Coming Around Again by Billy London Page A

of the pressure. Better. So much better.
    Slowly, she became aware of Niels’ fingers in her hair and relaxed even
further.
    “Stop making that noise,” he told her in a growl.
    “What?”
    “You know what, now stop it.”
    Meanie .
    He rinsed the shampoo from her hair and smoothed on her favourite
conditioner. The lid clattered to the tiles and she bent to retrieve it. Her head
swam and immediately Niels righted her. Once again she found her bottom
cradling a sizeable erection. Oh dear .
    “Maybe you should get out,” she suggested. The look in his eyes made her
close her mouth. After a brisk soaping, he allowed her to stand under the spray
for a few more minutes. Both her hair and body were double-wrapped with thick
cotton towels. Before he dried himself off, he handed her cocoa butter, and
removed his clothes. Shocked and weak from a lack of food, she turned her back
on him and smoothed the body lotion over her skin. What was wrong with her?
They’d showered and dressed in front of the other a million times before.
    A few minutes, later, she was tucked back up in bed with a cup of
homemade chicken broth. He’d made her mother’s recipe. The one she made any
time she or the children had a cold or the flu. Without another word, he sat
beside her as she drank, trying not to cry.
    “You don’t have to worry about me, you know,” she said eventually. “I
know I haven’t proved it today, but I can look after myself.”
    He sighed. “I am well aware of how incredibly self-sufficient you are.
I’m sure there are androids who look up to you.”
    Ouch .
    Silence ruled again. Niels broke it first. “I am always going to worry
about you,” he offered into the quiet. “Force of habit.”
     
    ***
     
    Two years married
     
    “Isn’t this early?” Niels asked the midwife again, as she pressed her
fingers into Stella’s swollen and contracting belly.
    “Thirty-four weeks, isn’t necessarily early for multiple births,” she replied,
a frown developing on her patrician brow. “It’s better to be earlier. Less
complications…Mrs. Strøm…”
    “You’ve got your hands near my vagina, you can call me Stella,” came the
blistering retort of a woman fed up with labour, contractions, and a lack of
medication already.
    “All right then, Stella,” she said with a laugh. “The twins haven’t
turned. Now it’s nothing to worry about, but we’re trying to encourage at least
one of them to move head first.”
    “And if neither of them do? C-section?”
    “May have to be. Listen, it’s nothing you haven’t expected. It may be
Plan B, but it’s still a plan. We’ve got your pool ready, and that can only
help encourage a little foetal movement. All right?” She straightened and
removed her gloves. “I’m going to nab the consultant. You get yourself in the
pool and I’ll be back.”
    Niels walked the midwife out of the room while Stella struggled upright
to wriggle her maternity top from her shoulders and scramble for her bag.
    “What are you doing?” Niels demanded, taking the bag from the floor and
lifting it to the bed. “Do you want to land tummy first on the floor?”
    She sent him a disgusted look and he threw back. “Don’t look at me like
that. I was standing right there. For you to call Niels, can you get
something for me? Your stubbornness is something else.”
    “Are you having a go at me? While I’m in labour?”
    He took a deep breath and said, “What did you need?”
    “My bikini top.”
    He shook his head and searched through the bag for her floral patterned
top. Once found, he helped her put it on and with a secure arm around her
waist—or what used to be her waist—he walked her to the birthing pool. In her
dreams, she had a simple, elegant birth, transferring her children from
amniotic fluid into water. Stella ignored the horror stories of twin births,
scalpels, epidurals, caesarean sections, twin-to-twin transfers… NICU ward and
focused on her plan.
    “If you move,” she