The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 391

Chapter 391 The Man Who Smiled at Time

Mia’s POV

Dr. Tenzin Norbu stood in the doorway like something that had walked out of a children’s book.

Mysterious travelers appeared at inn doors during snowstorms and turned out to be something more than they seemed.

He was shorter than me by several inches. His burgundy robes looked hand-woven, the kind of fabric that had weight and texture, not the smooth synthetic stuff you’d find in costume shops. Prayer beads wrapped around his left wrist, wooden and worn smooth by decades of fingers.

But it was his face that held me.

His face, not young, but not old in the way hospitals made people old-that gray exhausted look of bodies giving up. His skin had the color and texture of well-loved leather, creased at the corners of his eyes and mouth in ways that suggested he’d spent more time smiling than frowning. White hair cropped close to his skull. And those eyes-dark as river stones but somehow full of light, like they were backlit by something I couldn’t see.

“I am Dr. Tenzin Norbu,” he said again, his accent thick but his English clear. Each word came out carefully shaped, like he was offering them as gifts. “And I see I have interrupted a very important family moment.

Alexander lifted his tear-stained face from Kyle’s chest. “Are you the wizard doctor?”

Dr. Norbu’s face split into a grin that showed teeth too white and straight to belong to a ninety-two- year-old man. “Wizard? No, no. I am simply a student. Still learning after all these years.” He stepped into the room, moving with a fluidity that seemed impossible for someone his age. “But you -you are the young magic men, yes?’

Alexander’s eyes went wide. “How did you know about my magic?”

“A small bird told me.” Dr. Norbu tapped his temple. “Actually, the very wealthy lady with the excellent shoes told me. Ms. Sophie Field. She talks very fast, that one. Like a river during spring melt.”

He pulled a small wooden chair from the corner-I hadn’t even noticed it there-and settled into it with the ease of someone who could make himself comfortable anywhere. He folded his hands in his lap and looked at each child in turn, his attention moving slowly, deliberately, like he was really seeing them.

“You,” he said, pointing at Alexander, “have a loud heart. I can hear it from here. Boom-boom- boom like a drum at festival time.”

Alexander giggled despite his tears. “Hearts don’t sound like drums.”

“No? What do they sound like?”

“Like… like beep-beep-beep.” Alexander gestured at the heart monitor. “The machine shows it.”

“Ah, the machine. Yes, yes, the machine is very smart. It counts the beats and makes the graph and tells the nurses when to come running.” Dr. Norbu leaned forward slightly. “But does it tell you why the heart beats faster when you are scared? Or slower when you are calm? Does it explain why your heart and his heart-” he pointed at Ethan “–beat at different speeds even though you are twins who shared the same space before you were born?”

Ethan had stopped crying. He was watching Dr. Norbu with the intense focus he gave to things he found genuinely interesting. “They beat at different speeds because we have different nervous systems.”

“Very good! You have studied. But why do you have different nervous systems if you came from the same seed?”

“Because we’re fraternal twins, not identical.”

“Mmm. The body knows this-fraternal, identical-but does the soul know this? When you were growing inside your mother, did your souls decide to be different? Or were they different before, and the body followed what the soul already knew?”

Ethan’s mouth opened, then closed. I watched him process this, trying to fit it into his logical framework and finding it didn’t quite fit.

Madison hadn’t moved from her spot at the foot of the bed. “Are you really from Tibet?”

“I was born in Tibet, yes. In a village so small it does not appear on maps. We had forty-seven people, sixty-three yaks, and one very bad-tempered dog who bit everyone except my grandmother.

“Why didn’t he bite your grandmother?”

“Because she fed him butter tea every morning and sang to him in the old language. Dogs

understand singing, you see. Especially when the singing comes from a person who has buried three husbands and is not afraid of anything anymore.”

A laugh escaped Madison’s throat-small and surprised, like she’d forgotten she could make that sound.

Dr. Norbu’s attention moved to Kyle, who had been watching this exchange with something like wonder on his gaunt face.

“So what do you do instead?” Madison asked quietly.

Dr. Norbu smiled. “We don’t pour water. We open the windows. We let the smoke out. We find out why the fire started in the first place and we fix that problem, not just the fire itself.”

I found myself leaning forward despite my skepticism. “And how exactly do you open the windows?”

His dark eyes found mine. Sharp, clear, seeing more than I wanted him to see. “Ah. The mother speaks. You think I am a charlatan, yes? An old man in funny clothes making promises I cannot keep.

Heat rushed to my face. “I didn’t say-

“You didn’t need to say. Your face says everything. You have hope-I can see it, small and frightened, hiding behind your ribs-but you are afraid to let it grow because you have been disappointed before. Many times before.”

He was right. I wanted to argue but the words wouldn’t come.

“This is good,” Dr. Norbu continued. “This is wise. Hope without wisdom is just foolishness wearing a pretty dress. You protect these children-” he gestured at all three of them “–by not promising them things that might not happen. This is the right kind of love.”

Alexander had been quiet, which was unusual enough that I glanced at him. He was staring at Dr. Norbu with the same intensity he usually reserved for particularly good magic tricks.

“How old are you?” Alexander asked suddenly.

“Very old. Ninety-two years.”

“That’s older than Mama’s grandma was when she died.”

“Yes. I am old as mountains, as they say. Though mountains are actually much older than me.”

“Why aren’t you dead yet?”

“Alexander!” I said, mortified.