Chapter 24: Marigold

The baby came on the twelfth of May, at four in the morning, three days before her due date.

Joanna had traded two shifts to be in the room.

She stood at the foot of the bed in her scrubs with her sleeves pushed up.

"You're doing great," she said. "I say that to everyone, but with you I mean it."

"Don't talk," I said.

"I'm a professional."

"Then be one quietly."

Finnegan sat on the edge of the bed behind me with my back against his chest and my hand in both of his.

He had been sitting like that for nine hours.

His shirt was soaked through, and he had not once let go.

"You're breathing wrong," he said gently.

"Say that again and I'll bite you."

"The owner bites," he said, and his voice cracked, because he was laughing.

The next contraction took the joke away from both of us.

I leaned forward into it and held on to his wrists, and he said my name and told me I was strong, over and over.

Joanna said, "Here we go. Here we go, Samantha. One more."

I pushed with everything I had.

There was a sound, small and furious, and a weight lifted out of me, and the whole room changed.

"A girl," Joanna said, and her voice broke. "Seven pounds, two ounces. Oh, look at her. Look at that mouth."

They put her on my chest.

She was hot and slippery and furious, with a dark cap of hair and her fists up beside her face.

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