On Our 6th Anniversary, My Husband Gave My Home to Her novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Labor in the Lobby

Claire's POV

Four months later I came home from dinner at ten at night, six months pregnant and aching in the back, and found Summer on the lobby sofa.

She wore a coat over a nightgown.

She had one hand on the armrest and one wrapped around her stomach, and her knuckles were white.

The attendant stood a few feet away holding the desk phone like a weapon.

"Ma'am," he said to me. "She came in ten minutes ago. She says her water broke."

"Claire," Summer said.

Her lips were gray.

It was the first time in four months I'd heard her voice without a plan behind it.

"I didn't have anywhere to go," she said. "My phone's dead. I don't know how I got here. I just wanted someone who knew what to do."

"Tom knows what to do."

"He doesn't answer."

"You haven't called him in two months," Keaton said quietly, beside me.

She shut her eyes.

"I know."

A contraction took her.

She gripped the cushion and made a sound that went through the whole lobby.

"Call the ambulance," Keaton said to the attendant. "Now. Tell them thirty-nine and a half weeks, first baby, contractions about three minutes apart."

He knelt in front of her and took her wrist.

"Look at me, Summer. Breathe out. Slowly. That's it."

I stood there.

I had every right to walk away.

I had spent four months learning that Summer wasn't my friend and wasn't my enemy, only a woman who had made one terrible choice and several smaller ones.

I took her free hand anyway.

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