Chapter 24: Late May

The hospital I chose had a window onto a parking lot and a ceiling tile with a water stain shaped like Ohio.

I looked at it for nine hours.

Rowan stood at the head of the bed with his shirt untucked and his hand in mine.

By midnight he had stopped pretending it didn't hurt him.

"You're allowed to say it hurts," I told him.

"It's fine."

"I'm breaking your fingers."

"I have nine others."

Fran sat in the corner chair with her coat still on and the casserole dish on her lap.

She had brought it from Racine in the car, with a lid and a dish towel, in case of an emergency.

"It's a tuna bake," she said, when the nurse looked at it. "Nobody eats until it's over."

The midwife, a stout woman in purple scrubs, checked me again at four.

"Eight centimeters," she said. "You're doing the work of two people, Leah. Keep going."

"I've done the work of two people since October," I said, and Fran laughed so hard she had to put the dish on the floor.

At half past four it turned.

Everything went narrow and loud and certain, and I stopped being able to talk.

"Look at me," Rowan said. "Leah. Look at me."

I looked.

His eyes were red, and he was not pretending anything now.

"I'm here," he said. "Whatever you need. Whatever it is."

"Don't leave."

"I'm not going anywhere."

I believed him.

That was the whole difference, and it was enough to push against.

"One more," the midwife said. "Big one. Chin down."

I bore down with a sound I'd never made.

Rowan bent and said into my hair, "That's it, you're so strong, you've got her."