Chapter 2
“You wrote that you miss her.”
His eyes flicked toward Ruth.
I knew that look. He was checking who else had heard.
“Can we have some privacy?”
Ruth looked at me instead.
“Do you want him here?”
I had spent nine months practicing how to breathe through childbirth. Nobody had taught me how to breathe through discovering another family beside my water cup.
“Get him out.”
Garrett laughed once, sharply.
“She doesn't mean that.”
Ruth asked me again, gently enough that I understood she wanted my answer.
“Yes.”
Another staff member came to the doorway. Ruth stayed beside the bed.
Garrett stepped toward me.
“Please. You're upset. We can talk after.”
I looked at the wedding ring on his hand. That morning, before we left the house, he had used that hand to lock the nursery window and check Lucy's car seat.
“What does she mean by home?”
He didn't answer.
The contraction tightened. Ruth helped me turn my attention back to what my body was doing.
I had wanted Garrett beside me because I loved him.
Now I wanted the door closed because every time I looked at him, I lost the thread of Ruth's instructions.
“Sir,” the other nurse said. “You need to come with me.”
“You're really making me miss my daughter's birth?”
The accusation was so familiar that, for a second, I nearly apologized.
I apologized when he forgot appointments and felt embarrassed. I apologized when his mother said I had made her uncomfortable by correcting something she'd told our friends.
I was good at smoothing the moment before anyone noticed who had caused it.
That night, I couldn't do it.
“You could have put the phone down.”
His mouth opened.
“Go,” I said.
He moved reluctantly, looking back as if I might call him over again.
I remembered our childbirth class, the one he had attended. The instructor had asked partners to describe the support they planned to offer.
Garrett said he would be my steady place.
Everyone smiled.
I had carried that sentence into the hospital with me.
At the doorway, his phone rang.
He answered before the other nurse had finished speaking.
“She saw the messages,” he whispered.
Then the door closed.
I turned toward Ruth, frightened by how quickly the room had changed.
“I don't know if I can do this.”
She adjusted the pillow beneath my shoulder.
“You're doing it now.”