Read The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins novel by Artemis Z.Y. Updated 2025 -26 - The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins Chapter 513

The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins Chapter 513

The surgical gowns are the color of a sky that can’t decide whether it wants to rain.

Not quite blue. Not quite gray. Something in between—a shade that exists only in hospitals, in waiting rooms, in places where time moves differently than it does everywhere else.

Alexander’s gown swallows him whole.

The fabric pools around his feet, the sleeves hanging past his fingertips, the neckline slipping off one shoulder no matter how many times the nurse adjusts it. He looks smaller than he did this morning. Smaller than he did yesterday. As if the gown itself has shrunk him.

“I look like a ghost,” he says, studying his reflection in the window. “A blue ghost. Do you think there are blue ghosts? Ethan, are there blue ghosts?”

Ethan is sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, his legs dangling. His gown is just as oversized, the hem brushing his ankles, the fabric bunched at his waist where a nurse tried to tie it tighter. His glasses are slightly crooked. They always are.

“Ghosts aren’t scientifically proven to exist,” he says. “So the question of their coloration is moot.”

“But if they existed. If. Would they be blue?”

“I suppose they could be any color. Or no color at all. Depending on the theoretical framework you’re operating within.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m plenty of fun. I’m just accurate.”

Alexander turns from the window. His face is bright—too bright, maybe. The kind of brightness that comes from excitement and fear colliding, becoming something that looks like joy but tastes like something else entirely.

“Mom.” He crosses to me, bare feet slapping against the linoleum. “Do you think the doctors will let me keep the needle? After? As a souvenir?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, baby.”

“But I want it. I want to show my friends. I want to say, ‘See this? This is the needle they used to take my bone marrow. To save my dad.’ That would be so cool.”

My throat tightens.

I reach out and brush the hair from his forehead—the same gesture I’ve made a thousand times before, when he was sick, when he was sad, when he was so full of energy he couldn’t sit still. But today it’s different. Today my fingers linger a moment longer than they should.

“We’ll ask,” I say. “Okay? We’ll ask the doctors.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

He grins—that gap-toothed grin that still makes my heart ache every time I see it. Then he’s off again, bouncing across the room to inspect the monitors, the tubes, the mysterious machines lining the walls.

Kyle is standing by the window. He hasn’t moved in several minutes. He just stands there.

He’s wearing a gown too. The same not-quite-blue, not-quite-gray. On him, it looks wrong. Like seeing a lion in a cage. Like watching something wild try to fit into a space never meant to hold it.

“Kyle.”

He turns. Those gray eyes—red-rimmed, bloodshot—find mine.

“Hmm?”

Ethan has found something to read. A pamphlet, probably—something about the procedure, recovery time, statistical likelihoods. His lips move slightly as he reads, the way they always do when he’s absorbing information. Madison is sitting on the other bed.

She isn’t in a gown—she’s not part of today’s procedure. She insisted on being here when her brothers went in. Her dark hair is pulled back in a braid that’s already starting to come loose, and she’s wearing the purple sweater I bought her last month, the one with tiny stars stitched along the cuffs.

Eleanor is in her lap. Of course. Always.

“Mama?” Her voice is quiet, almost swallowed by the hum of machines and the distant sounds of the hospital beyond the door.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Will it hurt them?”

I look at her—at those dark eyes that have already seen too much hurt, at the way her fingers curl around Eleanor’s worn ear, grounding herself in the familiar.

“A little,” I say. I won’t lie to her. Not about this. “They’ll be asleep for the hard part. But when they wake up, they might feel sore. Like after falling really hard.”

“But they’ll be okay?”

“They’ll be okay.”

She nods slowly, taking the information in at her own pace, in her own way.

“And after,” she says. “After they’re okay… will Daddy be okay too?”

“We hope so,” I say finally. “That’s why we’re doing this. So Daddy has a better chance.”

“He’s scared,” she says.

“What?”

“Daddy. He’s scared.” She tilts her head, studying him with that quiet intensity she has. “He doesn’t want us to see. But I can tell. His hands are shaking.”

“He’s not scared for himself,” I say softly. “He’s scared for them.”

Madison nods, as if this explains everything. As if fear that isn’t about yourself is the most natural thing in the world.

“I would be scared too,” she says. “If someone was going to hurt for me.”

The door opens.

Dr. Emerson steps in—a woman in her fifties with graying hair. Two nurses follow, their expressions carefully neutral, their movements efficient and practiced.

“Good morning,” Dr. Emerson says. Her voice is warm but professional—the voice of someone who knows how to walk the line between comfort and clinical necessity. “How are we feeling today?”

Alexander appears at my side. His gown rustles as he moves, the fabric shifting and settling around him like water.

“I’m feeling great,” he announces. “I’m ready. I’m so ready. Can we do it now? Can we start?”

Dr. Emerson smiles. It’s real—not the tight, automatic kind, but the kind that reaches her eyes.

“Almost,” she says. “We just need to go over a few things first. Make sure everyone understands what’s going to happen.”

“I know what’s going to happen,” Alexander says. “They’re going to take stuff from my bones and put it in my dad, and then my dad will get better. Easy.”

“That’s… actually a pretty accurate summary.” Dr. Emerson glances at me, eyebrows lifting. “He’s done his research.”

“Ethan explained it,” Alexander says. “Ethan explains everything. Even when you don’t want him to.”

“I resent that,” Ethan says, not looking up from his pamphlet.

“It’s still true.”

“Being true doesn’t make it less resentful.”

Dr. Emerson clears her throat. “Well. Let me add a few details, and then we’ll get started.”

She walks them through the procedure—step by step. The anesthesia. The needles. The extraction. The recovery. She uses words meant to reassure—minor discomfort, brief procedure, quick recovery—but I hear the spaces between them. The things she doesn’t say.

The twins listen in different ways. Alexander vibrates with impatience, shifting from foot to foot, firing off questions fueled by curiosity and nervous energy. Ethan is still, focused, absorbing every word.

“Any questions?” Dr. Emerson asks when she finishes.

“Just one.” Alexander’s hand shoots up. “Can I keep the needle afterward?”

Dr. Emerson blinks. “The… needle?”

“As a souvenir. To show my friends.”

“I… that’s not typically—”

“Please?” he says. “It would be so cool. I could put it in a frame. Like art.”