Quadruplets Make Six

I pulled into her apartment complex and looked up to her apartment. I didn’t know what was going on, but I could tell her door was wide open. I slammed the car door behind me and shoved my keys into my pocket, then took the stairs three at a time to get to her. I could hear her crying and choking even from outside the apartment, and I barreled in as I whipped my head around in all directions.

“Libby! Where are you?”

I heard her coughing and I followed the sound. I walked into her bedroom and I could smell the stench coming from her bathroom. I walked in and saw her slumping onto the grimy floor of her apartment, her arms cradling the toilet as her stomach continued to jump with sickness. I walked over and flushed the toilet, ridding her apartment of the foul smell.

Then I bent down to pick her up.

“On the count of three, I’m going to lift you, okay? One… two… three.”

I lifted Libby into the air and she sighed. Her body instinctively curled into me even though her weak touch tried to push me away. I walked her out of her bathroom and laid her down in her bed, then reached for a tissue so I could clean her mouth off. I smoothed her sweaty hair back from her head as her eyes fluttered open and closed, her body fighting between sleep and staying away. I could see the pain in her face. I could feel her hands shaking from the exertion of her vomiting. I bit down onto my tongue, cursing myself for being such as idiotic asshole.

“Take a nap,” I said. “I’ll be here when you get up.”

Libby drifted off to sleep and I took it upon myself to clean up. I went and shut her apartment door, removed my suit coat, then proceeded to clean her bathroom. I didn’t want her smelling anything like that once she woke up because I wanted her to focus on talking to me. I picked up a few things around her apartment and started her small little dishwasher, then I heard her shifting around in bed.

“Graham?” she asked.

“I’m right here,” I said as I strode back to her room. “I’m right here, Libby.”

She looked up at me with reddened eyes and my heart sank to my toes. I did that to her. I made her feel this way. I reached for her hand to try and take it, but she moved it away. In fact, she shifted her entire body away from me, electing to lay on the other side of the bed I was sitting on.

“What are you doing here?” Libby asked.

“I owe you some answers,” I said.

“A few, yes,” she said. “But there’s something I have to tell you, too.”

“Let me go first, please?”

Libby opened her mouth to protest but nodded before she curled up tighter in bed.

“The woman in Boka, remember her?” I asked.

“How could I forget? She threw wine in your face,” she said.

“That woman was my ex. She’s the mother of my children.”

“The three children I saw in your home,” she said.

“Yes. We… we were never married, but we were engaged. We had some serious issues we were always trying to work through.”

I sighed as I hunched over and put my head in my hands.

“What happened between you two?” Libby asked.

“We were together for four years,” I said. “We had our daughter not too far into the relationship, and I decided to stick by her because I didn’t want her doing it alone. I wanted her to know I was there if she needed me. But after she had our daughter, postpartum depression kicked in.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“We dealt with it the first time around, and things were going okay. She was on medication that was helping and a lot of the big, glaring problems faded. But then she got pregnant with the twin boys, and things spiraled. She wasn’t sure if she could do more children and I told her I’d always be there to help. She didn’t believe me, so I proposed to try and get her not to worry about it.”

“Probably not the smartest idea,” she said.

“It wasn’t.

She was ecstatic, but things quickly changed. She had the boys and her depression got worse. I tried to get her help, to get her to change medications, but she wasn’t having it. She turned to alcohol to help cope and was doing all sorts of things when she was drunk. Purchasing cars and taking out credit card after credit card. I came home one day to an entire team of people putting in an in-ground pool, a hot tub, and a steam sauna while she was passed out on the couch.”

“Holy crap,” she said breathlessly.