see I have authority in this field.”
My hands shook as I pulled out my phone to search. When the results came up, my face went pale.
The woman in front of me was the retired director of the most famous maternity hospital in Auburn, an authority among authorities.
“Young man, don’t be so tense. Go to another hospital and check again. Everything’s electronic now, mistakes can happen…”