Chapter 4 - The Sound of Three Heartbeats
We married on a Tuesday morning at the county courthouse, with Natalie holding a small bunch of baby’s breath and Luke’s best friend, an electrician named Dale, smelling faintly of solder and cologne. We didn't have a reception; we went straight back to the restaurant, cooked three hundred barbecue platters for the lunch rush, and shared a bottle of six-dollar champagne on milk crates behind the kitchen after closing.
Life with Luke was quiet, solid, and sweet. He never slammed a door. If he was angry, he went out to the woodshop behind our small farmhouse and built a cedar bench until his thoughts cleared. When I woke up sweating from nightmares about Diane Hollis calling me names across a dining room, Luke simply pulled me against his broad chest, murmuring into my hair until the shaking stopped.
Fourteen months after our wedding, the nausea started.
I ignored it at first. In the restaurant business, you’re constantly surrounded by boiling vinegar, hot lard, and raw poultry; an upset stomach was just part of a seventy-hour work week. But then came the dizziness. I dropped a whole tray of porcelain coffee mugs on a busy Saturday morning, the crash startling the entire dining room into silence.
Natalie caught me before my knees hit the tile.
“You’re pale as lard, Renee,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she felt my forehead. “When was your last cycle?”
I laughed, a bitter, automatic sound. “Natalie, don’t start. You know my history. I probably just have a stomach ulcer from the new catering contract.”
“Go pee on a stick or I’m shutting the kitchen down for lunch,” she ordered, crossing her arms.
Ten minutes later, I was locked inside the tiny employee bathroom, staring at the plastic test on the edge of the sink with my hands over my mouth.
Two dark, bold pink lines.
I didn't believe it. I sent Natalie to the pharmacy down the street for three more tests—different brands, different boxes. All three turned positive before I even laid them flat on the counter.
When Luke came in that evening from a commercial wiring job in the next county, his shirt dark with sweat, I didn't say a word. I just led him by the hand into our small living room and handed him an envelope.
He opened it, pulled out the three plastic sticks, and looked at them. Then he looked at me. His face went entirely blank for five long seconds, and then the most terrifying thing happened: a man who could carry a two-hundred-pound transformer without grunting dropped to his knees in the middle of our braided rug and buried his face in my apron, his shoulders shaking with silent, desperate tears.
“Are you sure?” he choked out against my stomach.
“I’m going to the doctor tomorrow,” I whispered, crying so hard I could barely see his shoulders. “Dr. Helen Ward. The same clinic Grant wouldn't walk into.”
Dr. Ward didn’t look like a woman who was easily surprised. She had delivered half the babies in this county for thirty years. But when she pressed the cold ultrasound wand against my abdomen three weeks later, her eyebrows shot up toward her gray hairline.
She moved the wand. She tapped the screen. She squinted.
“Renee,” Dr. Ward said, turning the small monitor toward Luke and me. “Did your former husband ever undergo a basic semen analysis?”
“No,” I said, my heart pounding like a trapped bird. “He refused. He said the men in his family didn't have problems.”
Dr. Ward let out a soft, dry snort that spoke volumes. “Well, that arrogant boy cost you years of unnecessary grief. There is nothing wrong with your reproductive system, Renee. In fact, you happen to be hyper-ovulatory.”
She pointed the small plastic marker at the screen.
“There’s baby A,” she said, pointing to a tiny, flickering white pulse. “Strong heartbeat. One hundred and forty beats per minute.”
Luke squeezed my hand until my bones cracked.
“And right here,” Dr. Ward continued, her voice filling with genuine wonder, “is baby B. Perfectly positioned. Heartbeat one hundred and forty-two.”
I gasped. “Twins?”
“Not quite,” Dr. Ward smiled, sliding the wand slightly to the left. “Say hello to baby C. Spontaneous triplets. All three with individual sacs and strong vascular development. Renee... you aren't barren. You’re having three boys.”
The room dissolved into tears, laughter, and pure, holy shock. When we walked out of the clinic into the bright autumn sunshine, Luke picked me up off the sidewalk and spun me around until my feet flew out, not caring that two bank tellers and a sheriff's deputy were staring at us from across the street.
May you like
Grant Hollis had called me a dead tree.
God had given me an entire orchard.
