The woman clutched her stomach. “I…I think so.”
“Okay. Good. I’ll call for help.” He pressed the elevator’s emergency call button. “Hello?”
The speaker crackled to life.
“Hello?” Keishin said. “Can you hear me? The elevator’s stuck.”
“I can hear you. Is everyone okay in there?”
“We’re fine.”
“We’re calling the repair crew right now. They should be here soon.”
Keishin took a deep breath, telling himself that things could be worse. He could have gotten stuck in the elevator with Trisha, the neighbor he had made the mistake of sleeping with after a bad movie, a forgettable dinner, and too many bottles of wine.
“I’m Liz,” the woman said. “Eighth floor.”
“I know.”
“Right. I asked you to push the button for me. Sorry. Pregnancy brain.”
“I’m Kei. Tenth,” he said, not because it was necessary, but because it was polite. He expected their situation to be rectified soon and didn’t think that waiting for the elevator required conversation.
Liz lowered herself onto the floor and fanned herself with the Chinese take-out menu. “I hope they get us out of here soon.”
“They will.” Keishin sat opposite her.
Liz winced and rubbed her belly. “Oh god…”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Liz groaned, doubling over. Sweat beaded on her brow. “I…I think the baby’s coming.”
“What?” Keishin scrambled to her.
Liz clenched her teeth and grabbed his sleeve. “I don’t suppose that I was lucky enough to be trapped in an elevator with a doctor?”
“Er…yes, but the useless kind.”
Liz’s face crumpled in pain. She squeezed his arm and groaned. “I don’t want to have the baby in an elevator,” she said, breaking into a sob.
“We’ll get out of here. Soon. I promise.”
“No, not ‘soon.’ Now. We need to get out now.” Liz drew rapid breaths. Sweat dripped down her face and over her pale lips. “I can’t breathe. We’re running out of air. I’m going to die. My baby…”
Keishin clasped her hand. He didn’t know much about childbirth but was well acquainted with anxiety attacks. In the earlymonths after his mother had left, Keishin found his father curled up into a ball, believing that he was dying, at least once every other week. Like Liz’s, his hands were cold and clammy, and they trembled against Keishin’s palms. He had held his father’s hand until his breathing slowed, trying to soothe him the only way he knew how. He lay next to his father and recounted, like a story, an inventory of things his young mind knew to be true.The sun is a star. The brain cannot feel pain. An elephant’s pregnancy lasts almost two years.Facts had always comforted Keishin. His mother’s love had once been at the top of his list, before any trivia about the earth or the moon. When she left, he collected as many truths as he could, having convinced himself that one day, he was going to have enough to fill a hole in his chest that had once been filled with certainty. He shared his collection of the unquestionable and the unchanging with his father, giving him something to hold on to whenever a current of doubt threatened to sweep him away.
Keishin squeezed Liz’s hand. “ ‘Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceroses, elephants, moose, and water buffalo,’ ” he said.
“What?”Liz panted.
“It’s a quote from the bookIna May’s Guide to Childbirth,” Keishin said. “And a fact.”
“And you know that because?” Liz said, her breathing slowing down.
“Do you want the long or short story?”
“Short.” Liz blew out air in measured breaths. “Definitely short.”
