Chapter 23: Labor

My water broke at ten past two in the morning, on my own kitchen floor, in front of a beagle.

Biscuit looked at the puddle and then at me, with deep concern.

"Padraig," I said, not loudly.

He was up the stairs and down again before I had finished the word.

He wore his boxers, with the hospital bag over one shoulder and the keys in his teeth.

"Breathe," he said.

"I am breathing."

"Breathe more."

"You breathe more!"

He put me in the truck very gently.

He drove the whole way at twenty miles under the limit, both hands on the wheel.

I had to tell him twice that it was a hospital and not a funeral.

Jo met us at the doors in her scrubs.

She had come off a night shift on another floor, and she had a wheelchair and a blanket ready.

"You," she said to Padraig. "Park. You're the dad. Don't faint."

"I'm not the dad."

"You are tonight."

By four, the contractions came every three minutes.

By five I had said several things to Padraig about his family that I would take back later.

"Your brother," I gasped.

"I know."

"Your brother left me alone in a room like this for two years."

"I know. I'm here."

"Stay here."

"I'm not moving."

He held my hand, and I broke two of his fingers, or he told me afterward that I had.

Jo sat on my other side with a washcloth.

She read me the newspaper, because it was the only thing in the room that wasn't labor.

"A Columbus man was arrested in a barn," she said.

"Jo."

"He had forty-one cats."

"Jo, I swear to God."

"Push when the doctor says."

At six in the morning, the nurse stuck her head out into the corridor and then in again.

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