Merry Christmas, Babies

“Congratulations!” her ex-doctor said with real joy. “So it took the first time!”

“It more than took.” She turned away from her image as fear twisted her features. “I’m carrying quadruplets.”

He swore—something he rarely did. And that scared her anew.

“You’re worried,” she said.

“No,” he answered immediately, his voice reassuring even halfway across the nation. “Just wishing that something would come easy for you.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

Silence. He had doubts. She’d known he would. Feared he would.

Sinking to the handmade floral quilt on her king-size bed, she asked, “What am I going to do, Thomas?”

“Follow doctor’s orders explicitly and have healthy babies.”

The answer surprised her.

“And after that?”

“You’ll raise them.”

“How?” She only had two arms.

“You lived through six years of agonizing pain and debilitation, Elise, beating all the odds over and over again. And you did most of it with a smile on your face. What’s raising four children after that?”

Four children was one thing. Four children at once was another.

“They talked about selective reduction.”

“It’s an option.”

“What do you think?”

“Removing one or two fetuses is common enough practice in quadruplet pregnancies. But it also poses risks to the remaining fetus or fetuses.”

“Do you think I should do it?”

“Do you want to?”

No. Not at all. She could hardly bear the thought. But for the sake of doing the right thing, she was forcing herself to consider the option.

“You can do this,” he said. “You can go through this pregnancy, have these babies, do a good job raising them.”

“I’m scared to death.”

“It’s not the first time, is it?”

He knew it wasn’t.

“Hey.” His voice came again, softer now. “Have you forgotten the one rule of life?”

His wife, Elizabeth, had taught it to her. And to emphasize the message, after every single procedure Elise had undergone during the six years of her recovery, there’d been a gift waiting for her when she awoke.

“To always look for the gift in every situation,” she repeated now.

“You wanted a family. You’re thirty-two. By the time you’re thirty-three, you’ll have a full house.”

With a trembling chin, Elise faced the mirror again. “Mama raised four babies. So can I.”

“That’s my girl.”

CHAPTER THREE

JOE DIDN’T GET ANGRY OFTEN.

Anger brought chaos, for which Joe had a deep-seated aversion.

He avoided glances from everyone in the payroll department as he strode the short distance from his office on one end of the fifteenth-floor condominium suite to Elise’s office on the other.

It had been two weeks and a day since he’d met the real Elise Richardson—or at least a more complete Elise.

Two weeks and a day since she’d told him she was carrying four babies at once.

Neither of them had mentioned the conversation since.

He could think of little else.

She was on the phone when he arrived. The second she disconnected he announced, “I just heard you climbed fifteen flights of stairs with a bag of groceries.”

He could only see the top half of her sleeveless white summer dress, and she wasn’t sweating a bit.

“I had salad dressing and meat for the chicken Caesar salad we’re having for lunch. I couldn’t leave them in my car. It’s summer outside, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Don’t humor me, Elise. I’m not out of line here.”

“You’re upset over nothing.” She didn’t have to flick her fingers through that short dark hair to make her opinion perfectly clear.

“You climbed fifteen flights of stairs!”

“The elevator was out.”

“You’re carrying four babies! You should have called someone.”

She glanced to the hall outside the big glass windows on either side of her door. “The bag wasn’t heavy and exercise is good.” Her voice had lost much of its force.

“You still haven’t told anyone.”