“Tell me you feel it.”
“What?” I whispered.
“That you fill up every bit of space in my chest. For weeks. Months. Since New York, maybe.”
Since New York, maybe.
And did I feel it?
I hadn’t let myself believe Barry could want this with me for any reason beyond the baby that we made by accident. It was easier to tell myself that if he loved me, it was only because he lovedherfirst.
But he’d been showing me that wasn’t true since he found me again, taking care of me, not because he didn’t think I could take care of myself, but because he didn’t want me to have to go through any of this alone.
Since that first pregnancy test, I’d been imagining a life for me and this baby: her fingerprints on the walls, squeaking laughs while playing in the sprinklers in the yard, chasing Junior through the house—I saw her with bright eyes and countless freckles that she would grow to hate and then love. I saw myself trying my hardest to give her a good life, full of love. I saw her slamming her bedroom door and yelling at me in the same way I used to yell at my mom. I saw a whole life of me and her.
And now, it was so clear. I saw Barry too.
In the reel of footage of our life, Barry was there too, throwing our daughter over his shoulder, teaching her how to skate while I taught her how to paint, cutting her hair in the kitchen while I helped with her ABCs, pointing at us when he scored a goal, crying at her preschool graduation—of course he was there.
He would be there for both of us, as steadily as he’d been here for me since he found me asleep in the practice facility. He’d been trying to show me he wasn’t going anywhere, and I was too stubbornly afraid to let myself believe him.
How many ways did he have to tell me he loved me before I listened?
“Barry, I?—”
Doctor Ramirez brushed into the room rubbing hand sanitizer into her hands, a shining familiar face but with a crease of worry where there was usually composed serenity. Seeing the intense way we were almost embracing each other, she frowned,but Barry played it off easily, taking my hand from over his heart and holding it at my side.
“Really glad you two came in, Hannah,” she said. She patted my ankle in a way that was so surprising and assuring, it almost made me want to cry. “Reviewing your latest urine test and levels, I think best course of action is to induce labor and get this baby out of you as soon as possible.”
I swallowed and tried to breathe through the surge of fear that made my stomach drop. The baby kicked, right on cue.
I looked at Barry, who’d gone pale, but nodded back at me.
“Stay,” I said. “Please.”
He deflated with these two words, a slight relief on his face. He squeezed my hand.
“Of course, sweetheart.”
Turning back to Doctor Ramirez, I almost smiled. “Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER 37
IT’S CALLED LABOR FOR A REASON
I thought inducing labor meant that the actual labor would happen very quickly.
I was wrong.
They told me it could take a full twenty-four hours after induction to actually have this baby, which was absurd to me, but who was I to tell them that? The steady stream of doctors and nurses watched my blood pressure closely and had strapped some fetal monitors around my middle to make sure the baby wasn’t in too much stress. At this point, so many people had seen my vagina, I didn’t even blink about it.
The contractions had started less than an hour after the actual induction started, and they ranged from uncomfortable to horrifically painful. I had said I would get medication if I wanted, and oh, did I indeed want.
I had thought briefly that I might be able to dig deep like, I don’t know, my ancestors who had no other choice, but when it came down to it, I basically begged for an epidural, which they were all too happy to give. Barry looked relieved, too. He’d gripped my hand about as hard as I held his when I was crying over contractions and looked generally pale and faint.
Five hours passed like this. I couldn’t imagine not having Barry there with me—wouldn’t even think about letting him leave this room. I didn’t tell him I loved him, and he didn’t bring up anything in the realm of the conversation we’d been having before Doctor Ramirez came in.
I wanted to tell him. I was itching to. It certainly was not theright time, though, not when I could be rendered speechless by pain in my abdomen at any given time.
