39 Weeks Pregnant, My Husband Refused to Make Me 1 Bowl of Soup but Made Her 101 Breakfasts novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Phone in My Hand
Her water breaks at the table, and in the car she reads the whole numbered thread before telling the hospital her husband is not allowed in.
My water broke under the table while I was holding up my phone.
It soaked my socks and the chair, and a little puddle spread toward Eli's sneakers.
"Oh," I said.
Troy stared at the floor. "Is that, is it time?"
"Yes."
A mother at the next table dropped her coffee cup.
Lacey was beside me before I could stand, one arm under my elbow, her voice soft and fast.
"Breathe, honey. Troy, get the car. I'll grab her bag."
"I don't have a bag here," I said.
"Then I'll follow you in mine."
I looked at the hand on my elbow, and then at her face.
She really did look worried.
"Take your hand off me," I said.
She let go and stepped back, still smiling a little.
The first contraction folded me in half over the table.
Eli backed away with a pancake square still stuck to his fork.
Troy got me up and walked me out past a hundred people with phones in their hands.
Nobody said a word until we were through the door, and then it all started behind us.
His car was parked at the curb where the gray truck had been.
I sat in the passenger seat with my knees apart and a hand against the dash.
Troy got in and started the engine and did not say sorry.
"Maggie, it isn't what it looks like."
"Drive."
"Lacey's son doesn't have a dad around. The school asked for volunteers and I said yes once, and then it just kept going."
"Drive, Troy."
He pulled out.
The next contraction came before we reached the corner, and I breathed through it with my eyes shut.
When it passed, I held out my hand.
"Give me your phone."
"You're in labor."
"I know. Phone."
He glanced at me and put it in my palm at the next stop sign.
His passcode was our anniversary.
Of course it was.
I opened the messages and scrolled to the sender called Lace.
The thread started twenty weeks earlier, on the first morning of the school year.
No. 1. Thank you for the coffee. Eli talked about it all day.
No. 2. Pancakes! He wants you every day.
I scrolled down with my thumb.
Every weekday had a number.
Every number came with a photo of food, the same three plates, and his hand.
Around number 60, I stopped.
I was thirty-one weeks along then.
That was the week I had thrown up in the car on the way to my own mother's birthday and Troy had said he couldn't be late for work.
His text to Lacey from that morning was right there.
Making you waffles tomorrow. Maggie's being dramatic about the nausea. I'll tell her it's work.
I kept scrolling.
At number 99, the day before, there was a text from Troy at 11:14 p.m.
M wanted soup at 11. I told her I was wiped. I'm saving it for your breakfast.
Lacey had answered with the heart.
Good boy. Real breakfast tomorrow, strawberries and all.
I read it twice.
At 11:14 the night before, I had been standing in my kitchen in my socks, and Caleb Ferris had been walking up my steps with a quart of soup.
Troy's car turned into the hospital lot.
"Maggie, give me that."
"Don't touch it."
The contraction rolled up from my back and I made a sound I did not know I could make.
Troy parked at the doors and ran around to help me out.
I let him help me out, because I had no choice.
A woman in scrubs came out with a wheelchair, and I sat in it.
She was smiling at Troy.
"Dad, you can park and meet us upstairs."
"I'll stay with her," he said.
"No."
I said it clearly, and I said it to her.
"What's your name?" the nurse asked me.
"Maggie Doyle Keller. I'm thirty-nine weeks. This is my husband, and he's not coming into the delivery room."
Troy laughed once. "She's in labor. She doesn't mean it."
"I mean it," I said. "He doesn't come in, he doesn't hold my hand, and he doesn't sign anything."
The nurse looked at me, then at him.
She did not ask me to explain.
"Ma'am, is there someone you want on the list?"
"Not him."
"Honey, we can write that down. Do you want security at the door?"
"Yes."
Troy took a step toward me and she stood in front of the wheelchair.
"Sir, please wait over there."
"She's my wife."
"And it's her room."
Another contraction came, and I lost the hallway for a moment.
When I came back, two men in dark jackets were standing at the end of the corridor, and Troy was talking to them with his hands out.
His shirt was wet where I had held onto him.
The nurse pushed me toward the elevator.
Behind us, the front doors opened with a hiss.
Lacey came in at a fast walk, with her purse on her shoulder and Eli's hand in hers.
She saw me in the chair, and she saw Troy with the guards.
Then she went to the desk with a bright, worried face.
"Hi. I'm with Troy Keller," she said. "His wife just went into labor, and he needs someone with him. Put me down as family."
The elevator doors began to close.
The last thing I saw was the desk clerk reaching for her pen.
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