Newborn Needs a Dad / His Motherless Little Twins by Dianne Drake

Putting her already half-eaten roll on a plate, she went to the fridge to pour herself a glass of milk. One for her and, on impulse, one for Neil who, she noticed, looked awfully tempted to take a bite of his roll. Desire over tradition. Sometimes that was a nice dilemma to be caught in.
    “And you don’t think I might really want the salad first?”
    She gave her head a vigorous shake no as she handed him his milk. “What I think is that you’re in a rut. You think you’re supposed to eat the salad first, and the cinnamon roll comes last because that’s the traditional order of things, but that’s only prior indoctrination. An old habit. If you really like the salad better than the cinnamon roll, then by all means, eat that first. But if you like the roll better, why fill up on the food that’s not your preference and risk not having room left over for the food that is?”
    It made sense to her, and she remembered the many meals when her father had let her start with the chocolate cake or the apple pie before she got to the meat and potatoes because of what she’d just said to Neil. Not every meal had been that way, of course. But her father always said that because life was so usual most of the time, why not be unusual when you had the chance? He’d always told her that it was healthy to be different, and she’d believed him. Still did.
    Suddenly, her eyes brimmed once more with tears and she spun away before Neil could see them.
    “I was right. You’re crying,” he said, setting down his glass of milk and stepping up behind her.
    “You’re not supposed to notice.” Gabby sniffled. “I’m having a hormonal couple of hours. Nothing to worry about.”
    “Would another massage help?”
    A massage would be heaven. Wouldn’t do a thing for her hormones, and her muscles weren’t particularly stiff, which was why she couldn’t allow it. She wanted his hands on her too much and that was simply a stupid thing to do. Wanted comfort. Needed it badly. Even though with Neil it was only a nice gesture meant to make the pregnant doctor feel better, to her it was too intimate, too close to her problem.
    “What would help would be the rest of my cinnamon roll.” She picked it up, and took a seat on the stool at the kitchen counter. “And for future reference I’ll pretty much eat anything sweet. And chocolate. Salad’s OK, but it doesn’t get any better than this.” She held up the cinnamon roll, studied it for a second, then took a bite. But she still had a lump in her throat, which made it hard to swallow.
    Neil seated himself next to her at the counter and pulled a cinnamon roll from the sack. “Guess this make me officially less boring, doesn’t it?” he asked, then took his first bite.
    “Some people would call it spontaneous.”
    “Trust me, no one would ever call me spontaneous. That was…” He frowned, exhaled a sharp sigh, then continued. “That was my brother. His life was one spontaneous moment after another. People always called him the fun one. And I was…sensible.” He attempted a laugh, but it didn’t mask the true sentiment.
    “Gavin Thierry?” she said, her voice oddly shaky. “The one on the plaque?” Even though she knew, she still had to utter the words and hear his response.
    “That’s right. My half-brother, actually.” Cold, distant words.
    There was so much resentment bottled up in the sensible one. She could hear it, even though he was trying to hide it. It was there, though, and she wondered what could have been so bad between the two. “Your brother did a very nice thing for the pediatrics ward, Neil. And I’m so sorry for your loss.” It was a nice thing Bryce should know when he was old enough.
    Gabby’s words didn’t set well with Neil, though, because he dropped his cinnamon roll onto the counter, clearly not comfortable with the topic. “We hadn’t been close for a while,” he said, his voice flat. “For years.”
    Not close for years? For Gabby, this