The Wife Isn't Me novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Born

I watched Edward Lowther smile at his phone while his daughter was in labor eight weeks early.

Then he put it away, stood up, and buttoned his jacket.

Trish got the news through the nurses before I got home.

Philippa had a son that afternoon at Lowther, at thirty-two weeks, by emergency C-section.

Four pounds even. Breathing with help. In the NICU on the same floor as the suite.

I sat on my bed above the birth center with my hand on my own belly for a long time.

Sorry for her, and scared for him, and something colder underneath that I didn't want to look at.

One baby born.

Use whichever delivers healthy.

Nine days later, my water broke in the cereal aisle of the grocery store on Eastern Avenue.

I was thirty-six weeks and five days.

I called Andrew from the floor, next to a stock boy holding a mop.

He picked up on the first ring.

"It's Saturday," he said. "Tell me you're calling about pigeons."

"My water broke next to the Cheerios."

There was a short silence.

"Don't move. I'm coming."

He came in his car in four minutes, which was not legal, in a T-shirt inside out.

By the time we got to Fells Point, the contractions were three minutes apart.

By the time we got up the step, I tripped on it, and they were two.

"We should go to a hospital," I said, gripping the doorframe. "I'm thirty-six weeks. You said under thirty-seven you transfer."

He knelt down and checked me right there in the hallway, with gloves from his pocket.

Then he sat back on his heels.

"You're at nine," he said. "We're not going anywhere. She's coming here."

"Is that bad?"

"It's fast. Fast is good. Fast is very rude, but it's good."

Trish arrived twelve minutes later, still in her Mercy General scrubs, swearing at the parking.

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