Chương 1
"The plate hit the kitchen tile at the exact moment Emily folded against me, and the sharp crack finally silenced the laughter in the living room.
For half a second, I stood there with one arm around her shoulders and the other braced beneath her belly, staring at the broken ceramic near our feet.
Then Emily made a small sound through her teeth.
“Ethan.”
“I’ve got you.”
“No, it hurts.”
Her fingers locked around my wrist hard enough to leave marks.
I guided her away from the shards and into one of the kitchen chairs, but she barely touched the seat before another wave of pain made her bend forward.
My mother appeared in the doorway with a potato chip still pinched between two fingers.
“What happened?”
“Get her shoes.”
Teresa blinked.
“What?”
“Her shoes, Mom.”
Emily shook her head quickly.
“It might just be Braxton Hicks.”
“You’re eight months pregnant and you’re doubled over.”
“I’ve had them before.”
“Not like this.”
Behind my mother, Brittany had her phone in her hand.
For once, she was not posing with it.
Kayla stood beside her, looking from Emily to the shattered plate as if she had walked into the wrong apartment.
Lily remained farther back.
Nobody moved.
“Shoes,” I said again.
My voice sounded unfamiliar even to me.
Teresa’s mouth tightened.
“Ethan, there’s no need to bark orders.”
Emily gasped again.
That ended the discussion.
I found her sneakers myself near the front door, grabbed her coat and purse, and came back to find Brittany offering her a glass of water.
Emily did not take it.
She looked embarrassed.
That was the part that nearly broke whatever restraint I still had.
She was the one in pain, yet somehow she was embarrassed for inconveniencing them.
I crouched and slipped her shoes onto her swollen feet.
“Can you walk?”
She nodded too fast.
I knew that nod.
Emily used it whenever she was scared and wanted me to stop being scared too.
We made it three steps before she gripped the counter.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” I said.
“No.”
“Em.”
“It’ll cost a fortune.”
I almost laughed, though nothing was funny.
We had spent money on pizza for four adults tonight, but my pregnant wife was worried about what an ambulance might do to our finances.
“I’m taking you.”
My mother followed us toward the door.
“She probably just overdid it a little.”
I stopped.
The apartment went very quiet.
“You think?”
Teresa crossed her arms.
“Don’t do this right now.”
“Do what?”
“Turn it into something it isn’t.”
Emily tugged weakly at my sleeve.
“Ethan, please.”
So I left.
Not because my mother deserved the end of that conversation, but because Emily needed me more than my anger did.
The elevator took forever.
Someone on the sixth floor had apparently held it open, and I watched the glowing numbers crawl downward while Emily leaned against the wall and breathed through another tightening in her abdomen.
“Did you eat dinner?”
She stared at the elevator doors.
“Emily.”
“A little.”
“What does that mean?”
“I had some crust.”
I looked at her.
“The pizza crust?”
“They ordered before I finished making my food.”
The elevator arrived with a cheerful electronic chime that made me want to punch something.
An older man inside stepped aside when he saw Emily.
“You folks okay?”
“We’re heading to the hospital.”
He immediately pressed the lobby button even though it was already lit.
“My daughter had twins last year,” he said.
Then, perhaps realizing that twins were not helpful information at that moment, he added, “She’s fine.”
Emily gave him a strained smile.
“Thank you.”
Outside, I helped her into our ten-year-old Honda and discovered that my hands were shaking so badly I missed the ignition twice.
Emily reached over.
“Breathe.”
“You’re telling me to breathe?”
A tiny laugh escaped her.
It lasted less than a second.
I held onto that sound all the way to the hospital.
At the emergency entrance, a nurse took one look at Emily’s belly and directed us toward labor and delivery.
Everything after that happened with the strange combination of urgency and waiting that hospitals seem designed to produce.
Questions came first.
Her name.
Her date of birth.
How many weeks.
Whether there had been bleeding.
Whether she had felt the baby move.
Whether the pain came at regular intervals.
Emily answered softly.
I kept interrupting until the nurse finally looked at me and said, “Dad, I need Mom to answer.”
Dad.
The word hit me in an absurd place.
For months I had assembled a crib, compared car seats, complained about daycare prices, and argued with Emily about whether our son really needed a wipe warmer.
Nobody had called me Dad before.
I shut up.
They put monitors around her belly and started checking things I only half understood.
Our son’s heartbeat filled the room in fast electronic pulses.
Emily closed her eyes.
I sat beside her and held her hand.
A nurse named Marisol brought warm blankets and asked Emily whether she had been drinking enough water.
Emily hesitated.
“I thought so.”
“How much today?”
“Maybe three glasses.”
Marisol glanced at me, then back at Emily.
“And food?”
Emily’s silence answered first.
My stomach turned.
Eventually she admitted she had eaten toast in the morning, half a banana around noon, and some pizza crust that evening.
“Why?” I asked.
She looked at the blanket.
“Not now.”
“Why?”
“Ethan.”
Marisol adjusted the monitor.
“She needs calm right now.”
I nodded.
It was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
The doctor came in twenty minutes later and explained that Emily was having contractions, but there were reassuring signs that she was not in active labor.
Dehydration and physical strain could contribute to uterine irritability, she said, and they wanted to monitor her, give her fluids, and make sure nothing progressed.
The relief was so immediate that my knees felt weak.
Emily started crying again.
May you like
I kissed her forehead.
“We’re okay.”
