The Wife He Left Behind novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Late May

My water broke at ten past three on the twenty-eighth of May, in Stellan's bed, with Stellan asleep.

I lay there for a moment, taking down what was happening, from habit.

Then I said, "Stellan."

He was upright before I'd finished the word.

"It's time," I said. "I think it's time."

"Okay." He was already looking for his jeans. "Okay. Okay."

"You said okay four times."

"I'm a professional. I'm calm."

He put his sweater on backwards.

I laughed, and the first contraction came, and I stopped laughing and gripped his wrist until it passed.

He drove the truck to the hospital faster than anyone has driven it before or since.

I had called my mother from the car.

She came through the maternity ward doors an hour later in her quilted vest and her slippers.

"I'm not going home," she told the nurse.

"You can wait out here."

"I drove a school bus for thirty years. Don't tell me where to wait."

She came in.

The labor was long, and hard, and ordinary.

That was the surprise.

I'd read every book, and I had expected to be afraid.

I was too busy.

The room had a window facing east.

Stellan stood at my shoulder the whole night, and let me take hold of whatever I liked.

He said nothing clever.

He said, "You're doing it," and "That one's almost over," and, around four, "Cassia, you're breaking my hand."

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