Chapter 23: Megan Lowry

My labor started at three in the morning, two days before the due date, with a pain that woke me out of a dead sleep.

"Thatcher."

He was upright before his eyes were open.

"What? Where?"

"Don't panic."

"I'm not panicking. I'm very calm." He had both feet in one leg of his jeans. "Which way is the door?"

"Behind you. Thatcher, text Megan."

By the time we got to the hospital, Megan was already standing in the ambulance bay in her scrubs with a wheelchair.

She had taken the shift on purpose, and she hadn't told me.

"I knew it," she said. "I felt it in my feet."

"That's not a medical term."

"It is on my floor. Sit."

I sat, and the whole building turned into hallways and lights.

I texted Cory from the elevator, because I had said I would.

It said, "It's started. Waiting room, if you want it."

He wrote back in under a minute.

"I'm already in the car."

The room was small and warm, with a window that looked out on a parking garage.

A midwife I had met twice told me I was doing beautifully, and I told her I'd like to be asleep for the rest.

Megan laughed so hard she had to put her clipboard down.

Thatcher stood at my right shoulder and held my hand, and he did everything he was told.

"Breathe," Megan said.

"I am breathing."

"Breathe slower."

"You breathe slower!"

"Melina, I'm not the one."

Thatcher began to count out loud for me, and he got to eleven and lost his place.