APRIL

When I hear Jackson's key wiggle around in the door, I'm in the kitchen stirring a saucepan filled with marinara. With my hip popped to the side and my hair up in a careless bun, I should be relieved that he's home. But I know he's just as tired as I am, if not more so.

"Hey, babe," he calls, his words followed by the thump of his bag hitting the floor.

"Hey," I respond, sticking my finger in the sauce to test it. It's not quite ready. "I'm in here making dinner."

He appears in the small entryway to the kitchen, in the space that houses our dining room table. And a few feet away from that is our couch and small TV, precariously leaning against the wall. We've been scouring alleys for a nightstand or some sort of dresser to set it on, but haven't had any luck.

"Spaghetti?" he asks, coming to stand behind me.

"Yeah."

He wraps his arms around my middle and flattens his hands over the baby bump, grown substantially now. Instead of just mildly pudgy, it looks like a half-inflated beach ball under my shirt now. "How was your day?" he asks, resting his face in the crook of my neck.

I don't bother telling him that I'm sweaty, grimy and smell like the oil that they use in the kitchen at Big Star, the taco place in Wrigleyville where I work. That was where I was for the second half of the day, and I spent the morning at a client's house, polishing silver. It's Tuesday, so that means silver day for the Kleins.

"Fine," I say, sighing. "Long."

"Good tips?" he asks.

"Not bad, not great," I say, then turn around to wind my arms around his neck. "How 'bout yours?"

"Someone stole my last charger," he says, referencing the chargers he keeps in his car when he drives for Uber. "So, that sucked. I filed a claim, but I know they won't do shit. I'm just gonna have to get some more."

"You don't have to," I say. "People don't need those in the car."

"It's nice, though," he says. "It gets me good ratings. And I need those."

"Yeah, I know," I say, then turn back to the stove. "Did you work at the site today? I can't remember."

"Nah," he says. "Off day."

"Well, that's good," I say.

"You should sit down," he says. "I'll finish up. You were on your feet all day, and I was sitting. Didn't the doctor say something about you chilling out?"

"I can't remember," I say.

"Go sit," he says. "I can handle spaghetti."

I give him a playful smile and ask, "You sure?"

"Get outta here," he says, smacking me on the butt. "I'll come get you when it's ready."

"Jackson, I'm honestly fine," I insist.

"Why you gotta be so stubborn?" he asks, then easily picks me up. "Gotta fight me on everything. Geez, what am I gonna do with you, woman?"

I laugh and go slack in his arms while saying, "Send me to the moon."

"I'll send you to the closest place," he says, setting me down. "The couch. There. Good enough."

I rest my head on a threadbare throw pillow and look up at him, and we meet eyes for a meaningful moment. With a small smile, he leans down and kisses my forehead, brushing hair out of my eyes as he stands up. "Pretty girl," he says.

"Yeah, I doubt it," I say, rolling my eyes.

"Well, don't," he says, holding my jaw as he kisses my lips. "I missed you today."

I cup his face with both hands and stroke his cheekbones with my thumbs, savoring this small, sweet moment. Lately, we're both so busy with our differing schedules, that we don't get many of them. "Missed you, too," I say.

"If I don't get back in there, the sauce is gonna burn," he says. "But looking at you is so much more fun."

"Oh, your life is awful," I say. "The choices you have to make!"

He laughs and skims his hand lower to cup my pregnant belly, rubbing in circles as the baby kicks. "There he is," Jackson says, then pushes up my shirt to kiss the skin above my belly button a few times. "Hey, little dude. Were you good for your mama today?"

"Super active," I say, framing the sides of my stomach. "More and more every day. It's insane. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Klein thinks I'm on drugs. I was using the bathroom so much today."

Jackson laughs again. "I'm sure she didn't think that."

"You don't know this lady."

The oven sizzles, letting us know that water has spilled from the pasta pot and onto the range below. "Ooh, shit," Jackson says. "Back in a few. You and Mr. Man get some rest. I got everything under control."

…

That night, after filling up on spaghetti and garlic bread, I'm mentally tired and physically, even more so. I missed Jackson after a long day apart, but the exhaustion was more powerful than my libido. I promised him, as I lifted his hand out from between my thighs, that we'd find time this weekend.

Now, as the sun comes up and I lie here while he sleeps, I shake my head to myself. When did we become the couple who had to 'find time' for sex? We're 23, barely out of college, yet we already act like life has beaten us down.

But in a lot of ways, it has. We both work long hours in thankless jobs. And thankless is how I would describe them on a good day. On a bad day, they're pointless. They have nothing to do with our degrees, and most of the time our paychecks barely keep our heads above water. With the baby coming, the looming stress is all the more heavy. With every break we catch, something else knocks us back down. I never expected 'real life' to be this hard.

I close my eyes and cover my face with my hands, thinking of the day that lies ahead. I have a doctor's appointment that gets me out of a morning of cleaning - it's Wednesday, which means I'm leaving the Richardson family until Friday - but afterwards, I have to make it to Big Star by 1pm. It might be a stretch, given that the hospital and restaurant are on two separate sides of the city and lunch traffic is thick in the summer, but I'll have to make it work.

Jackson's alarm goes off on his nightstand, which makes me jump. Furrowing my eyebrows, I turn onto my side to watch him switch it off and rub his eyes, tired and slow as he always is in the morning.

When he starts to get up, groaning under his breath as he goes, I touch his back softly. "Where are you going?" I ask.

He turns his head to look at me over his shoulder. "Got work," he mumbles.

"No," I say. "Today's Wednesday. My appointment is this morning. Remember?" There's a heavy pause where he doesn't respond. "Jackson."

"Yeah," he says, standing up. He stretches his arms high above his head, pants sagging so I can see the hair far below his belly button. It doesn't distract me, though. My mind is on other things. "I remember. I asked for it off, but Sloan called in last night. He's got the flu, or some shit, I don't know. They need the hands. I gotta go in."

"So, you have to miss the ultrasound?" I say, though I already know the answer.

"Yeah, baby, I'm sorry," he says.

I shake my head and huff. "You didn't have to say yes," I say. "You asked for it off before he called in. Couldn't they have found someone else?"

"They asked me," he says. "And we're not really at a place where I can turn down hours."

"Yes, I know," I snap.

"I'll make it up to you," he says.

I sigh again. "You don't have to," I say. "I get it. It's just… not fair. You haven't been able to see him move yet. I hate your job. It's like they don't want you to see your son."

"Fuck them," he says, walking into the bathroom to turn the shower on.

"Don't they get that it's important?" I ask. "I mean, it's your kid. And your kid's mom. I mean… you'd think they'd be more understanding."

"Well, they're dicks over there," he says.

I flop back down and rest my head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling as he gets into the shower. Our apartment is so small that the air around me thickens with steam, and I allow my eyes to close. "Is it gonna be this bad when he's born?" I ask.

"Huh?"

I sit up, sending my voice further. "Once the baby is born, is your work even gonna let you spend time with him? Or are we gonna have to throw him in daycare right away?"

"We're not gonna do that. You get some leave, right?"

"Yeah, a little," I say. "But not much." I pause, thinking. "Do you get any?"

"I don't know," he says.

"You haven't asked?"

"Not yet."

"Why?" I don't wait for him to answer. "Jackson, you can't be afraid of what they're gonna say."

"They're gonna say no. Then what, Mini?"

"Then, you quit," I answer simply.

He lets out a long sigh. "Yeah, it's not that easy."

"You can do Uber at night and stay home with the baby during the day."

"And sleep when?"

"New parents never sleep," I say. "That's like, rule number one. We just have to make it through."

The shower turns off a few minutes later and I'm still at a loss. The look on Jackson's face as he towel-dries his hair tells me that he's feeling much of the same way, but won't talk about it. He's not always great at talking about it. "We'll be fine," he says distractedly, stepping into his jeans. "Always are."

I inhale and exhale deeply, knowing that he hears. "Yeah," I say, though my heart isn't in it. "I just wish one thing was easy. Anything. I just wanna catch one break."

I look up at him as he comes over to drop a kiss on my forehead. "It'll come," he says. "Promise."

He puts on his construction boots and laces them, doubled over, before standing up straight again. "Have a good day," I say weakly.

"You, too," he says. "I can't wait to see the new pictures of Little Man. I'm gonna be thinking about it all day."

That makes me smile. "Okay," I say. "See you tonight."

…

I ride the bus to the appointment alone, going south towards UChicago Medicine. Our little boy is doing flips inside me, apparently excited to be on the big screen, but I can only match his enthusiasm halfway. I'm happy, but I wish Jackson were here with me. I realize that wishing doesn't do anything, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it.

Today is my 24-week ultrasound. I hit the official six-month mark last week, but something about my pregnancy still doesn't feel real. The symptoms are real enough - the swollen ankles, sensitive bladder, and growing belly, of course - but the concept that there's a human inside me is still so foreign. It's like this whole process has been a dream, and I have yet to wake up. I don't know what's wrong with me, but it doesn't feel like me and the baby have even bonded.

I haven't told anyone that, not even Jackson. I'm not close to my parents, so the subject is off-limits with my mom. I don't have any girlfriends. So, this is a thought that I've been keeping to myself, and it's been weighing me down like nothing else. It's not like anything is wrong with the baby. It's more along the lines of that something is wrong with me. I thought all women felt like mothers once they got pregnant, and it's the men who don't assume their role as a father until they hold the babies in their arms.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'll even feel like this baby boy's mother then.

When my stop comes, I get up and people let me off. Being visibly pregnant does have its perks in Chicago; people are a lot nicer to me now. I get offered seats all the time, but it feels strange to take them. I'm still me, just a little fatter. Sure, my feet are tired, but aren't everyone's?

I wait in the lobby for a bit until my name is called, then get my vitals taken as always. The nurse gets me prepped in a dark room, then tells me that my doctor will be in shortly. I wait only a few minutes before there's a soft knock on the door, and a woman I don't recognize walks in.

"Hi, April," she says warmly. "I'm Dr. Quinn. How are we doing today?" I prop myself up on my elbows to study this woman. She's comfortable in the room, coming over to the stool beside the monitor to sit down and organize her things. "You feeling okay?" she asks me.

"Yeah," I say. "I just… all the times I've been here before, there was a different girl. Lady. Doctor."

"Oh," she says. "Yes, that was my tech. Iris?"

"Yeah," I say, as the name rings a bell.

"Yep, she was taking over a few days a week," Dr. Quinn says. "But I'm back to a full-time schedule now. I hope that's alright with you."

"No, it's fine," I say, laying back. Dr. Quinn actually makes me feel a lot more secure than Iris did. She's older, for one, and probably has more experience. It's only natural to feel more trusting.

"So, I was looking over your file," Dr. Quinn says, leafing through a few papers. "And I wanted to talk to you about something that stuck out to me." My whole body tenses, and she notices. "Nothing bad," she says with a smile. "But the notes that Iris left about the images taken don't quite match up, at least in my mind, with your blood samples."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

She shows me a sheet of paper and I look at it, only to find I can't understand a single thing written. It's all in doctor-speak, so I let Dr. Quinn explain. "According to your three previous sonograms, you're experiencing a single pregnancy. A healthy male, correct?"

"Yes," I say warily.

"Now, I could be wrong," she says. "But there's a hormone that's always present in pregnant women called hCG. It can vary, sometimes certain women just have more of it than others. But in your case, it's leading me to believe that something wasn't read correctly on your images."

I blink hard, staring at the paper, then looking back to her. "I'm sorry, I still don't understand," I say. "You're saying my hormone levels are too high? Is that bad?"

"No, you're perfectly healthy," Dr. Quinn assures me. "I think there was an error on our end. If you don't mind, I'd like to get an idea of what's going on in there. Then I can explain better."

"Sure," I say, lying back and lifting my shirt.

"I don't mean to scare you," she says, squirting the gel onto my skin. "This isn't a bad thing. I just want to make sure I'm right before I go spouting anything off." She smiles to herself, looking at the screen. "I've learned to think before I speak."

I laugh nervously, barely listening as the picture comes to life. Is there something wrong with my baby? Is this God's way of punishing me for what went through my head? I don't feel attached to my baby, so because of that, he's going to be ripped away from me? I won't be able to live with myself if there's something wrong with him. It'll definitely have been my fault.

"Yep… that's just what I thought," Dr. Quinn says, and she's still smiling. That has to be a good sign.

"What?" I say.

"See this right here?" she asks, tracing a curved shape on the screen. "That's your baby's head."

"Okay…"

She traces another shape, one almost completely hidden by the first. "And that?" she says.

"Kind of."

"That's her sibling. April, you're having twins."

I stare at her in shock, mouth open and everything. My heart seems to stop, and I feel like I'm falling. "What?" I say, although I heard her perfectly well.

"I am so sorry for the prior mixup," she says. "Iris is still learning. And Baby B is pretty hard to see back there, hiding behind their sister."

"Sister?" I say.

"Baby A is definitely a girl," Dr. Quinn says. "Clear as day. Now, I can't be sure about Baby B, unless… hold on a minute, we're getting some movement…" She moves the sensor around and I hold my breath. I don't know if that helps or hinders the process. "There we go. Yes, Baby B is a girl as well. You, my lucky lady, are having a pair of identical twin girls."

I swallow hard, gaping at the screen. I see them, both of them, curled around each other. I see the black dots of their hearts beating, and the spindly lines of their arms and legs. Not much more, but there are clearly two babies on that screen. Two babies inside me. They've been there the whole time, and neither of them are boys.

There's no 'Little Man' to speak of. There are two 'Little Girls,' and there's no disputing it.

I feel the wetness on my cheeks before I realize that I'm crying. Dr. Quinn hands me a few tissues with a smile, but all I can do is hold onto them. I don't wipe my face or try and quell my sniffling, I just let it happen.

"This isn't exactly common this far along," she says, wiping the gel off my stomach. "I'll definitely be speaking to Iris about her techniques. I can understand how overwhelming this is for you - everything changed so fast." She smiles at me again; something tells me she thinks I'm crying happy tears.

But I'm not.

Jackson and I are in the hole enough as it is without a baby to support. One baby. I wasn't sure how we were going to support our child once he came, but now that idea is done. In three months, we'll have two babies to clothe and feed, and two babies to make room for. We barely have space for two people in that apartment, let alone four.

I have no idea how we're going to do this. None at all.

"I'll get your printouts," Dr. Quinn says. "And let you clean up."

When she leaves, I sit up and hold my stomach with both hands. I let out a long breath as my mind goes blank and my head goes numb. I don't know what the next step is. I don't know how I'm going to tell Jackson.

This was never supposed to happen, but it did. And now we have to find some way, any way, to roll with it.

…

I didn't call Jackson after my appointment, and I didn't text him. I hadn't told him that I would, but it still feels like some kind of betrayal. So far, we've been on the same page with everything about my pregnancy. He knew everything I knew. And now, that is very far from the truth. I have no idea how he'll react. He knows that we're in dire straits, but sometimes his outlook tends to be more positive than mine. Probably because he's not the one carrying two lives inside him.

He and I were high school sweethearts. We went to a big school and didn't meet until senior prom, though we had both come with other people. But my date ditched me because he wanted to get drunk with his friends, and Jackson found his date in the janitor's closet with the running-back of the football team. All I wanted to do was go home, but we weren't allowed to leave until we were signed out, or midnight came along. So, I was stuck. Luckily, so was he.

I was outside in my dark blue dress, leaning onto the railing and staring at the forest a few acres away from the venue. It was peaceful and quiet, and that's what I wanted most. I had only come to prom because Owen, my date from hell, wouldn't leave me alone. He was my brother, Julian's, best friend, so there was a sort of obligation there.

Jackson joined me on the balcony and we traded our awful stories and laughed like we'd known each other forever. I spent the last slow dance of the night with him, on that balcony, as the music lilted through the air above where we swayed. It only took that night for me to fall in love with him, but we didn't start dating until the summer after senior year, when we decided to go to the same college in Chicago. After that, we were inseparable, and the rest of the story tells itself.

When he comes through the door, sweaty and dusty from the site, our origin story drifts away and the nerve-wracking present returns to the forefront of my mind. "Hey, boo," he says, back turned as he takes off his dirty boots. The back of his shirt is soaked with sweat - a sure sign that he had a long and taxing day.

It's not a good time to tell him. He's exhausted; I can tell by the sound of those two words alone. So, I preface the news with something else.

"Can we borrow money from your mom?" I ask, forcing the words out quickly so there's no chance to take them back.

He narrows his eyes, turning to look at me. He scrubs one hand over his face as his expression morphs into confusion. "What?" he says. "What are you talking about?"

"Your mom," I say. "Can we ask her for a loan?"

He frowns, which lets me know that he's shutting down. "Nah," he says. "I'm never asking her for anything."

I had a feeling he would say that, but I don't plan on giving up. "I know you two don't really speak," I say. "But it's important."

"We're doing fine," he says. "She doesn't need to get involved. That's when the issues start… when my mom gets involved. With anything."

"We're not actually doing fine," I say. "We couldn't afford cable last month."

"We barely have time for TV anyway," he says.

"But what if next month, it's electric?" I ask. "Or water? Or heat?"

"It's June."

I let out an exasperated sigh. "It won't be June forever. And we can't keep going like this. I can't… we're not gonna keep making it. We need help."

"What about your family?" he asks. I also figured he would go there. I would, too, if I were him.

"They don't have anything to give, you know that," I say. "And I haven't talked to them in over a year. They probably wouldn't even pick up the phone. You know how my mom and dad feel about us living together."

"What about Jules?"

"Julian?" I say. "He doesn't have anything. He lives in their basement, last time I heard."

"Jesus," Jackson says. "Well, I don't know, babe. But we're not gonna end up in anyone's basement, I promise. It'll get better. We're gonna find something soon."

My eyes get hot, along with my cheeks and chest. "Jackson," I say, voice wavering. "I'm being serious. You need to put your pride aside and ask your mom for help. We need it. We need it really bad."

"It won't ever get bad enough to ask her," he says.

"It is!" I say. "It already is that bad."

"We have a roof over our heads, don't we?" he says. "I go to work all day, every day, and so do you. We make it work. Sometimes, I don't know how we do, but we do. We're not gonna find a place cheaper than this that's not a million miles away from our jobs. We've looked, baby, and I know it's hard right now, but-"

"I can't keep doing this," I say. "I'm tired, Jackson. And I'm worried."

"Take the day off tomorrow," he says. "Both jobs. And just take a day to rest."

"It's not that," I say. "That won't help. I mean long-term. I can't keep living like this, barely making ends meet, and stressing every month. I'm not happy. And I know you're not, either."

"But we make it work," he says.

"It shouldn't be this hard," I say. "It's only going to get harder."

"What, when Little Man comes?" Jackson asks, and my throat tightens. "We've talked about that. We're gonna put in some more hours and get a little bit of savings going. We know how to be poor. We'll be okay. He'll be scrappy, just like you, right?"

I shake my head - slow at first, then quicker.

"What?" he says, taking a step closer. He curls my hair behind my ears and wipes some tears away, resting a hand on my shoulder after. "Did you find out something bad at the doctor's today?"

"No…" I begin. "Yes… no, I don't know."

"What?" he says. "What's going on?"

I take a deep breath and know that everything after this will be different. Nothing will come easily ever again. But there's no way for him not to find out. He has to know. And I have to be the one to tell him.

"We're not having a boy," I say, and I keep talking before he can ask any questions. "We're having girls. Two girls. Identical twins."

Much like I did after I received the news, all he does is stare. He blinks a few times, steadily into my eyes, but there's no readable feeling behind his expression. His hand stays on my shoulder, but it's gone heavy and limp. I don't know what he's thinking, but I can almost find comfort in that. Because I don't know what I'm thinking, either.

We should feel lucky. We should feel blessed. How ungrateful is it to dread what some families would die for?

"You said… you said twins?" he finally stammers.

"Yeah," I answer. "Girls. They're healthy, and… I… I have a picture. But the other OB made a mistake. Apparently, a lot of mistakes. There's no boy in there at all. Two girls."

I pull the sonogram from my jeans pocket and show him. It's a bit folded at the corners, so he smoothes out the creases before studying it. "Damn," he says. "No shit. There's two." Then, he looks to my stomach. "How did we not know?"

"I don't know," I say. "How did they not know?"

"Yeah," he says. "True."

It's clear neither of us really know what to say. For a while, we just stand there in silence while Jackson scrutinizes the sonogram like he expects to find a third baby pictured.

Then, the alarm on his phone goes off. "Shit," he says. "I gotta get on the road. You want me to take you to work?"

After my appointment, I switched shifts with someone at Big Star so I could work tonight instead of this afternoon. When I told Jackson that, I had no idea that we'd part ways like this. I didn't exactly think we'd be celebrating, but this numb silence where neither of us know what to say was furthest from my expectations. This isn't like us. We usually figure things out together, but the confusion is isolating.

"Sure," I say. "Let me change real fast."

The car ride is quiet, too. He turns up the radio to drown out the uncomfortable static between us, but both of us know it's there. When he pulls up in front of the restaurant, I lean in for a kiss on the cheek that he readily gives me. "Love you," he says. "Pick you up at 10."

"Okay," I say. "Love you."

I paste on a smile once I walk through the doors and wait tables as I always would. I don't tell any of my coworkers the news I was told today, nor do I plan to. Not until it's absolutely necessary. I'm not sure if it ever will be. I don't think I'll be able to work here after they're born. There's no way I'll be able to find time. We won't be able to afford to pay someone to watch twins if we were already struggling to find affordable daycare for a single baby.

As I count my tips at the end of the night, I can't help but start to cry for what feels like the millionth time today. It's not enough. I'm a good waitress, but it's never enough, and I don't have the experience to try and get a job at a higher-tipping place. As with most everything else in life, I'm stuck.

Still wearing my crumb-covered apron, I wait for Jackson at the curb with my tips in my pocket. When I see his car, the Uber light turns off and he smiles at me through the windshield, pulling right next to the curb.

"Hey, pretty girl," he says, rolling down the passenger's side window. "Need a ride?"

"Yeah," I say. Seeing his face and hearing his stupid jokes makes me smile through my exhaustion.

"Where to?" he asks, both hands on the wheel.

I get situated, stretching the seat belt around my bump, when I notice a conglomeration of mismatched flowers in a half-full Starbucks cup. They're different types, sizes, and lengths, but tied together with a rubber band like some sort of bouquet.

"What's this?" I ask, picking them up by the stems.

"Oh!" he says, then grins. "Shit. Wait. Can I see them?"

I hand them over only to have him hand them right back to me with a cheesy smile. I can't help but snort.

"These are for you, Mini. And I know what you're thinking. These look like I pulled over after dropping each customer off and picked a few from nearby gardens. And, well, you'd be right. But it's the thought that counts, right?"

I hold the poor-man's bouquet close to my chest and let a few tears leak from my eyes. These tears are different from all the others from today, though. These tears are good. These tears are thankful.

"Yeah," I say, all choked up.

He kisses me, holding my chin in one hand. "I don't want you to worry, sweet girl," he says. "Whatever happens, I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna be here to take care of you, and those two girls. Okay?"

I nod, sniffling as I say, "Okay."

"Now," he says, holding the steering wheel with one hand as the other rests on my thigh. "Let's go home."