“What does that mean?” Zyanya asked.
“I think she’s telling us the baby is a girl.” I squeezed my eyes shut, grinding my jaw as the next contraction gripped me like the fist of a giant, somehow squeezing from the inside. The pain was so bad that it hardly seemed real. Yet it felt very, very real. So real that nothing else existed in that minute and a half. Not the women staring at me from the doorway. Not Lenore, frantically scanning the birth book for something that might help. Not Gallagher, watching helplessly from the chair he’d dragged next to the bed.
Nothing existed in those brutal moments but me and the pain.
And from that moment on, I hated everyone else in the room. Everyone in the cabin. I hated everyone who could still stand upright or see their own feet. Everyone who wasn’t worried about soiling the bed with more than amniotic fluid. Everyone who would get to hold the baby and coo over her, after doing nothing more than standing there, watching.
I knew that wasn’t fair. They weren’t at fault. But the pain wouldn’t stop, and I couldn’t think straight.
“Zy.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her closer, my grip like iron. “Something’s wrong.”
“What do you mean? What do you feel?”
“Ache. Pressure. My back feels like something’s riding my lower spine like train tracks, up and down. Spasming.”
She pried her hand from my grip and gestured for Gallagher to shoo everyone else out of the room. When the door clicked closed, Zyanya peeled back the sheet and lowered herself to take a look. “Okay.” Her head popped back up into my line of sight, over my belly. “It’s time to have a baby.”
“Does that mean nothing’s wrong?”
“That means that if something’s wrong, we won’t know until we see the baby.” She turned to Lenore. “Go sterilize a pair of scissors, for the cord. And get something clean to wrap the baby in. Our softest towel. Or an old shirt.”
“Delilah.” Gallagher took my hand, his features at war between fear and excitement. “We’re about to become parents!”
“Believe it or not, that has not escaped my notice,” I snapped. But his smile didn’t waver.
The next few minutes passed in a pain-filled fog of instructions and a flurry of activity around me. I lifted my hips so the pads beneath me could be changed and Lenore came in with clean towels and cloths for cleaning and wrapping the baby, which she layered on the other half of the bed. But I saw it all in my peripheral vision, my head laid back on the pillows so that only the ceiling was in clear view. And even that seemed to whoosh in and out of focus with my racing pulse.
“Okay, Delilah, it’s time to push,” Zyanya said, one hand on my stomach, so she could feel the strength of my contraction. But I hardly heard her.
“Delilah.” Gallagher slid one hand beneath my neck and helped me sit up. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked Zyanya, his deep voice thick with concern.
“She’s exhausted. Delilah!” Zyanya snapped her fingers in front of my face. “The baby needs you! Push!”
So I pushed. I felt something tear, and fire seemed to lick the wound. I screamed, and Gallagher’s hand tightened around mine.
“Is she okay?” he demanded.
Zyanya ignored him. “One more time, Delilah. Her head’s right there. One more time.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore.” I hated myself for saying it, but it was true. I hadn’t asked for this.
“Delilah.” Zyanya put one hand on my knee and looked right into my eyes. “We don’t always get to make our own choices. It doesn’t matter how you got here. That partnevermatters, once you’re here. This isn’t about you anymore. This is about the baby. Bring her into this world so you can stop being pregnant and start being a mother.”
With a groan, I propped myself upright again and bore down, my jaw clenched so hard I heard the bones groan from inside my own head. The pain was excruciating. I felt like I was on fire.
Then, all at once, relief. I felt her slide into the world, and the next thing I knew, I was bawling.
Zyanya handed the baby to Gallagher, who suddenly had a clean towel in his hands, and I don’t remember what happened to me after that. All I remember is the baby.
No matter how big she’d felt inside me, she looked tiny in his hands. Red, and little, and beautiful.
He stood there, frozen, staring down at this little bundle of life as if he’d never truly seen anything good before. As if he’d been wandering around in the dark for his entire existence, and suddenly someone had flipped a switch and shown him how brilliant the world could be.
She was that light. Our daughter. But she was so still. So quiet.
“Here.” Lenore tossed the birthing book onto the nightstand and folded the edge of the towel over the baby, while she lay there in Gallagher’s hands. She began to clean our daughter with soft, circular strokes, and the baby started to squirm. Then she sucked in a breath.
And started screaming.
