Karma and My Twin Blessing

For five years, my mother-in-law kept count of every month my body came up empty.

Every time she started in on me, my husband lit a cigarette.

From now on I'm counting these, he said. When I've smoked through enough and you still can't give me a kid, we're done.

I nodded. Okay.

After the divorce, I went in for one last round of tests. The woman who ran the fertility clinic read my chart, smiled, and set me up with her own son.

"His count's too low. You can't carry. The two of you are a perfect match."

Six months after I remarried, I was back in an exam room.

She waved the ultrasound like a winning ticket.

"Twins. So this is the infertility you all kept going on about?"

I turned my head.

And there he was. My ex-husband. Every bit of color gone from his face.

Chapter 1

Every Sunday, my mother-in-law sat across from me and stared at my stomach like it owed her money.

The living room was dead quiet.

She watched me for a full five minutes before she said anything.

"Camille." She set her cup down. "The Petersons' daughter-in-law. Pregnant again. That's their second."

I kept slicing the apple and pretended I hadn't heard.

Wrong move.

The cup came down hard on the table. "Five years. Five years, and not so much as a flicker out of you."

I looked up. I made myself sound tired instead of angry. "Mom, the doctors said it's hard for me. It's not like I haven't tried"

"Hard." Her voice went thin and sharp. "Hard isn't the same as can't. I had Trevor breech and pushed him out anyway. You missing an arm? A leg? Five years, and your body's given him nothing, and you're the one sulking about it?"

"Mom."

Low. From the hallway.

We both turned. Trevor stood in the doorway, his face doing something complicated. He crossed the room, took his mother by the elbow, and steered her into the study.

The door banged shut.

"Why are you saying all this to her?" he said, quieter now.

The study door was thin. Quiet didn't help him.

His mother gave a little snort.

"Trevor, you've more than done right by her. Five years. The clinics, the pills, the shots, the money. All of it, on her. And she still can't. What are you supposed to do, go your whole life with no child?"

A pause.

"If you found someone on the side, I wouldn't say a word."

His lighter clicked. Then nothing. He didn't argue.

That was when she sped up.

"Here's what you do. Find a girl, have a baby, pay her, clean and quiet. Bring it home and tell people you took it in. You raise it, you love it, it's yours. If she wants to stay and play mother, fine. And if she doesn't." A beat. "She leaves. The baby stays."

The study went quiet.

Something in my chest pulled tight.

I'd braced for her to be cruel. I hadn't braced for her to hand my husband a plan to replace me.

A few seconds passed.

Then Trevor sighed. When he finally spoke, he sounded almost bored.

"I hear you. I'll think about it."

The cold started somewhere under my ribs and spread.

His mother went still. Then her face split into a grin.

"Good. Good boy. The Walshes' girl. I ran into her at the market, sweet little thing, hips made for it. Say the word and I'll put it to her mother."

Trevor didn't answer. I pictured him nodding.

She came out of the study humming. Passing the kitchen, she looked me over, slow and satisfied, then looked away.

The house went still again.

I carried the fruit to the coffee table like nothing had happened.

Trevor lit a fresh cigarette.

The smoke drifted over and stung my eyes. He didn't put it out.

"Camille," he said.

I didn't look up.

"Starting today, every cigarette I smoke, I'm keeping count." He said it to the ashtray, not to me. "When I've smoked through enough of them and you still can't get pregnant, we file."

Five years he'd blamed the silence in my body, and he had never once sat in a doctor's chair himself. Whatever was broken, he'd decided a long time ago that it lived in me. That was the end of it.

Seven years together. Five of them married.

And he set it down between us as lightly as the cigarette.

It hurt in a thousand small places at once.

I opened my mouth to fight it. Then I remembered the study. His mother's voice. The baby that stays.

I looked down.

"Okay."

Chapter 2

He blinked, like he hadn't expected me to fold that fast.

I didn't explain.

He had the sense not to push it. But the smoking picked up. Some days he went through a pack before noon. Some days more.

It didn't take long to burn through enough.

I still wasn't pregnant.

Trevor didn't say a word. He pulled a few sheets of paper from his briefcase and slid them across the table before I'd even sat down.

Divorce papers. His name already on the last page.

"Sign," he said. Flat, level, nothing in it. "I'll have a lawyer draw up the split."

I picked up the pen.

Seven years of my life. Five of them with his ring on my hand. It came down to my name on a line under his.

I signed.

He folded the papers, tucked them back in the briefcase, stood, and walked out without looking back.

* * *

That night was a long one. I sat up in the dark until morning, and then I went to the hospital.

It wasn't that I'd never tried. I'd been scanned and poked a hundred times. Two days ago I'd done one more round. Today was just the day you go in and collect the verdict.

The verdict hadn't changed.

I gave the page a tired little laugh and turned to go.

I didn't make it past the lobby.

"Camille. Wait."

A woman in a white coat. I stopped.

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

She glanced at the chart in my hand and smiled, easy, unbothered.

"I'm the chief here. I read your file. Primary infertility." A small pause. "That's what it says, anyway. And you just ended a marriage over it."

The old ache lifted its head. My throat went tight.

She waved it off before I could shut down. "Don't make that face. I'm not here to laugh at you."

"My son's about your age. I think the two of you might actually fit."

My eyes went wide.

She warmed to it.

"His count's too low. We've been at it for years. Doctors say there's basically no chance. I've introduced him to plenty of women, and the second they hear no kids, they're gone." She lifted a shoulder. "So I stopped fighting it. Better to find someone who also can't. No pressure either way. Two people, one steady life."

She was trying to set me up with her own son.

She'd taken my hand somewhere in there, the way pushy aunts do. I slipped it back.

"I just got out of a marriage. A setup really isn't"

"It's not a setup." She tutted. "It's a partnership."

"I looked into you a little. You're a woman who wants a home. And people like us don't get many offers. Why else would I be chasing you down a hallway?"

Her voice was warm. I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

She wasn't wrong.

My parents had spent my whole childhood cheating on each other, each in their own direction. I came up hungry for a family of my own. Small. Quiet. Mine. And a woman who couldn't have children was exactly the thing the families I wanted would never sign off on.

The two facts canceled each other out. They always had.

She read it off my face and stepped closer.

"He can't give you a baby. But in every other way he's a good man, and you can trust that. And the grief you've been swallowing? None of it under my roof."

I gave a dry little laugh and gripped the report tighter.

"Chief. You can make it sound as pretty as you want. I've never even met your son"

"So meet him."

Chapter 3

Her eyes lit up. She already had her phone out.

"He's here at the hospital right now. I'll have him come down. You two talk, and if it doesn't click, it doesn't click. No pressure, I swear."

"Wait"

I reached out to stop her. Too late. She'd already dialed.

"Come down to the lobby. Now. Quick."

She hung up and smiled at me. "His name's August. Good-looking, steady, has his own place. The kind of man who doesn't need to tell you how good he is. You'll see for yourself."

I pulled in a breath. "Chief, you're putting me in a hard spot."

"What's hard about it?" The smile dropped. She looked at me, dead serious. "Camille, be honest with me. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life alone?"

I didn't answer.

Her voice went softer. "I'm not trying to corner you. It's just, neither of you can have kids. So neither of you can ever hold it over the other. That's not nothing. That's a kind of peace."

The lobby moved around us, people in and out.

He'd be down any second.

My head went loud and tangled. I took a step back.

"Let me think about it."

She smiled like she'd seen it coming and let me go.

I laughed, dry and thin, then turned and walked out fast. I didn't look back to see if a man had stepped off the elevator behind me.

* * *

I thought about it for a long time that night.

What she'd said wasn't actually that crazy.

Two people who can't, finding each other. Nobody owes anybody. Nobody counts the months. Just two people sharing a life. And we both needed someone. It balanced.

I picked up my phone and called her back.

"Chief. I'm in."

One beat of silence on the line.

Then her voice, bright. "Good. Good! I knew you had a head on your shoulders. Come sign the papers tomorrow, I'll bring August."

"Tomorrow?" That fast?

"Why drag it out?" Like she'd read my mind. "You're both straight shooters. Nine a.m., the courthouse. I'll have him there on the dot."

She had a point. There were no feelings to nurse. Stretching it out would only make it stranger.

Fine. Better this way.

I hung up and stared at the ceiling for a while.

* * *

I was packed early the next morning. Then I went for my ID and it wasn't there.

I turned the apartment over twice. Nothing.

It was at Trevor's. Of course it was.

Just the thought of dealing with him put a pulse behind my eyes. But a replacement would take weeks, and I didn't have weeks.

So I went.

An hour later I stood in front of his door, the same steel door I'd walked through for years. I breathed in and rang the bell.

It took him almost a full minute to open it.

He saw me and froze. Then he smirked. "What, can't take being apart? Here to beg me to take you back?"

The nerve of him.

I rolled my eyes, turned sideways, and pushed past him.

Then I started going through his cabinets like the place was still mine.

Chapter 4

My ID had a habit of ending up here.

Five years under one roof. He knew exactly what I was doing.

His face shifted. He crossed his arms and watched me with that half-smile.

"You barely ever use your ID."

"Divorced five minutes and you're already back. Sure you're not still carrying a torch?"

The sourness in my chest climbed higher than I could hold down.

I turned and looked at him and let my mouth curl. "If I were carrying a torch, I wouldn't be here for my ID."

He blinked. He didn't get it. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I dropped the ID into my bag and gave him a smile with nothing behind it.

"I'm getting remarried."

The room went dead.

His face drained to a flat gray.

One more second near him turned my stomach. I turned to go.

As I passed him, his hand shot out and caught my arm.

"You lined up a replacement days after the divorce?"

I didn't bother answering. I reached over with my free hand and dug my nails into his wrist until he let go.

He hissed. His grip slipped. I pulled loose and walked straight for the door.

Two seconds of quiet behind me. Then his voice came apart.

"No wonder you signed so fast. You had this set up the whole time."

"Not much going for you, but plenty of tricks. I always knew what you were"

I stopped.

He kept going.

My vision went white at the edges. I grabbed the ashtray off the side table and threw it.

It blew apart against the wall a foot from his head.

He flinched back into the wall, and whatever he'd been about to say died in his mouth. For the first time, he looked at me like he believed I'd do it.

I let him stand there in that for a beat. Then I turned and walked out without looking back.

Behind me he found his feet again, and his voice climbed to a screech.

"You think it matters who a barren woman marries? You think a new man fixes what's wrong with you? Wake up, Camille. Empty is empty. Marry ten more men and you'll still come up with nothing!"

I didn't stop. I didn't turn around.

When someone has let you down all the way to the bottom, they lose the power to move you.

He was right about one thing. My body had never given anyone a child. But here was the part he'd never once bothered to check, in five whole years of pinning it on me: my life ran just fine without one.

* * *

The paperwork went through without a hitch.

Married life with August was quieter than I expected. Dr. Vale kept her word and never once brought up kids. When people asked, she had one answer. "They're happy. Who needs kids?"

August was a quiet man. Out the door on time, home on time, no bad habits, nothing to manage. We lived under one roof and stayed polite, like two good tenants.

It went on like that for three months.

Just as I started to believe this was the whole shape of my life now, his name surfaced on my feed.

Trevor. A photo of a marriage license, and beside it, an ultrasound.

The bride was young. The kind of young that gets people murmuring about wide hips and easy births.

The comments were a wall of congratulations.

And his pack of friends had shown up to put on a show.

Chapter 5

The comments piled on under the post.

[comment] Finally landed on his feet, our boy.

[comment] Right? Baby on the way. Man made it out.

[comment] Always was the other one holding him back, let's be honest.

[comment] Nothing wrong with the guy. Some people just can't.

Shameless, all of them. Birds of a feather, like the saying goes.

I gave a cold little laugh and scrolled past.

Then, a second later, Trevor called me. Directly.

Like a stain that wouldn't lift. I rolled my eyes and hung up.

I was about to block him when two voice memos dropped into the thread.

His voice, oily and pleased with itself. "Saw my post and lost your voice all of a sudden? Thought you were such a big deal. Found a new guy that fast. He knock you up yet?"

It played out loud. August had just come out of the kitchen, and he stopped.

He set the plate down on the table and took my phone out of my hand, easy, like it was already his to take.

He recorded one back.

"She caught fast. Sure." His voice was low and even, no heat in it at all. "Whether it's yours is a separate question. Five years, and nothing. You might ask yourself which side the crack was really on."

Then he blocked Trevor for me and dropped the phone on the couch.

A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.

That one was going to keep Trevor up at night.

August had the same small smile. He nudged the plate toward me. "Try it. First time I've made it. I can't tell if the seasoning's right."

I picked up a fork and ate a bite.

The sauce melted on my tongue. It was good. Just right.

I couldn't get it down.

He caught the look on my face. "What is it? Not good?"

I shook my head and set the bite back on the plate. "Maybe I'm just not hungry."

He didn't push. He ladled soup into a bowl and slid it over. "Have some of this, then. It'll settle you."

I took the bowl and drank a mouthful.

The sour bite of tomato hit the back of my nose and my stomach turned right over.

Something climbed up my throat. I gagged before I could stop it.

His face changed. He was on his feet. "What's wrong?"

I waved him off and breathed through it. "My stomach's just off."

He came around the table and laid the back of his hand against my forehead. "No fever. Did you eat something bad at lunch?"

"I don't know"

It surged again. I shoved the chair back, made it to the bathroom, and bent over the toilet, gagging.

Nothing came up.

He crouched beside me, a line between his brows, and said nothing.

The second I started to settle, he took me by the hand and pulled me up.

"We're going in. You don't wait around on this kind of thing."

I waved a hand. "It's probably just a chill"

His face went dark. "How do you not take better care of yourself?"

He put me in the passenger seat. No argument allowed.

Fine.

The roads were empty that late and we were there in no time. They drew blood and ran it.

When we walked back into internal medicine with the results, the doctor's frown began to ease.

Chapter 6

A while later, he handed the results back, smiling