Rowan has been lurking at the edge, trying to be invisible. But when Mabel gestures for one more pillow, he finally steps forward. His scent—clean soap and something darker—hits me before his hand does. He kneels, steady, and slips the pillow beneath my arm. His fingers barely graze my wrist, and it’s nothing really, but my whole body thrums anyway.
I try to keep my face neutral even as every nerve in my body is awake, alive, tuned to the three men who are supposed to be my doctors and nothing more.
“Partners,” Mabel narrates, “you’ll want to keep an eye on shoulders and jaw. If those are tense, the pelvis follows.” She nods at us. “Doctors, anything to add?”
Sean clears his throat. “If you clench your face, you clench your pelvis. There’s a reason we say ‘open mouth, open?—’”
“—mind,” Mabel inserts cheerfully.
“—pelvis,” Sean finishes, deadpan, and half the room laughs while the other half blushes. I glance at his hands bracing theball and have to stare at the ceiling for a second to keep my face its original color.
Declan adds, “This isn’t one-size-fits-all. Ask her if it’s helping.”
“Don’t tell her to relax,” Sean adds, and a wave of laughter washes the room.
Rowan pipes up, “The job of the partner is simple:be useful and be quiet, like.” He glances at me, a half second of heat and regret. I look away first.
A dad in the front snorts. “Tell that to my mother-in-law.”
“We’re tryin’, God help us,” Sean says solemnly, and the room laughs.
“Okay, dads, great job!” Mabel chirps brightly, and pillows are pulled out from under me, hands removed from me like live wires being clipped. “Let’s go over packing lists now.”
We move on. Everyone bends over their handouts. I breathe in. I breathe out. The flush recedes enough that I can readnursing braswithout combusting. Packing lists. Hospital registration. The part where Mabel says, “If your plan changes, that doesn’t mean you failed,” and looks right at me without meaning to. I have the sudden sense that in a different life, this could have been a normal night. One partner, one birth, one steady future.
Class ends on a chorus of scraping chairs and zippers. People drift over to ask the doctors things. A mom asks Declan about car seats for multiples, and he becomes earnest in a way that would make me laugh if I weren’t trying to be a person made of poise. Sean is mobbed by two dads asking about whether ice chips count as food. Rowan pulls from his coat pocket a stack of printed resources no one asked for but everyone takes.
I breathe in. I breathe out. Tonight, at least, I did.
14
DECLAN
Cheyenne isthe one who brings her in. I get the call as I’m finishing rounds—preterm contractions, only twelve weeks, stable for now but they want her monitored. By the time I reach the admissions desk, Willow is half-draped over her best friend’s shoulder, curls wild, cheeks pale, her defiance hanging by a thread.
“I’m fine,” she announces as soon as she sees me, as if sheer insistence will change the fact that she’s being wheeled upstairs.
Cheyenne snorts. “Fine people don’t nearly keel over while folding laundry.” She squeezes Willow’s hand. “Don’t let her downplay it.”
“I don’t intend to,” I reply coolly, looking at Willow’s pale face. Her eyes are unfocused, but she still manages to look defiant. “Contractions?” I ask, low and even, the way I’d ask any patient.
But Willow’s not any patient, and when her green eyes cut to mine, they look resentful and defensive. “They stopped,” she says quickly, like she’s on trial. “It’s nothing.”
Cheyenne smacks her arm lightly. “Nothing doesn’t earn you a hospital bracelet, Will.”
I ignore their back-and-forth and follow the nurse wheeling her up. I offer to steer myself, and the nurse puts up her hands as if to saybe my guest. I trust the staff here with my life, but I have trouble trusting anyone with Willow. “They’ll likely monitor you overnight,” I say.
“Overnight?” Willow asks, and she sounds like she wants to shriek but is tooin bitsto. “I didn’t even get to finish my laundry.”
“Consider it a blessing, Willow. Dylan will do it,” Cheynne says soothingly.
“Donotlet Dylan touch my underwear, Cheynne,” Willow snaps.
Cheyenne sighs, and I interrupt the bickering. “Willow, it really is for the best. You have to trust us. Better safe than?—”
“Spare me the idiom, I know how it ends,” she retorts. She sighs, exasperated, but when her hand drifts subconsciously to her belly, protective, I see the truth beneath the bravado: she’s scared. And that’s enough to keep me moving.
We settle her into the room, the monitors already waiting. She flinches when the cuff inflates around her arm, the beeping beginning its steady rhythm. I check the leads, adjust the pillow behind her head, straighten the blanket. It’s enough fussing that she swats weakly at me.
