Chapter 24: Sunrise

I called her before I got my shoes on.

"I'm coming," I said. "Open the door."

Miles sat up in the dark.

"Jenna's friend?" he said.

"Her water broke. Her husband's on shift. Her mother-in-law is telling her to wait till morning."

He was already reaching for his jacket.

"I'll drive."

"No," I said. "I will."

He looked at me and handed me the keys.

Her building was a quarter of an hour away.

I made it in half that.

She was standing in the open doorway in a sweatshirt and slippers with one hand on the frame.

Behind her, a gray-haired woman in a robe held a mug of something steaming.

"It's early labor, honey," the woman was saying. "Her mother and I both labored for two days. You lie down and drink this."

"What's in it?" I said.

The woman stopped.

"Chamomile."

"Is it from a bag with a label on it?"

"Well, yes."

"Then she doesn't need it."

I took the mug out of her hand and set it on the hall table.

The woman in the doorway looked up at me.

Her face was gray, and her free hand was holding the bottom of her belly.

"Willa," she said. "My contractions aren't close. She says I should..."

"How long since the water broke?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Is it clear?"

She bit her lip.

"There's a little pink."

"Then we're going now."

"They'll just send us home," the mother-in-law said.

"They won't."

"You can't know that."

"I can know that you don't get sent home from a door you were allowed to walk through," I said.

I took the overnight bag from the chair.

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