The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 2

Mia's POV

I should have known better than to close my eyes.

The coffee helped—Patricia brought me something that could probably strip paint, bless her—but exhaustion is exhaustion, and I've been running on fumes since the wedding. Since before the wedding. Since approximately five years ago when I gave birth to two human alarm clocks who have never once slept past 7 AM.

So when Madison finally falls asleep, and Alexander gets absorbed in some movie about talking cars, and Ethan opens his book about aerodynamics (because of course he does), I let myself sink into the leather seat and close my eyes.

Just for a minute.

Just—

"MAMA!"

I jolt awake.

Alexander is standing in the aisle, his face pale, his eyes huge.

"MAMA, ETHAN FAINTED!"

I'm on my feet before I'm fully conscious.

"What? Where? ETHAN!"

"He's in the bathroom!" Alexander is practically vibrating. "He went in there and I heard a THUMP and now he's not answering and the door is LOCKED and—"

I'm already moving.

Kyle is right behind me, his hand on my back, his voice calm in a way that suggests he's trying very hard not to panic.

"Which bathroom?"

"The back one! The one with the good soap!"

We reach the door. I knock. "Ethan? Ethan, can you hear me?"

Silence.

"Ethan!" Louder now. My heart is doing something terrible in my chest. "Baby, please answer me!"

Nothing.

Kyle tries the handle. Locked.

"Patricia!" he calls. "We need the bathroom unlocked. Now."

She appears with a key. Her professional calm has cracked slightly around the edges. "Is everything—"

"My son is in there. He's not responding."

The door opens.

Ethan is on the floor.

He's conscious—thank god, thank god, thank god—but he's curled on his side in the small space between the toilet and the wall, his face the color of old newspaper, his glasses askew.

"Ethan!" I drop to my knees beside him. The floor is cold. Sterile. My hands find his face, his neck, checking for—I don't even know what I'm checking for. "Baby, what happened? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine." His voice is weak. Thready. "I just—the floor looked interesting."

"The floor—" I pull back. Look at him. "You fainted."

"I didn't FAINT. I experienced a temporary loss of consciousness due to—" He tries to sit up. Goes even paler. "—okay, I might have fainted."

"Don't move." Kyle is crouched beside me now, his doctor voice activated. "Just stay still for a minute. Patricia, can you get some water? And something with sugar?"

"Right away."

"When did you last eat?" Kyle asks Ethan.

"Breakfast."

"That was four hours ago."

"I wasn't hungry on the plane. The cabin pressure changes appetite regulation—"

"Ethan." Kyle's voice is gentle but firm. "You need to eat regularly. Especially at your age. Your blood sugar dropped too low and your body shut down."

"That's a vast oversimplification—"

"EAT. REGULARLY."

"Fine. Yes. Understood."

Patricia returns with water and a package of cookies. The fancy kind, with chocolate and gold wrapper. The kind that probably cost more than my monthly grocery bill.

Ethan eats one. Then another. Some color returns to his face.

"I'm okay," he says. "Really. I just stood up too fast and then everything got spinny and then the floor and I became acquainted."

"The floor and you became acquainted," I repeat.

"We're very close now. The floor and I. Intimate, even."

Despite everything—despite the panic still thrumming in my veins—I laugh.

Kyle helps Ethan to his feet. Slowly. Carefully. Making sure he's steady before letting go.

"Back to your seat," he says. "And you're eating every two hours for the rest of this flight. I don't care if you're hungry or not."

"That seems excessive—"

"Every. Two. Hours."

"This is tyranny."

"This is fatherhood."

They make their way back down the aisle, Ethan leaning slightly against Kyle, his thin legs unsteady. I follow, my heart still racing, my hands still shaking.

Alexander appears at my elbow.

"Is Ethan going to die?" he asks. Very seriously.

"No, baby. He just forgot to eat. He's fine."

"Oh." He processes this. "That was SCARY. I thought he DIED. I thought I'd have to tell everyone that my brother DIED IN AN AIRPLANE BATHROOM and that would be a TERRIBLE story to tell at parties—"

"Alexander—"

"—because it's sad AND embarrassing! Like, imagine: 'How did your brother die?' 'Oh, he fainted in a bathroom at thirty thousand feet.' That's AWFUL! That's—"

"Alexander." I grab his shoulders. "Ethan is FINE. He's not dead. He's not dying. He just needs to eat more cookies."

"Oh." He brightens. "Can I have cookies too?"

"No."

"But ETHAN gets cookies!"

"Ethan fainted."

"That's DISCRIMINATION!"

"That's consequences."

We return to our seats. Ethan is installed with water, cookies, and strict instructions to consume both at regular intervals. Kyle sits beside him, monitoring. I sink into my seat and try to remember how to breathe normally.

Madison climbs into my lap.

"I was scared," she whispers.

"Me too, sweetheart."

"Is Ethan really okay?"

"Really okay. I promise."

She nods against my shoulder. But her grip on Eleanor tightens.

The plane flies on. The earth turns below us. And I realize that somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, I've aged approximately seventeen years in the space of three minutes.

"Mama?" Alexander again. Of course. "Now that the emergency is over, can we talk about the REAL issue?"

"Which is?"

"Nobody told me there was good soap in the back bathroom."

I close my eyes.

Eleven hours suddenly feels like an eternity.

"Mama, are we there yet?"

"No, Alexander."

"How about now?"

"Still no."

"Now?"

"Alexander, if you ask me one more time—"

"I'm just WONDERING! Time is WEIRD on planes! Maybe we traveled through a time zone and it's been LONGER than I thought and—"

"We've been in the air for six hours," Ethan says without looking up from his book. He's on his third package of cookies and has regained his usual color. "We have approximately five hours remaining. If you calculate the average—"

"I don't WANT to calculate! I want to BE THERE!"

"Wanting doesn't change physics."

"Physics is STUPID!"

"Physics is why this plane stays in the air, so I'd be careful about calling it stupid while you're thirty-nine thousand feet above the ocean."

Alexander's face goes through several expressions before settling on grudging acceptance.

"Fine. Physics is... acceptable."

"That's better."

I look at Kyle. He's got his eyes closed again, but I can see the smile tugging at his mouth.

"You're enjoying this," I accuse.

"Immensely."

"We're surrounded by chaos."

"Yes."

"Ethan nearly died."

But he eats it. Slowly. With maximum dramatic suffering. Making small wounded noises with every bite.

Ethan examines his salmon with scientific precision. "The flesh is slightly pink in the center, suggesting it's been cooked to approximately one hundred and twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Adequate for food safety but potentially compromising the—"

"ETHAN," Alexander and I say in unison. "EAT YOUR FOOD."

He eats.

Madison is quiet, as always. Twirling her pasta. Taking small, neat bites. Eleanor is propped against the window, watching the clouds.

"Good, sweetheart?" I ask.

She nods. "It's nice. The pasta. It tastes like... like the restaurant. The fancy one. Where we celebrated."

"Osteria Carlina?"

"Yes." She takes another bite. "I liked that place."

"We'll go back sometime."

"Really?"

"Really. When we get home. We'll make it a tradition. Once a month, we'll get dressed up and go somewhere nice and you can order whatever you want."

Her eyes light up. "Anything?"

"Within reason."

"Can I get—" She leans in. Whispers like it's a secret. "—the chocolate cake? The really big one? With the gold on top?"

"Yes," I say. "You can get the really big chocolate cake. Every single time."

She smiles.

And just like that, the chaos of this flight—the fainting, the questions, Alexander's crimes against properly breaded chicken—all of it becomes worth it.

We're two hours from landing when Alexander makes his announcement.

"I need to poop."

The entire cabin goes silent.

"Alexander." I close my eyes. "You don't need to announce that."

"But I DO need to poop! That's a FACT! It's HAPPENING!"

"Then go to the bathroom," Kyle says. "Quietly. Without broadcasting to everyone."

"But what if it's a LONG poop? What if I'm in there for a WHILE? You'll WORRY! You'll think I FAINTED like Ethan!"

"I didn't faint," Ethan says automatically.

"YOU COLLAPSED ON THE FLOOR!"

"Temporary loss of consciousness is different from—"

"ANYWAY—" Alexander is already heading down the aisle. "—I'm going to poop now! If I'm not back in ten minutes, send a SEARCH PARTY!"

He disappears into the bathroom.

The door closes.

Blessed silence descends.

"I'm sorry," I say to Patricia, who's passing with a tray. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't be." She's definitely laughing now. "I've had worse."

"What could possibly be worse than this?"

"Last month, I had a bachelor party that brought vodka and a karaoke machine."

"...okay, that's worse."

"Exactly." She pats my shoulder. "You're doing great. Really."

She moves on.

Kyle's arm comes around my shoulders.

"Two hours," he says. "We can survive two more hours."

"Can we though?"

"We survived childbirth. We survived toddlerhood. We survived wedding planning with three children and a dog having puppies."

"True."

"We can survive this."

From the bathroom comes a sound. A triumphant sound.

"I DID IT!" Alexander's voice echoes. "MAMA! DADDY! ETHAN! MADISON! I POOPED SUCCESSFULLY!"

I sink lower in my seat.

"Welcome to married life," he says. "Again."

And somewhere over the Indian Ocean, with my children destroying the last shreds of my dignity and my new husband laughing until he cries, I realize—

This is exactly what I signed up for.