Chapter 14 - THE SOUND WE WAITED FOR
It was a larger pocket of bleeding, not the disaster I'd imagined while riding to the clinic. Dr. Bell reviewed the scan carefully, explained the monitoring plan, and gave me a list of symptoms that meant I should seek emergency care. I started keeping that list on my refrigerator, next to a magnet from a beach trip Alex and I had taken before everything went wrong.
The months didn't turn me into a new person overnight. I still cried in grocery-store parking lots. I still checked Alex's social media once and then felt sick about it. I got good at asking for help and bad at accepting it. Laura got better at telling me when she was too tired to come over.
The divorce moved forward slowly. Alex made the first repayment. I got the house for the time being, not because I had earned a prize but because our attorneys reached temporary terms that made practical sense. The police investigation stayed open longer than any of us expected and eventually closed without criminal charges. I disliked the uncertainty. I learned to live without pretending uncertainty meant nothing had happened.
Paige called once to tell me she and Alex had canceled the wedding. She didn't sound triumphant. She sounded like somebody standing in an apartment full of things she'd bought for a future that wasn't coming.
"I'm due soon," she said.
"I know."
"I hope your baby is okay."
I wanted to be gracious. Instead, I said, "Me too," and ended the call.
Five months after the fall, at thirty-four weeks, I woke at two in the morning to a wet sheet and a pain low across my back. The hospital told me to come in immediately. Laura drove through empty Chicago streets with both hands locked around the wheel.
"You're speeding," I said.
"I'm doing thirty-eight."
"Then why are you making that face?"
"This is my face."
I laughed, and then another contraction folded me in half.
The delivery room smelled like clean linen and the sour coffee Laura had spilled on herself. Nurses moved around me, calm but fast. A doctor explained what was happening. I nodded even when I needed things repeated.
I did not call Alex. Nia had helped arrange a plan for urgent medical information, and Laura handled the notifications when the time came.
My daughter arrived small and furious, with one fist lifted beside her cheek. I heard a cry, short and sharp, before the neonatal team took her to be checked. She needed breathing help for a while and a stay in the NICU.
"She's here," the nurse said.
I kept asking, "Can I see her?" Nobody told me to stop asking. They showed me her tiny face beneath a knitted cap and explained each tube in simple words.
We named her June. I'd promised myself I wouldn't choose a name until I saw her, and then it was the only one that fit.
Later, when Laura brought my phone into the room, there were two messages waiting.
One was from Alex: Thank you for telling me. Please let me know what the doctors say.
May you like
The other was from Paige: My daughter was born yesterday. There's something you deserve to know.
