Chapter 22: The Marble Lobby

Willa's POV

"Not the Winfield wing," I said.

I said it in the car, in the driveway, and again in the elevator of St. Brendan's with my knuckles white on Jerome's sleeve.

"Willa, it's a better room," Dot said, driving like a getaway pilot.

"I don't care. I'm not having my daughter under that name."

"Then the public floor," said Jerome.

"The public floor."

We went in through the marble lobby, where I had stood twice before in my life, once with two hundred dollars and once with a camera in my pocket.

The security guard looked at my belly and did not ask to see an ID.

On the fourth floor there was a plain room with a vinyl chair, a window onto the parking structure and a nurse with a sharp bun.

I loved it.

My own doctor came across the river in twenty minutes, still in her coat.

By then the pains were coming close.

I held the bed rail and told the ceiling it had been a mistake.

"Breathe," said Dot, at my left shoulder.

"I'm breathing!"

"You're yelling. It's a different thing."

Jerome stood at my right with his sleeves rolled up, and I hadn't let go of his hand for an hour.

He didn't flinch when I crushed it.

"If I say I'm dying," I said, "tell the doctor to ignore me."

"You're not dying."

"I might be."

"You're the strongest person I've ever met," he said.

"That's disgusting. Say something less romantic."

"The drain's fixed. You can take a bath, afterward."

I laughed in the middle of a contraction and it hurt in every direction.

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