Chương 8
“They are legal documents.”
“Then you probably shouldn’t have lied about what they were.”
He hit the roof of the car with his palm.
The sound exploded through the speaker.
I flinched.
The monitor beside me accelerated.
Marisol came close.
“Rachel, look at me.”
I did.
“Your baby is okay.”
I nodded.
“He’s okay.”
“Yes.”
The dispatcher remained on the line.
I could hear her speaking to Lauren while Janet spoke quietly with security.
Another contraction pressed down.
Not pain exactly.
Pressure.
More pressure than before.
I grabbed Marisol’s wrist.
“Something changed.”
She looked at the monitor, then at me.
“Pressure where?”
“Low.”
“How low?”
“I feel like I need to push.”
Everything moved at once.
Marisol hit the call button.
A nurse entered.
Then the resident.
The conversation with Lauren continued from the phone on the blanket.
Eric was still outside her car.
The police were still coming.
My son was apparently done waiting for any of us to get our lives organized.
The resident checked me and looked up.
“You’re complete.”
“What?”
“Ten centimeters.”
“No.”
It came out like an argument.
She almost smiled.
“Yes.”
“That was too fast.”
“Babies are not great at scheduling.”
“I can’t do this right now.”
Marisol leaned toward me.
“You are doing it right now.”
“No, I mean there are police going to my house and my husband—”
A contraction crushed the rest of the sentence.
The pressure became enormous.
I bore down before anyone told me to.
The resident said, “Okay, that’s happening.”
Someone lowered the bed.
Someone else rolled in equipment.
Janet picked up my phone.
“Do you want me to stay on the line with your sister?”
“Yes.”
“You focus here.”
I shook my head.
“I can’t.”
“You don’t have to solve anything else right now.”
The phrase should have comforted me.
Instead I started crying.
“I trusted him.”
Marisol squeezed my hand.
“I know.”
“I gave him passwords.”
Another contraction began.
“I signed things.”
“Rachel.”
“I let him manage everything because I thought—”
“Rachel.”
Her voice cut through me.
“Push.”
I pushed.
The world became effort.
Heat.
Pressure.
Hands.
Voices.
The bright ceiling.
The taste of salt where tears reached my mouth.
I had imagined Eric counting beside me.
Instead a nurse I had met less than two hours earlier held one leg while another woman told me exactly where to put my energy.
Between pushes, I heard fragments from my phone.
Lauren saying, “I’m okay.”
A male voice I did not recognize.
Police, probably.
Janet answering questions.
Then another contraction came and everything outside my body disappeared.
“Again.”
I pushed until my face burned.
“Good.”
“I hate when people say good.”
Marisol laughed.
“Then terrible.”
“That’s better.”
“You’re doing terribly.”
I laughed too.
It turned into a cry.
The resident said, “I can see his head.”
My chest tightened.
“My son?”
“Yes.”
Something changed in the room.
Not less urgent.
More focused.
The nurse brought the bassinet closer.
A respiratory therapist appeared near the wall, waiting quietly.
I looked toward the empty chair again.
For one second, grief nearly swallowed the whole moment.
Then my son moved inside me.
A firm, undeniable pressure.
He was not an idea.
Not evidence.
Not leverage.
Not a line in somebody’s petition.
He was coming.
I pushed again.
The pain sharpened through the epidural into something fierce and physical.
“Stop, stop, breathe.”
I panted.
The resident adjusted something.
Then, “Okay, push.”
I did.
The room filled with a sound I had never heard before.
My baby crying.
Everything inside me stopped.
Someone lifted a small wet body into view.
Dark hair.
Red face.
Furious mouth.
“Oh.”
That was all I could say.
“Oh.”
They placed him on my chest.
He was warmer than I expected.
He moved his head once, awkwardly, then cried against my skin.
My hands hovered because I was suddenly terrified of touching him wrong.
Marisol guided one hand beneath his back.
“There.”
I stared at his face.
His eyes were squeezed shut.
His nose looked flattened.
One ear was folded forward.
He was the most beautiful and alarming thing I had ever seen.
“Hi.”
My voice broke.
“Hi, baby.”
I forgot Eric.
I forgot Diane.
I forgot Claire.
For perhaps thirty seconds, the entire world was a six-pound-something furious person breathing against me.
Then my phone rang.
Janet silenced it.
“You don’t need that.”
I looked at the screen before it went dark.
ERIC.
I pulled my son closer.
“No.”
Janet nodded once.
The baby made a tiny snorting sound.
Marisol smiled.
“He has opinions.”
“He gets that from my sister.”
“Convenient.”
I touched one finger to his hand.
He closed his fingers around it.
The gesture was reflex.
I knew that.
It still wrecked me.
“What time?”
“12:26.”
Someone wrote it on the board.
12:26 PM.
The nurse asked if he had a name.
I looked down at him.
For months, Eric and I had planned to call him Noah James Mercer.
James was Eric’s middle name.
His father’s too.
I had loved the continuity of it once.
Now the name felt crowded.
“Noah,” I said.
“Middle name?”
I hesitated.
Nobody rushed me.
“Hayes.”
Lauren’s last name.
My maiden name.
The nurse wrote NOAH HAYES MERCER on the board.
I stared at it.
Not revenge.
Not exactly.
Something that belonged to me.
Janet approached after several minutes.
“Your sister is safe.”
My whole body released.
“The police arrived?”
“Yes.”
“Eric?”
“He left before they got there.”
I looked up.
“Of course he did.”
“Your sister gave them a statement.”
“Did he take the papers?”
“No.”
My son shifted against me.
Janet continued carefully.
“Lauren says she photographed the documents and left them where they were.”
“Good.”
“She also photographed the cameras.”
I closed my eyes.
“Good.”
“There’s something else.”
I opened them.
Janet held my phone but did not hand it over.
“Claire sent several more messages while you were delivering.”
I looked at Noah.
“Can it wait?”
“Yes.”
May you like
I thought about that.
Then shook my head.
