He folded the paper in half, not quickly, just enough to suggest mild inconvenience. “Your doctor is twenty minutes away. Can’t you wait until it settles?”
Another contraction hit so violently that my knees buckled.
This one was different. Bigger. Wronger. It tore a sound from me I had never heard myself make—a raw, involuntary cry that seemed to scrape its way up from somewhere primitive and terrified. I grabbed blindly for the counter and missed. My hip struck the cabinet on the way down.
Then I felt it.
Warmth.
A rush between my legs. Sudden, undeniable.
My water had broken.
Panic lit through me with such force that for a second the room went white around the edges. I was on the kitchen floor, one hand splayed over the polished tile, the other clutching my stomach as if I could hold the baby inside by will alone.
“Mom,” I gasped. “Please.”
She stood then, but more from alarm at the mess than alarm for me. “Oh my God.”
My father appeared in the doorway, still holding the newspaper. He looked at the floor, at my dress, at the liquid spreading beneath me.
For the first time, something like recognition crossed his face.
“She said call 911,” my mother snapped, as though the idea had only now occurred to her.
He reached for his phone.
My own phone was in my bag by the entry table.
A fresh contraction slammed through me before he could move.
“No,” I said, or tried to. What came out sounded broken. My mind seized on one clear thought through the pain, one instinct stronger than anything else.
Ethan.
I didn’t know if I said his name aloud. I think I must have, because my mother made a sharp, annoyed sound.
“Your husband is in Europe,” she said. “This is not the time to be dependent.”
Dependent.
The word sliced through me.
I was curled on their kitchen floor carrying their grandson, and she was still measuring me against some invisible standard of composure.
I dragged in air, teeth clenched, and forced myself onto one elbow. “My bag.”
My father frowned. “What?”
“My bag. Phone.”
He hesitated.
I have never forgotten that hesitation.
It lasted perhaps a second. Maybe less. But when your body is splitting open with fear and pain, a second becomes character. It becomes verdict. It becomes revelation.
I saw, with appalling clarity, that even now—especially now—they resented being inconvenienced by my need.
I crawled.
Literally crawled.