“Fine? Fine? Otter, what the hell about any of this is fine? We woke up this morning thinking how things were going to be, and now everything is different. Do you get that? Nothing is the same! Nothing. Every time I’ve answered the door today, things have gotten worse. Do you know what that does to people? No one should have to answer the door five times in one day and have things get worse. My biggest issue of the day was whether or not our unborn child was going to have a tail and be a serial killer, which, why haven’t you disproved that? Why have you not offered me solid evidence that’s not going to happen? And now we’re having twins? Otter, what if both of them have tails? What are we going to do? We can’t sell them to a traveling circus, because that’s wrong. And I don’t even know if there are traveling circuses anymore! But we only have three more months to try and find one if that’s what we want to do, because there are at least six hundred people in my kitchen right now, and every one of them could become victims to our unborn serial killer twins with tails. And the laws of horror movies say that the pretty one goes first, and you know that would be me! I mean, you’re hot and everything, and so are Creed and Anna, but I’m the pretty one, Otter. Our children will come for me first, and they’ll stand in the hallway wearing old-timey clothes and bow ties and their tails will be twitching and then I’ll be murdered. And what about Izzie? What’s she going to do then? You would be a single parent to three kids, because you know we’re going to do everything we can to keep her. I don’t fucking care what we have to do, and no, I’m not fucking sad that my mother is dead, because fuck her. Fuck Julie McKenna for everything. Because we were fine. We were fine. And now I have to tell my little brother that the woman who didn’t give two shits about him is dead, and that he is going to be an uncle to traveling-circus children, and we only have one crib! One crib. We’re having twins. We have to get two of everything now. Why do I have to have such potent sperm? Out of all the things that could have happened to me, why do I have to be pretty and have powerful spunk?”

“Did everyone follow that?” Otter asks, never once looking away from me.

“I… think so?” Alice says slowly. “Megan… she’s… she’s your surrogate.” She sounds like she’s just awed by the thought.