"I'm afraid not. Not yet. There are research teams working on the problem,
and one day ... perhaps...." Then he shook his head. "But not yet." He
paused. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Stanton."
The woman sat there on the comfortable chair and looked at the
specialist's diploma that hung on the doctor's wall--and yet, she didn't
really see the diploma at all. She was seeing something else--a kind of
dream that had been shattered.
After a moment, she began to speak, her voice low and gentle, as though
the dream were still going on and she were half afraid she might waken
herself if she spoke too loudly.
"Jim and I were so glad they were twins. Identical twin boys. He said--I
remember, he said, 'We ought to call 'em Ike and Mike.' And he laughed a
little when he said it, to show he didn't mean it.
"I remember, I was propped up in the bed, the afternoon they were born,
and Jim had brought me a new bed jacket, and I said I didn't need a new
one because I would be going home the next day, and he said: 'Hell, kid,
you don't think I'd just buy a bed jacket just for hospital use, do you?
This is for breakfasts in bed, too.'
"And that's when he said he'd seen the boys and said we ought to name them
Ike and Mike."
The tears were coming down Mrs. Stanton's cheeks heavily now, and grief
made her look older than her twenty-four years, but the doctor said
nothing, letting her spill out her emotions in words.
"We'd talked about it before, you know--as soon as the obstetrician found
out that I was going to have twins. And Jim ... Jim said that we shouldn't
name them alike unless they were identical twins or mirror twins. If they
were fraternal twins, we'd just name them as if they'd been ordinary
brothers or sisters or whatever. You know?" She looked at the doctor,
pleading for understanding.
"I know," he said.
"And Jim was always kidding. If they were girls, he said we ought to call
them Flora and Dora, or Annie and Fanny, or maybe Susie and Floozie. He
was always kidding about it. You know?"
"I know," said the doctor.
"And then, when they _were_ identical boys, he was very sensible about it.
'We'll call them Martin and Bartholomew,' he said. 'Then if they want to
call themselves Mart and Bart, they can, but they won't be stuck with
rhyming names if they don't want them.' Jim was very thoughtful that way,
Doctor. Very thoughtful."
She suddenly seemed to realize that she was crying, and took a
handkerchief out of her sleeve to dab at her eyes and face.
"I'll have to quit crying," she said, trying to sound brave and strong.
"After all, it could have been worse, couldn't it? I mean, the radiation
could have killed my boys, too. Jim's dead, yes, and I've got to get used
to that. But I still have two boys to take care of, and they'll need me."
"Yes, Mrs. Stanton, they will," said the doctor. "They'll both need you.
And you'll have to be very gentle and very careful with both of them."
"How ... how do you mean that?" she asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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