Chapter 19: A Girl

Otis drove the van up onto the hospital curb and carried me in himself.

I told him to put me down, and he said no, and I was in too much pain to argue.

Libby met us inside the doors in her coat.

She had come straight from her shift, with her badge still clipped to her collar.

"Room four," she told the nurse. "Thirty-seven weeks, her water broke at two-forty."

"She wants her own doctor."

"Her own doctor's on her way," the nurse said.

I had called my old OB from the van.

She came in a coat over her pajamas.

She looked at me and said, "Well, Greta. Shall we do this properly?"

"Please," I said.

The hours were long.

They were not the hours I had imagined, in a cream slip, in a house with a yellow nursery.

They were fluorescent lights and a plastic cup of ice chips, and Libby counting out loud with her hand on my back.

Otis stood at my shoulder and let me crush his fingers.

"You're allowed to say whatever you want," he said.

"I don't want to say anything."

"Then don't."

"I want to say a lot of things about Holden."

"Say those," said Libby.

I said them.

At eight o'clock, the nurse at the door came in with a clipboard and a face I didn't like.

"Mrs. Stroud," she said. "A man downstairs says he's the father and is asking to come up."

"No," I said.

"He's on the chart as the spouse."

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