Page 71 of Because of Them

I stayed there for hours, that first day. I helped feed Henry and William when it was time, crying that I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed after all. I knew it was a stretch goal, to breastfeedtwinswhen my body had struggled to make enough milk for Maisie, but even so the finality of the decision hurt. Like I wasn’t even given a chance to try. I wriggled in the chair when my bum turned numb and I held in my pain as the medication started to wear off. Michael sat on the floor at my feet, leaning his head on my lap. His breaths turned heavy as he fell asleep.

I stayed long after Sarah went home until eventually, a different midwife came and told me I needed rest. Michael helped settle the boys into their cribs and held my weight as I moved back to the wheelchair. He pushed me back to my room and he stayed by my side as a new dose of medication helped me fall into a deep sleep

In the days that followed, I lost all track of time. My hours were spent sleeping or sitting on that cold green chair with my boys on my chest. Michael seemed to never leave the hospital but always managed to be clean, sneaking out while I slept to eat and rest and shower.

Maisie came to visit and somehow she understood to be calm, to talk quietly, to be gentle as she held her brothers’ hands. My parents offered to come up, but I told them to wait until we were home. Overhearing the conversation, Michael told his parents to do the same.

And then one day, when my incision had started to heal and my body was functioning to a satisfactory level, I had to go home. Without my babies. The wound in my stomach may have been healing, but the one through my heart was sliced a little deeper.

“They just need a little more time,” Sarah said as I walked out of the NICU that day. Tears that had barely stopped since the day I first met them streamed across my face and onto my shirt.

At home, a new nightmare began. Waking every few hours knowing it was time to feed my boys even though they were miles away, still at the hospital, still being watched around the clock.

Maisie started school. We saw her off in a sea of tiny new students and teary-eyed families. Callum and me and Cassidy and Michael, all four of her grown up people waving until she was so far into the room we couldn’t see her. And she thrived. Making new friends and learning how to write letters and read sounds. But she spends more time there than she does with me, and it eats at my insides that I’ve been so distant. So torn in every direction that no one seems to get all of me because I’m always so distracted by who’s missing out.

I spend every waking moment juggling my time between being home and being present for Maisie and being here, at the hospital.

And when I was here, I was charting progress like markers on a map. One where the road was bumpy and the destination was the only thing keeping us going. Home day. I dreaded that the boys might be separated. I cried a thousand tears when Henry fed from a bottle instead of a syringe, but William needed a feeding tube inserted when he wasn’t putting on weight.

Days were tracked with milestones. William’s feeding tube coming out after only two days. Both boys maintaining their oxygen levels without help from the tubes. They were puttingon weight, feeding well, and holding their body temperature. By every definition they were overachieving premature babies.

It was wonderful, but still, we waited. For almost a month I held my breath at every visit, waiting for the news to drop. Waiting to be told they could come home.

“You ready?”

Sarah has become my comfort. My companion when I was here and Michael couldn’t be. She saw me laugh, saw me cry. Helped me hold both boys, helped me feed them, change them.

She showed me how to love them, how to be what they needed when everything still felt not quite right.

Tears well in her eyes as she peels back the first round pad from William’s chest, and one escapes down her cheek when she moves on to the other three. She turns to repeat the process for Henry, while I do up William’s tiny onesie.

I pick him up, cradling him close. “Say goodbye,” I whisper in his ear.

Michael steps forward, holding the first capsule in place on the green plastic chair that after four weeks oddly feels like home now. I smile at him, loosely. It means nothing. Our relationship is strained, at best. When I wasn’t here, he was. When he wasn’t, I have no idea where he was. Was he going home, to the house I opened up for him, even when I wasn’t there? Was he returning to his bachelor pad? Was he at work or at the gym? Was he living his life when I had been forced to hit pause on my own? I don’t resent him for it.I don’t.I just can’t pretend I’mthrilledabout it either. The idea of us playing happy families when the boys were born is just another dream that was taken from me.

I buckle William in place. The padded seat belt envelops his minute frame. My hand lingers on his cheek and I trail my fingers down his arm to the tiny wristband that still says “Baby Baker One.”

We repeat the process for Henry. Then wrap their sage green blankets over them.

Michael picks up both carriers, his muscles strained not against the weight, but against the awkward shape of the car seats. I turn to Sarah. Her cheeks are wet as she checks off the last few bits of paperwork.

“You’re off,” she says. Her lips turn up and she grins the biggest smile I’ve seen from her. “I’ll miss you, but gosh I’m happy to see you all go.”

MICHAEL

In the space of a few months, I’ve had more than my share of hardest moments. Audrey, too. So many that were so bad that no matter how shitty right now feels, it doesn’t even come close.

Still, I hate that I am here. Hate that the day after our boys came home, to Audrey’s house, I had to leave. Hate that I’m letting her down. Hate that my actions are doing nothing but reinforcing the idea of me she has in her head. That I leave when things get tough.

She has no idea what I’ve been doing the past few weeks—months, even—and it’s eating her inside. I can see the sorrow behind her eyes when she smiles at me. I can feel the ice in her touch when we cross paths. There have been many, many times I was so close to throwing in the towel and telling her everything.But she deserves all of what I am doing and more. The last thing I want is for her to feel like she is stuck waiting.

So this morning I helped her feed Henry and William their morning bottles and settled her on the couch with a cup of tea and a book and the TV remote and everything else she might possibly need while I’m gone. I premeasured bottles and got the boys back to sleep in their cots. I hugged Audrey from behind the couch, kissing the soft skin below her ear and promising her I’d be back soon. She shrugged away from my touch, so I slid out the door before I ruined the surprise.

The sun glares through the windows of the car, heating the interior until the air is thick. A thin layer of sweat beads on the tops of my arms as I shake away my thoughts.

Brendan slams a hand on the car door. “Get out.”

I oblige, not because he asked, but because it was starting to hurt to breathe in there anyway.

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