Zyanya scowled at her. “You don’t need a phone to have a baby. You don’t even need a book.”
“I know.” I carefully swung my legs off the bed, hoping that a change in position would help the vicious ache in my back. “But those of us who’ve never done this take a certain amount of comfort from the books. From knowing what’s coming.”
“But you canneverknow what’s coming. Unless you’re an oracle.” Zyanya sat on the bed to watch me pace, but Gallagher kept step with me, hovering, as if he were afraid I might fall. “Each labor is different, even for women who’ve given birth several times,” Zy continued. “What you need is a way to pass the time.”
“That’s easy enough.” Lenore closed the book and set it on the nightstand, and I was pretty sure that was when Zyanya decided to let her live. “Delilah has a lot to tell everyone.”
“I’ll just tell Zy for now, and she can fill everyone else in.” As the next contraction began, I sucked in another sharp breath and bent over with my hands on my knees. “You three...are the only...people...I...want in here.”
So over the next couple of hours, between contractions and cervical checks, I recounted what we’d learned during our trip to the land of free Wi-Fi.
By the time I’d told her everything, I was exhausted and in excruciating pain, and my mouth was noticeably dry. “Gallagher, could you get me a glass of water?”
“No, you can’t eat or drink anything in labor!” Lenore zipped in front of him and blocked the bedroom door with a form less than half his size.
I groaned. “That’s in case I need a caesarean.” I’d read the damn book. I knew as much as she did. “If I need surgery, we’re screwed either way. Bring me some water. Please,” I added when they all looked at me as if I were about to projectile-vomit split-pea soup.
For once, Zyanya agreed with Lenore. “If you start feeling nauseated, you’ll be glad you don’t have a full belly.”
“I’m not going to be glad about anything else until this baby is born.Whydidn’t we bring back a bag of ice from Sonic?”
While I grumbled, Lenore took Gallagher aside and whispered something to him. He disappeared into the main room, and a minute later I heard a loud pounding. But before I could make much sense of it, I was breathing through another excruciating contraction. When it was over, Gallagher appeared at my side with a plastic cup full of ice he’d pulverized for me himself, with a plastic bag and a meat mallet.
“Thank you.” I pulled him down and planted a kiss on his scruffy cheek, and he froze. Then he smiled.
“Please tell me what else I can do. If I could bear this burden for you, I would.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but I kind of hate you right now.” I shoved a large sliver of ice into my mouth and sucked on it for a moment. “The best thing you can do is stay the hell out of my way until I need you.”
Gallagher laughed and dropped a kiss on my forehead. “You sound fierce today. Like a true warrior.” His voice was full of pride, and it made me feel oddly warm inside. Until the next contraction began, and my world spiraled into nothing but a single focal point of agony, with everything else fading into the background.
“Why do people do this?” I demanded as the pain began to fade. Though this time, rather than disappearing, it seemed to settle into my lower back and apply for permanent residence. “You’d think that in a time when we can talk to people all over the world on a device smaller than my hand, someone would have invented a better way to bring new people into the world. This is ridiculous. Archaic.”
Gallagher chuckled, and I fixed him with an ice-cold glare. “If you laugh at me again, I swear I’m going to rip open one ofyourparts so you can share in this beautiful fucking moment.”
His grin only broadened. “If I thought that would help, I would do the damage myself.” He brushed sweaty hair back from my forehead. “You are beautiful. You are powerful. Any child that comes from so heroic an effort is destined for great things.”
“Fine.” I glared up at him. “You get a pass. But only because your stupid, formalfear deargdialect makes this sound much nicer than it must actually look.”
Around the time the pains started coming in five-minute intervals, someone knocked on the door. Gallagher opened it, and Miri, Lala and Genni came in, each carrying a stack of clean white cloths.
I didn’t want to see anyone. But they clearly came bearing gifts, and my pain wasn’t their fault. So I pulled the sheet up to my waist and put on a friendly face.
“What’s this? You did laundry?” We’d bought a bunch of cheap cloth diapers a month ago, because I knew we’d never be able to afford disposables, and I’d been meaning to wash and dry them.
“Not exactly.” Miri set her stack on the dresser, then lifted one from the top and brought it closer for me to see. “They’re a gift, from all of us. Lenore brought us the pattern, last time she went to town. We’ve been sewing all week, after you went to bed. By hand, obviously.” Because we didn’t have a sewing machine.
She handed me the diaper, and I could see that it had been cut into a new shape and sewn with Velcro closures.
“No safety pins necessary,” Lenore said. “It turns out there’s a raging debate online about the best kind of cloth diaper. It also turns out we couldn’t afford any of them. So we made what we could afford. The Velcro was a splurge.”
“You guys!” I held the diaper up, and it blurred beneath my tears.
“You have to use a waterproof cover over these, and we got you a few of those, too,” Lala said. “And we cut and sewed some extra washable padding to go in the diapers, in case your baby has a really big bladder.” She glanced at Gallagher with a grin. “And let’s face it, there’s every chance in the world that this little guy has a big everything.”
I groaned. “Including a big head.”
“Sugar and spice,” Rommily called out from the front room, where she was pacing with her eyes closed. She’d been doing that for hours every day, since we’d buried Eryx.
