Pregnant With Alpha’s Genius Twins

#Chapter 40 – Therapy call

That night, I’m not surprised to hear the phone ring in my closet. It’s another unscheduled call – Victor

is used to getting what he wants, when he wants it – but he’s starting to develop a pattern with when he

needs his therapist.

Checking to ensure that the boys are asleep, I tuck Archie into my lap on the closet floor and pick up

the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” Victor’s voice is brusk, unsettled, and – as usual – robotic. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, I can talk. The…usual overages, will apply, of course.”

“Yes.” Victor hurries on, dismissing this. “I’m having trouble,” he says, “balancing…well, balancing my

life. My responsibilities to the people who I love, who love me.”

“I see,” I say gently. “Did something…happen? To bring about your unsettled state?”

He pauses. “Yes, it did. It’s amazing that you can intuit that.”

I press my hand to my forehead, warning myself to be careful. “Comes with experience,” I say, pushing

forward. “Please continue.”

“We had…an incident tonight, I guess that’s the right word for it. My son tripped my fiancé – I don’t

think he meant to hurt her, but she was hurt. Everyone was very upset.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” I murmur.

“Thank you. The issue becomes that I took your advice, although it is perhaps also…instinct, knowing

that my son was in the wrong. But I backed Amelia, and we left.”

I note, silently, that Victor has – for the first time – accidentally dropped a hint about his identity. “How

do you feel about this?”

“Honestly? I feel horribly guilty. The boys were crying so hard when we left, and they accused me –

falsely, of course – of not loving them. I know that they’re just kids, and they’re overreacting, and that

they will, of course, not think that I don’t love them forever. But I have to admit – it’s just killing me that

they think that. Even for one night.”

“That sounds really hard,” I say, my heart in my throat. “As a mom…I can definitely emote with how

difficult it is when your sons challenge you like this.” Little does he know that I know precisely what he

means, as his sons are, in fact, my sons.

“I just don’t know what to do.” I can almost imagine him, leaning against the kitchen island, his forehead

in his hand. “Amelia needed me in that moment – I’m glad I stood by her…but how do I balance this?

How do I meet everyone’s needs at once?”

“You don’t,” I say, sighing. “That’s an impossible task, unfortunately. You just have to do the best you

can, when you can.”

“What does that mean,” Victor says, and I can hear his frustration. He wants fast, direct solutions. “How

does that help?”

“It means,” I continue, patient, “That sometimes helping your fiancé means you have to let your sons

wait for a minute. Sometimes being there for then means you have to let her wait. You have to weigh

everything in the balance and perhaps think about it like a house on fire.”

“What?”

“Just listen,” I say, chuckling a little at his impatience. “When the house is on fire, you put out the most

dangerous flame first.” Silently, I thank Mark for the knowledge and the metaphor. “You let the other,

less dangerous flames wait until you deal with the big one. Then you move to the rest.”

I wait, letting him process the idea.

“Balance,” he says, murmuring it. “Going where I’m needed most first.”

“Yes,” I say. “It sounds like, tonight, you made the right choice. Your fiancé really needed you – or so it

sounds – and it was good that you went with her. It sounds like your son can wait, and perhaps need to

sit with the guilt of what he did for a little bit.”

Victor hums pensively, thinking over what I’ve said. He stays silent on the other line and I wait for a few

minutes, seeing if he’ll take the conversation up again. When he doesn’t, I press on.

“I’m curious if this feeling of imbalance is new for you,” I say. “It seems to be something that throws you

off more than anything else. That’s typically when I get these unscheduled calls, when you’re feeling

unbalanced, torn by your allegiances.”

“I suppose not,” Victor says, sighing. “It’s rather a…pattern in my life. Well, an old pattern. One I haven’t

visited in a while.”

“Would you like to tell me more?”

He hesitates, and then sighs again, giving in. “Well, this is therapy, I suppose. I frequently felt this way

as a child – torn between my allegiance to both my father and my mother. They didn’t…have a happy

marriage.”

“Really,” I say, surprised. “You’re so eager to wed and have a family – I assumed, as is usually the

case, that you were eager to reproduce something you experienced when you were young. Children

from unhappy unions tend, more frequently, to be more hesitant about getting married.”

“Really. Is that what you usually see.”

“Nine out of ten times,” I say, confirming.

“And in the tenth time?”

“In the extraordinary cases,” I say slowly, “I usually find that…the patient is eager to be married in order

to fix their childhood trauma. To demonstrate that they can hold it all together, that it is possible, even

where their parents failed.”

Victor is silent so, again, I push. “Do you feel that that applies to you?”

“Yes, unfortunately,” he says, begrudgingly. “I felt a lot of pressure, as a child, to hold my parents

together – or to be…perfect. So that I didn’t give them a reason to fight over me.”

“Is that a way that you’d like your sons to feel?”

“God, no.” Anger begins to enter his voice. “I’d…I’d feel horrible, if I was giving them that message.”

“Then perhaps,” I say gently, “you need to find some ways to let them know that it’s okay to mess up,

and make mistakes. That you being mad at them doesn’t mean you don’t love them, it doesn’t mean

the end of the world.”

“Well isn’t that exactly what I’ve failed to do tonight, when I took Amelias side!?” He nearly shouts with

frustration.

I don’t cow to it, though, and laugh lightly – a reaction I’m sure he’s not used to when he raises his

voice. “I think you need to embrace a little of the chaos. This is you, again, seeking the balance,