My Sister, Fiona Ch. 03: Brianna

Since I was in the middle of getting dinner ready Ron settled for a few kisses and a feel, though if he'd pushed it any more supper would have burned. I suppose he thought he could feed the inner man - he really liked what I did to spaghetti sauce - and we could deal with conception later. After all, I was a sure thing. So was he, though I suppose he didn't look on it that way. Even so, he was always good at the romantic gesture. I figured that left seduction to me. Neither of us was too sure who got the better deal, even though we traded off from time to time. We were both still smitten, as hard as the first time we'd figured it out. That's what Dad had been looking for. I know he felt a lot better about us once he realized that what we had between us was real and lasting.

Certainly I was over the moon when I determined sometime in October that I had caught. I told Ron first, of course, and we made love like crazed rabbits all night. We were going to be parents! It was a wonderful feeling, that we could expand the love we shared with each other to include a little one.

"Boy or girl?"

"Who cares? Too soon to know, of course. A little Bree or a little Ron! Wonderful!"

I fired off a bunch of emails the next morning once Ron let go of me. It was later than usual and he was going to be late. He grinned and said he didn't care. I was more important any day. After that he nearly didn't make it out the door.

Congratulations poured in from all over, Mom, for sure, Susan, my other friends, even one from Dad. Fi was ecstatic for me.

"Little sister gets to be first, does she? Good for you."

Life that fall was really good. Ron and I were in bliss; I started a slow weight gain and my breasts were starting to become more sensitive. Nothing really showed. We were looking forward to going home at Christmas, seeing everyone again, accepting their congratulations and best wishes and bonding again.

Then I lost the baby. A simple miscarriage, the doctor told me. Happens a lot. No good reason. No long term consequences. I didn't take it well. I was convinced it was God's hand, punishing me for loving my brother. I stopped wanting children.

Mom did a little surreptitious gene testing for us (Ron and I had refused the doctor's suggestion that we get it done just to ease our minds since he'd have found out things he didn't need to know) and decided the scan was clean. I hadn't lost the baby for that reason.

"Bree," she told me, "women lose babies by miscarriage a lot. Most times we still don't know why. You don't have any of the common reasons, or even the uncommon reasons we know about. It's one of those things that women have to put up with."

I decided I'd have a few words with God about that when the time came. A baby is a baby, and losing one for no reason can't be in accord with a divine plan.

It was hard to put up with all the sympathy I received. Yeah, I should have taken it as evidence of the love all those people had for me, but each time I got a note or a card or an email, it just reminded me that I'd lost the baby. Our baby. It got so I wouldn't open the mail and I changed my email address.

My pain at the loss was what finally got Mom all the way over the hump. She knew that I regretted not only the lost child but the part of Ron that went into the child, the making of the baby and the parts of both of us that would have resulted. She'd known we were in love. She picked that up the first day. Knowing that I was in pain, though, made her thrust all her misgivings aside to focus on the one truth that mattered: I needed her. She stayed with us for a month, and helped me get over the worst of it. Whatever misgivings she had never made it back out of wherever she put them.

I guess Dad was sad for me, too, but it's harder for men to show what they feel. When he came to pick Mom up he just hugged me tight for a long time. You don't have to say it when the love is so obvious. He was still a little awkward around Ron, as if he didn't know quite how to get back to the old ways when surrounded by the evidence of the new ways. Before he left, though, he did hug Ron when he thought no one could see them. He knew Ron had lost as much as I had.

I think I was pretty hard to live with for those few months after I lost the baby. Ron never said anything, but he tried to love me even more than he had. That's probably what eventually brought me around. You can't hate yourself when somebody else is so transparently in love with you. Another case where love made the difference.

It's not that we didn't have sex. There was love pouring out of my man and sex was another way to express it. I may have been down, but I wasn't out. Sharing our bodies was like sharing our souls, something you did and enjoyed and gloried in. It was hard to stay depressed but I did, for a while.

It wasn't until the summer that I agreed to try for a baby again.

"Is it time, sweetheart?" Ron asked.

"You, you horny bugger, think any time is the right time."

"Isn't it?"

"I suppose so," I laughed. "I can't tell you no."

Ron wrapped me up in those oh-so-strong arms of his and held me. Nothing more. He just held me. We were lying down. I went to sleep on him, the best sleep I'd had in months.

I woke up to Ron kissing me, gently, all over. When he saw that I was awake, he pulled me into his arms for one of those wonderful hugs of his. His kiss turned me on even more than he usually did. Maybe he poured something extra into it, looking forward to trying for a child, or maybe it was knowing that I was completely open to him that made me even hornier than usual. There was something more than desire involved, though. We always shared our love sexually as well as in other ways.

Maybe there was just some extra love that morning.

Whether it was extra love or extra lust or something else, Ron and I made fierce love, throwing passion at each other, determined to make this time the best time for each other, and enjoying ourselves, too.

We had barely levelled out from magnificent orgasms when I went after him again. He usually needed more time to recharge, but that morning he was as ready for round two as I was. Our passion hadn't diminished but our love seemed to have gone up, so we were slower about it, enjoyed ourselves even more, and climaxed mightily a second time. My man's not superman, so we had to take time out for breakfast but I didn't let him have lunch. Not one with calories, anyway. And while we had to break for supper we did go to bed early. A lot of sleep to make up, well, more like a lot of sleeping with to make up.

We never had stopped having sex while I was depressed, but we had slowed down. Ron had to have been put off by my lack of enthusiasm, at least a bit. He never gave up loving me. If he could put up with the way I was then, I knew he'd never give up on me, and that helped get me through it, too. Gave me a base. Anyway, we managed to work our way through a terrible hunger for each other's bodies and back down to our normally sex-obsessed state of mind.

When the doctor confirmed for me that I was pregnant again, I came all the way out of my depression. Ron hadn't let me go back down as far as I wanted, to escape what had happened. Now, though, I was the custodian of a life. The miracle of birth still awaited me but somehow I knew that this time I'd carry the little one to term. I was buoyant again and Ron was happier than he'd been for ages.

We were careful of the baby but we still made love a lot. There are ways, you know.

It was in November, not too long before Fi's due date - she was going to have a boy, and I was so happy for her - that the doctor told me not to be too worried if I gained more than it seemed I should. I was eating everything in sight, of course, and had some very strange taste preferences. I'd never liked mushrooms before, for example.

"Oh, and why is that?"

"There's two of them in there."

When I told Ron he just about burst, he was so proud. I was pretty happy, too. Looked like old Bree was performing above spec, he told me. One at a time was the norm, he said, but he wasn't at all surprised that I'd decided to outdo the norm.

"You always have, Bree, darling. Everything you do makes me love you more."

"Even getting depressed?"

"It was the most beautiful depression ever."

Well, it had actually been pretty awful, so if the man thought that was wonderful he had to be head over heels, not that I'd doubted that for even a moment ever since we got together.

We hadn't passed on the word to anyone. I was still scared that I might lose the twins and go through that awful round of sympathy again. I knew everyone meant well, and there was comfort in knowing so many people felt for me, but it was so hard.

Ron wouldn't let me go home for Christmas, and I was getting so big and awkward that I was just as happy not to be flying.

"I'd have to take up two seats, Ron!"

"But so beautifully, Bree, so wondrously beautiful, they ought to pay you to adorn their plane."

Yes, he was over the top, but a woman likes to hear that sort of thing when she's getting big as a house and knows she'll only get bigger over the course of the next few months. I knew I wasn't attractive as those two took over what I'd always thought was my body. They were reshaping it to meet their requirements whatever I might want. I was pretty sure I didn't like the result.

I never did find out what excuse he gave Mom, but I'll bet it didn't work.

Then we got Susan's wedding invitation cum engagement announcement, and I told Ron we had to go.

"It's family, Ron. Susan is our sister. She's finally met someone she can make a life with. She sounds so happy. We have to be there for her."

"It's up to the little ones. Her wedding date is right around your due date. I'll get tickets, and you'd better let the kids know they have to come out if they want to go to the wedding."

As it happened, I went into labour about two days before Susan's wedding. It was a pretty rough ride but after about twelve hours the girls decided to make an appearance. Number two shot out within a few minutes of number one. Twenty-four hours later the hospital was done with us, the girls had a clean bill of health, I was tired but ready and a few hours later Ron got us on the plane. We were going to make it for the wedding after all.

We were last off the plane, of course, us and about ten ton of baby gear, and I hoped Susan would still be waiting.

It turned out that we were the last in and the whole family was gathered around the foot of the stairs as we descended from the arrivals level to the baggage claim. I was hauling a bag and Ron was behind me with the girls.

By the time we got down the stairs it was pretty easy to see that Susan was looking her gorgeous self, and as happy as she could be, just spilling over. A man I only knew vaguely stood beside her, holding her hand as if he was never letting go. Josh and Fi were there with their little one, Mum and Dad, Susan's parents and Josh's parents, and a couple of women who looked fondly at Susan's intended. It was quite a crowd, I realized.

Ron had a baby carrier on the front with a gorgeous sleeping infant, tiny as they come.

"Meet Fiona Brianna," I announced. "Age thirty-seven hours and ten minutes."

Ron turned around.

"Meet Jane-Anne Susan," I laughed. "Age thirty-seven hours and nineteen minutes."

"Oh Bree, you shouldn't have come so soon."

"I wouldn't miss your wedding for the world, Susan, not for anything except these two. This way they get to see their grandparents, too."

Dad saw our beautiful newborns, a day and a half old, and just melted. He hugged me, patted Ron gingerly on the shoulder and spent the next half hour staring into the eyes of the two prettiest babies on the planet. He's never managed to get past the girls to get upset with us again. It was good to have him all the way back, too.

Of course Susan had a lovely wedding. The fact that the bride and groom were so taken with each other that they hardly had words for the rest of us was scarcely surprising but it was beautiful to see.

At the reception Susan announced that she was pregnant and was carrying twins. Jim fell over. I had two bundles keeping me from helping and Ron was laughing too hard to be useful, so Fi sent Josh in and we managed to preserve poor Susan's wedding night.

As they left I congratulated Susan on her wedding and on her pregnancy.

"Double the trouble and double the fun and quadruple the love," I told her. And that's the way it is.