Chapter 10: Thirty-One Weeks

At five that afternoon, the lights in my room started to leave trails.

I told my sister, and she stopped chewing her sandwich.

"Where?"

"Everywhere. When I turn my head."

She was at the door before I finished the sentence, and I heard her say, "Room fourteen. Now," to somebody I couldn't see.

The cuff tightened on its own, and the nurse read the number and said a word I'm not supposed to repeat.

The doctor from the first night came in at a run.

"Mrs. Stromberg, your pressure is one ninety over one twenty and you're seeing spots. We're not waiting two days. We're delivering now."

"I'm thirty-one weeks."

"I know. He'll be small, and he'll be in the NICU, and we have a very good one."

Hands moved around me, and something came away from the wall.

Somebody put a mask on my face and told me to count backwards.

"My husband," I said into the plastic. "Is my husband here?"

"We've called him."

"He turns his phone off."

"We called the front desk. We're not waiting for his phone."

They wheeled me down the hall with the ceiling tiles passing over my face.

My sister ran alongside with her hand on the rail, saying, "I've got you, Lee. I've got you."

The doors of the operating room were already open.

A nurse was fastening a cap on my head, and the anesthesiologist was talking about a spinal and asking me to curl forward.

I curled over my own stomach and felt a cold stripe go down my back.

It was happening.

It was happening, and I was alone in it, and I thought of Junie asleep in a neighbor's spare room.

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