JACK

The car screeched to a stop against the curb, outside of the community college where I taught, which just happened to be two blocks from where Jesse and Charlotte had moved.

We’d all left San Francisco and now we were in Berkley. Far enough away for all of us from the people we’d been.

I got into the passenger seat, but I didn’t have my seatbelt on before Jesse was merging back into traffic.

“I think you should let me drive,” I said as the driver behind us, whom Jesse had just cut off, laid on the horn.

“No time,” Jesse said. He cut across two lanes of traffic to get on the highway.

“We’re no good to anyone if you get us killed.”

“Stop being so fucking melodramatic,” Jesse said.

I didn’t say anything. But I smiled.

“What the fuck is so funny?”

“You.”

“There are fucking humans coming into the world right now, Jack.”

“I’m aware.”

My phone dinged and it was a text from Abby.

Where are you? she texted. Charlotte’s asking for Jesse and Maria is asking for you.

On our way. Five minutes, I texted back.

“I told Charlotte she shouldn’t have gone down to the diner today,” Jesse said.

“Jesse,” I said, clapping his shoulder. He was sweating through his shirt. Poor guy. “Babies come when babies come. It has nothing to do with going down to the diner.”

“But she was decorating.”

“Because she loves it,” I reminded him. “You say one word to Abby like this is somehow her fault, and I will gut you like a fish.”

Jesse’s scowl broke reluctantly into a smile. “Some talk from an economics nerd.”

Right. And considering my MMA champion brother could snap me like a twig was not worth mentioning. But he slowed down and we made it to the hospital in one piece.

“Go,” I said as we screeched to a stop in front of the emergency room. “I’ll park.”

“Thank you,” Jesse said and unbuckled his seat belt. He was halfway out the door when he stopped and looked back at me. “Is it supposed to feel like this?”

“Like you want to cry and shit your pants at the same time?”

He nodded.

“Yes. That is exactly the right feeling for a husband when his wife is in labor with their first baby.”

He scratched at his chest, the area over his heart, and I knew that feeling too, had felt it twice now. The itch of the heart as it began its expansion, preparing itself for more love.

“Am I going to fuck this up?” he whispered.

“No,” I said quickly, putting my hand on his shoulder again. The guy was nervous flop sweating like a fucking champ. “But if you do, you’ve got backup. We’re all here, Jesse.”

Abby, Charlotte, me and Jesse.

We were the family now. The support. And we were stronger than I could have ever dreamed.

My brother ran off, looking like a damp berserker, and I parked and found myself down familiar hallways to the delivery section of the hospital. I rounded the family waiting room corner and there was my Maria, sitting at a table coloring.

She wore head to toe orange, because that was her favorite color right now and there was no talking her out of a full embracing of something she loved.

My daughter lived her life like I wished I could live mine. Full tilt. All in. I watched her with her black pigtails and her tongue between her lips as she went to town on some waiting room coloring book like it was just the very best thing.

We’d named her after my mother.

It had been Abby’s idea, and I was still destroyed by love for her.

“Hey!” It was Abby behind me and I turned, lifting my arm over her shoulder in what had become a reflex. “You’re here.”

“I am.” I leaned over to kiss her cheek and she handed the baby to me. Our baby. Oscar. Three months old. “How is Char?”

“A trooper.”

“How are you?” I asked her, kissing her again. And again. She looked tired, we both did. Babies, man. But she was still the brightest thing for miles.

“Excited,” she said with happy eyes. There really wasn’t enough family for Abby. “But,” she said, “not nearly as excited as Maria.”

That wasn’t a surprise either.

“Sweet girl!” I said, and Maria finally looked up from her drawings.

“Hey daddy!” I went to her and sat down in the other uncomfortable plastic chair so I could talk to her while she colored. Oscar slept in my arms and Abby was in and out of Charlotte’s delivery room for the next few hours. I settled into the wait, happy in the moment. More content with my numb ass and my sleepy children than I would have dreamed possible.

Abby came in late and sat down beside me. “Shouldn’t be long now,” she whispered.

“You’re not staying in the room?” My wife and her twin had only gotten closer in the last few years. I really couldn’t believe it possible, but working on the café together and having children and marrying my brother and me… well, they were tight.

“No,” she said smothering a yawn. “It’s for them.”

Just like it had been for us. I kissed her hand, handed Oscar over to be fed, and went back to my extended game of Go Fish.

Around midnight, my brother emerged. Eyes red from crying. Exhausted but lit up at the same time, and my soul tripped over at the sight of that happiness. Like one more weight of my three years in the darkness had been cast off.

All of us stood: Abby, Maria, and me, a unit buoyed on excitement and hope and family.

“Boys,” Jesse said. “Twin boys.”

After so long with so little, our lives were exploding with so much.