Chapter 10: Labor

My daughter decided to come at thirty-six weeks, on a Thursday, at three in the morning.

I woke up with a tight band around my back and lay there counting.

Seven minutes. Then six.

"Okay," I said to the dark. "Not yet, baby. Not yet."

She didn't listen.

My friend drove us to the hospital in her pajama pants with both hands on the wheel and the hazards on.

The charge nurse at the maternity desk remembered me from Halloween.

"Cassidy Brewer," she said. "Thirty-six weeks and one day. The no-visitor note is still on your chart. Want it kept?"

"Yes. Everyone but my friend."

"And Mr. Dunning?"

"Especially Mr. Dunning."

I texted one other number from the triage bed.

Contractions. Hospital. I'm all right. Don't come if you're on shift.

The reply came before I had put the phone down.

I'm off in two hours. I'm coming.

I stared at it, and a contraction took the thought out of my head.

By five, I was seven centimeters.

By six, there was shouting in the hall.

I knew the first voice, and I would have known it in any building on earth.

"I'm her husband! I have a right to be in this room!"

"Sir, she has requested no visitors," a man said.

"She's in labor. She's not thinking straight."

"Sir, step back."

My friend leaned over the bed rail with her whole face stiff.

"How did he find out?" she said.

"Gail," I said, between breaths. "She's on the volunteer board. They get the maternity census."

I heard Gail next, in the hallway voice she used on Sunday mornings.

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