Doctors rushed around the room. Machines beeped steadily, then urgently. Corinne cried out in pain.
Before I fully understood what was happening, she was taken further into the delivery suite, and I was left pacing the hallway, praying for any good news at all.
When I was finally allowed back into the room, Corinne lay exhausted beneath the bright overhead lights. In her arms sat two tiny bundles.
Tears streamed down her face.
“Don’t look at them,” she whispered.
“Corinne,” I said, my heart pounding, “what’s wrong? Are they okay?”
“They’re healthy,” she said quickly. “Both of them. I just — I need you to sit down first.”
I sat down slowly on the edge of the hospital bed, working through every possible thing that could make my exhausted, relieved wife look this terrified in a moment that should have been the happiest of our entire lives.
She turned the first bundle toward me, then the second, and I understood, all at once, exactly why she’d needed me sitting down first.
Our sons had noticeably, undeniably different skin tones. Owen, born first, had my own fair complexion, light hair already visible against his small head. Malcolm, born four minutes later, had a considerably deeper, richer skin tone, dark curls already thick enough to see clearly.
