“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
Carlin looked up from her book to see just how worried she should be about Dave’s monotone question. His deadpan expression wasn’t giving anything away. She hated when he did this. Why couldn’t he just offer some hint, rather than being so…
“The bad, I guess,” she answered, giving up on her inner tirade.
“Okay,” Dave said coming to sit beside her on the bed. Uh oh. Maybe this really was bad. “I just talked to Dr. Binth’s office. The ultrasound didn’t give them all the information they needed. We have to go back tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?” Carlin’s heart started to race, skipping beats as she clutched her abdomen. “They said everything was fine.”
“Hold on,” Dave said, ducking his head to look her in the eye. “Don’t you want the good news?”
Carlin took a shuddering breath, willing herself to calm down. They’d lost the last baby. She didn’t know if she could go through that again. Especially not with the way the government was treating women right now. “What’s the good news?”
“The reason they didn’t get everything they needed is the technician didn’t get a close enough look at the second twin.”
Carlin’s heart leapt, racing for a completely different reason. “Twins?” She threw her arms around Dave, then pulled away and punched him in the shoulder. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
Dave rubbed his shoulder, somehow managing to look simultaneously guilty and thrilled. “Message received. No cliff hangers where the kids are concerned.”
This micro stemmed from a prompt asking to write about someone receiving good news and bad news in rapid succession. I like it when the good news outweighs the bad.
I would most certainly have punched him, too, in that situation but I always ask for the good news first. Avoidance? You betcha! 😁
A fun twist! This turned my stomach for a moment, but I was glad to see the happy ending. 😄