"Really? Today?"

"Hmmm," he said, nodding.

My heart pounded with excitement and a dash of fear. I was about to see my daughter for the first time. I suddenly wished that Ethan were with me.

"Let's get started then," Mr. Moore said. "Shall we?"

I nodded.

"Just go right behind that screen, get undressed from the waist down, and pop onto the table. I'll return with Beatrix in a moment."

I nodded again and went to undress. As I slid off my skirt, I regretted not getting a bikini wax before my appointment. I was going to make a poor first impression on the impeccably groomed Mr. Moore. But as I got up on the table and tucked the paper cover neatly around me, I reassured myself that surely he had seen much worse. Minutes later, Mr. Moore returned with Beatrix, knocking on the partition that separated the examination room from his parlor.

"All set?" he asked.

"All set," I said.

Mr. Moore smiled as he perched on a small stool beside me while Beatrix hovered primly in the background.

"All right then, Darcy," Mr. Moore said. "Please slide down for me and place your feet in the stirrups. I am going to have a peek at your cervix. You'll feel a little pressure."

He put on latex gloves and checked my cervix with two fingers. I winced as he murmured, "Your cervix is closed and long. Wonderful." Then he removed his gloves, deposited them into a small waste can, slid my paper covering down, and squeezed a blob of gel onto my stomach. "I apologize if this feels a bit cold."

"No problem," I said, grateful for his sensitivity.

He slid the ultrasound probe over my stomach as a murky black-and-white image appeared on the screen. At first it looked like nothing but an ink blot, the kind that a psychiatrist uses, but then I made out a head and a hand.

"Omigod!" I shouted. "She's sucking her little thumb, isn't she?"

"Hmmm," Mr. Moore said, as Beatrix smiled.

I got all choked up as I told them that I had never seen anything so miraculous. "She's perfect," I said. "Isn't she absolutely perfect?"

Mr. Moore agreed. "Beautiful. Beautiful," he murmured. He then squinted at the screen and carefully inched the probe along my stomach. The image disappeared for a second, then reappeared.

"What?" I asked. "What do you see? She is a girl, right?"

"Just give me a moment… I need to have a closer look. Then I'll take some measurements."

"What do you need to measure?" I asked.

"The head, abdomen, and femur. Then we'll look at the various structures. The brain, chambers of the heart, and so forth."

It suddenly occurred to me that something could be wrong with my daughter. Why had I not considered this before? I regretted all of the wine I had sipped, the coffees that I wasn't able to resist in the morning. What if I had done something to harm her? I anxiously watched the screen and Mr. Moore's face for clues. He calmly examined different parts of my baby, reading out numbers as Beatrix took notes on my chart. "Is that normal?" I asked at every turn.

"Yes. Yes. It's all terribly, beautifully normal."

At that moment, normal was the most wonderful word in the English language. My daughter didn't have to be a beauty like me. She didn't have to be extraordinary in any way. I just wanted her to be healthy.

"So. Are you ready to hear the big news?" Mr. Moore asked me.

"Oh, I know it's a girl," I said. "I've never had a moment's doubt, but I'm dying for confirmation so I can start buying pink things."

Mr. Moore made a clucking sound, and said, "Ahhh. Well, now. I should warn you that pink might not be the best choice."

"What?" I asked, straining to make out the image on the screen. "It's not a. girl?"

"No. You are not having a girl," he said, turning to me with the proud smile of a man who assumes that a boy is always the preferred gender.

"It's a boyi Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure. You're having a boy…" he said, pointing to the screen with his right index finger, the other hand still holding the probe against my stomach. "And another boy."

He turned away from the screen and beamed down at me, waiting for a reaction.

My mind churned wildly, landing on a once common word now infused with a crazy, new meaning: twin. I managed to spit out a question. "Two babies?"

"Yes, Darcy. You're pregnant with twin boys." Mr. Moore's smile grew wider. "Congratulations!"

"There must be some mistake. Look again," I said. He had to be wrong. Twins didn't run in my family. I hadn't taken any fertility drugs. I didn't want twins. And certainly not twin boys!

Mr. Moore and Beatrix exchanged a knowing glance and then chuckled their restrained English chuckles. That's when I thought maybe they were just pulling my chain. Playing some cruel little trick on me. Tell the unmarried Yank she's having twins. Good one. Ethan had told me that the sense of humor is different in England.

"You're kidding, right?" I asked, completely stunned.

"No," Mr. Moore said. "I'm quite serious. You are having two boys. Congratulations, Darcy."

I sat upright, my paper cover slipping off me and floating to the floor. "But I wanted a girl. One girl. Not two boys," I said, not caring that I was completely exposed from the waist down.

"Well. These things can't be ordered up like a mince pie," Mr. Moore said wryly, as he stooped to retrieve my covering and handed it to me.

I glared at him. In no way did I appreciate his analogy or his apparent amusement.

"Are you ever wrong about these things?" I asked desperately. "I've heard of that happening. I mean, have you ever made a mistake?"

Mr. Moore said he was quite sure I was having twins. Then he explained that occasionally girls are mistaken for boys, but rarely does it happen the other way.

"So you're positive?"

With the patience of Annie Sullivan teaching Helen Keller the alphabet, he pointed to the floating images on the screen. Two heartbeats. Two heads. And two penises.

I started to cry, as my visions of sugar and spice and all things pink and nice evaporated, replaced by horrid remembrances of my little brother, Jeremy. His lips vibrating together as he made endless, monotonous bulldozer sounds. I was about to have that times two. It was inconceivable.

Sensing my mounting despair, Mr. Moore switched into sympathetic mode, explaining that the news of twins is often met with something less than enthusiasm.

I fought back tears. "That is a gross understatement."

"It will just take some getting used to," he said.

"Two boys?" I asked again.

"Two boys," he said. "Identical twins."

"How in the world did this happen?"

Mr. Moore took the question literally because he gave me a quick biology lesson, pointing to the screen and explaining that my babies appeared to be sharing one placenta, but two sacs. "Or diamnionic monochorionic twins," he said. "Which means your fertilized egg divided between four and seven days postconception."

"Shhhit," I whispered.

He pushed a button, explaining that he was taking an ultrasound picture for me. He then moved the probe, snapped again. He handed me the two photographs, one labeled Baby A and the other Baby B. I reluctantly took them from him. Mr. Moore asked if I would like to get dressed and share a soothing cup of mint tea with Beatrix, who inched her way toward the table and smiled down at me.

"No. No, thank you. I have to go," I said, standing and dressing as quickly as I could.

Mr. Moore tried to coax me back on the table for further discussion, but I had to get out of there, irrationally believing that his office and its imposing Victorian formality had transformed my girl baby into a boy baby and then multiplied her by two. If I escaped, maybe it would all fix itself. I would go seek a second opinion. Surely there was a good American physician in London. One who had the title doctor, for heaven's sake.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Moore," I stammered. "But I have to go."

Mr. Moore and Beatrix watched as I finished dressing, collected my purse, and said, as I headed out the door, that he should bill me for the visit, and thank you very much. Then I made my way back to Harley Street, where I felt numbed by Mr. Moore's news and the biting London drizzle.

I walked all over town in a daze, the word twins drumming in my skull. I walked down to Bond Street, then over to Marble Arch, then across to Knightsbridge. I walked until my lower back ached and my hands and toes grew numb. I did not stop in a single store, no matter how tempting the window display. I didn't stop at all except for a few minutes at a Starbucks during the worst of the rain. I thought the familiar burnt-orange-and-purple decor would offer me some sort of solace. It didn't. Nor did the hot chocolate and bagel I hungrily swallowed. The thought of having one baby was intimidating. Now I was full-on scared. How would I be able to take care of twins-or even tell them apart? It felt surreal.

Around three o'clock, just as it was getting dark, I arrived home, frozen and exhausted.

"Darcy? Is that you?" I heard Ethan call from his bedroom.

"Yeah," I yelled back as I took off my jacket and kicked off my boots.

"Come on back!"

I walked down the hall and opened Ethan's door. He was stretched out on his bed with an open book resting on his chest. The lamp next to his bed cast a warm, soft glow on his blond hair, creating a halo effect.