The First Husband

“Twins.” He smiled, shaking his head. “Yep, twins.”

My jaw must have been on the floor, must have actually made it all the way down there.

“What is even the statistical probability of that?”

He stopped smiling, his eyes getting thoughtful as he considered.

“Well, actually . . .” he said, “statistically, once you have one set of twins, I believe you are twice as likely to have a second set in another pregnancy.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “It’s amazing, because you look like a normal person,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “You’d almost believe I was just offered the associate professor position in the Department of Physics and Applied Physics at UMass.”

“UMass, here?”

He nodded. “UMass, right here.”

I shook my head. “I mean, a girl goes away for a few weeks . . .” I said.

“It’s amazing what the desire to provide for three more babies will do to your motivation level,” he said. And he was smiling so big—so proud—that I almost didn’t want to ask him about baby three.

“And Jude Flemming?”

“Jude Flemming is currently proud of me for being offered the associate professor position in the Department of Physics and Applied Physics at UMass,” he said. “And we’re going to work out the rest.”

“Really? How?”

He turned and looked at me.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

“No, I get it. I have no idea . . .” He turned back to the road, and sighed. “The calm continueth not long without a storm,” he said.

“You lost me there.”

“The origin of the expression, the calm before the storm,” he said. “From an unknow

n source in the sixteenth century. But it started a little different than how it’s evolved. I like it more. The original idea that the calm can’t last, not if you’re really living. If you’re living fully, the storm’s coming to get you.”

I gave him a look. “Now, you’re showing off, Professor,” I said.

“Someone has to,” he said.

I started to laugh.

“It wasn’t easy convincing her, though,” he said. “To try again.”

“Cheryl?” I asked. “How did you?”

He smiled sheepishly. “The pregnancy gave me the chance to finally sit down with her and tell her. That, in her absence, I figured out the secret.”

“To what?”

He shrugged. “You know, love.”

“Oh, that,” I said.

“That,” he said.