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She did.

“Ain’t nothing gonna happen to you.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“What about the baby?”

“Him either.”

Mama closed her eyes, and when she did, Daddy pressed his forehead against hers.

“You hear me?”

She nodded.

I looked out the window because suddenly I felt like I was watching something I wasn’t supposed to see. My parents had always been my parents. But right then, they were just Malik and Eternity. Daddy was simply a husband trying to keep his wife from being afraid when I could tell he was terrified himself. MJ turned around, and his eyes met mine. I didn’t have to ask if he was scared because I could see it. He looked toward Mama and then back at me.

“You good?” he mouthed.

I nodded, but it was a lie. His face told me he knew it too.

“I see the hospital,” Tahari said the words I’d been waiting to hear.

I leaned forward, and there it was. Daddy looked through the windshield.

“Go to the emergency entrance,” he instructed.

MJ already had his seat belt off before Tahari pulled beneath the covered entrance.

“MJ, get her a wheelchair,” Daddy ordered.

“I got it.”

MJ was out of the truck almost as soon as it stopped. I unbuckled my seat belt and turned toward Daddy’s wheelchair beside me.

“I got yours.”

MJ came running back with a wheelchair and a hospital employee behind him.

“My mama’s in labor,” he said. “Her water broke, and she’s in a lot of pain.”

The woman looked inside the truck as MJ pulled the door open.

“How far apart are her contractions?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “They’re coming fast.”

“Has she had any bleeding?”

Mama shook her head.

“Ma’am, can you tell me where the pain is?”

“Everywhere,” Mama cried. “My stomach and my back. Something doesn’t feel right.”

That changed the woman’s expression. Not dramatically, but I saw it. She looked toward another employee standing near the doors.

“We need to get her upstairs.”