I stood in the hallway staring through the gap in the door at two bassinets, and my knees nearly gave out.
“Twins,” I breathed. “There are two of them.”
Ryan nodded. “The doctor saw the second heartbeat at the twenty week scan. Amy made her promise not to tell you.”
“Why?” I turned on him. “Why would she keep that from me?”
Ryan rubbed his tired eyes. “Because there was a problem with the second baby, Kelly. Early on they were not sure he would make it. The doctor used words like watch and wait. And Amy said, Kelly has already buried a dream. I will not make her lie awake for four months afraid of a funeral. If something goes wrong, I will carry it. If they both come through, I will hand her two miracles at once.”
I put my hand over my mouth.
“She carried that worry alone,” Ryan said. “Every scan. Every night. She would not even let me look scared in front of you. And last week the doctor said he was fine. Both of them, perfect. Seven pounds and six pounds.”
My best friend had not kept a secret to hurt me. She had stood between me and four months of fear so I would never have to feel it.
I pushed the door open. Amy was awake, exhausted, her hair stuck to her forehead, and when she saw my face she started to cry.
“Do not be mad,” she said. “I could not watch you be scared again. I just could not.”
I crossed that room and put my forehead against hers the way we used to in second grade when one of us was crying, and I said the only thing there was to say. “You gave me two. You carried both of them through all that alone, and you gave me two.”
Chris came in behind me with the pink balloons he had chased down from the ceiling, plus one blue one a nurse had found in a supply closet. We had painted a room for Emma. That week Chris went home and built a second crib beside the first, and sanded every rail, and we hung a new little wooden sign next to the old one.
Emma and Noah came home on a Sunday. Amy was there, of course. She is their godmother, and their aunt in every way that counts, and the first face each of them learned to smile at after mine.