“I will say it this one time, and then we will not talk aboutit again. I am not dying. We are at one of the best hospitals in the country—hell, in the world. This is going to be a perfect day. We’re going to watch my favorite movies, and order more of this terrible hospital food, and the expertly trained nurses and doctors at this hospital are going to be here every step of the way.”
“It feels like you’re tempting fate.” He seemed so young in that moment. So small. And she wondered whether it was his powerlessness that had instilled in him such misplaced fear. All he could do today was hold her hand and coach her through. He could not trade bodies with her. They could not swap roles when the going got too hard.
“I’ll stop,” she said. “I told you I wouldn’t say it again, and I won’t.” She patted the bed beside her, satisfied when he finally cracked a smile, then laughed.
“I’m not going to fit there.”
“Just try.” He sunk onto the bed and swung his long legs around until he was supine next to her. “Good,” she said, firing up her laptop. “Now buckle up. It’s time.”
“Are you sure?” He winced, sitting up a little on the pillows.
“Yep,” she said. “This may be the only time in my life I have exactly the right leverage to make you watch this, start to finish.”
He strung an arm around her shoulders and placed one on her protruding stomach, soft and smooth beneath her robe. “I’d say that’s about right,” he said. “Unless this experience makes you want to fill the house with kids.”
“I’m in a pretty good mood, honestly, but do not talk to me about more kids right now.”
“Noted.”
Rose clicked play. “Okay, just so you know, the first twenty minutes are kind of boring. If this were a rewatch, I’d skip them.The movie’s long enough as it is.” Sepia-toned onlookers waved farewell to passengers and crew as a mournful hymn played through the laptop’s speakers. The music faded out as submersibles descended into dark, deep water, their bright lights flashing.
“Twenty minutes?” Landon asked, skeptical.
“This is all set in the future,” Rose said, gesturing at the footage of the wreckage, theTitanic’s two pieces still eerily intact on the ocean floor. “You don’t need this part to understand the story, but it helps.”
Landon turned to look at her, and she noticed he’d draped one leg off the edge of the twin hospital bed to give her more room. “You’re amazing, you know,” he said.
“Shhh.” She pointed to the screen. “You’ll miss it.”
An hour into the movie, her contractions started. They were reassuring, and not intense or regular enough to distract. Three hours later, a few minutes after the end credits rolled and Rose had wiped most of the tears from her face, they picked up with force. Landon got his stopwatch out of his backpack. The game was on.
If Rose hadn’t been in so much pain, she would have marveled at the way the room shifted from peaceful soundscape to harsh, white light. Emergencies have a way of transforming spaces—Rose had certainly watched enough medical dramas to know that. A room in a hospital was a holding or healing pen until death knocked at the door. It didn’t matter how light his knuckles.
The doctor’s face at the foot of her bed was strikingly illuminated by the LED lights. Rose wasn’t sure if it was the drugs talking, or the adrenaline, but she found it beautiful. “I’m going to need a good push on this next contraction, Rose,” the doctor said,calm despite the tension in the room. She’d needed a good push on every one of the four contractions that had passed while she’d tried to help baby out of the cozy spot they’d wedged themselves into, jammed in like a crooked puzzle piece, unable to make the straight shot out on their own. Rose thought she’d been giving good pushes, but maybe she hadn’t—maybe she’d been sending the thought down through the tight muscles on her stomach in a way that hadn’t translated. Or maybe the epidural hadn’t worn off quite as much as she’d thought.
“You’re doing great,” Landon said. She clenched her teeth and his hand with equal force. It was blinding. Brutal. The world blurred around her, and she knew there was no equivalent to this pain she would ever experience again. Her body was bursting at the seams, ripping apart, changing with every push. Landon stared into her eyes in a way that was both too steady and too serious and made her think it was all exactly as bad as it felt. The contraction finished, and Rose collapsed.
The monitor to her right beeped. “Baby’s heart rate is up.” The doctor looked at Rose from above her bright blue surgical mask. “We’re going to try forceps. If we can’t get the baby out on the next contraction, we’re prepped for an emergency C-section.”
“Okay,” Rose said. Or she thought she did. She’d commanded her body to say it, but it was impossible to tell whether the synapses had actually fired. There had been times in Rose’s life where hours had felt like days, days like weeks, and months like years, but those times had nothing on the three minutes that stood between Rose and this final push. The seconds dragged, threatening to pull her down to the bottom of the ocean to rest among the remains of the ghost ship she’d begged Landon to take an interest in a lifetime ago. There was no harmless chatter in the room, noshooting the breeze, no oohing and aahing over any part of the experience. They rested on a knife’s edge.
The clock ticked, and Rose, who believed in the sanctity of science and could count on one hand the number of times she’d stepped foot in a church, began to pray.God, she thought,God, it all seems so formal, talking in my head like this. But maybe that’s all part of it. The surrendering. The letting go. It’s me, Rose. I don’t know who you are or what you are, but I hope you’re a woman, because I don’t think a man is going to understand this in the same way. I need you to do something for me that is in my worst interest. I need you to make sure the baby makes it out of this. I’m sure you’re looking down on this scene and thinking that you’ve seen a million worse things, and I’m not here to argue that. I’m just here to tell you that I don’t think I could bear it if I’m here and this baby is not. This baby is a blank slate. They could do anything. Be anyone. Please, whoever you are, whatever you are, if you hear me, give me a sign. Some sort of sign to let me know you heard me, to let me know—
The contraction gripped her and Rose shrieked with pain.
“Push, push, push!” the doctor yelled, pulling on the end of the forceps with more force than Rose could ever have imagined given how small and compact her body was. So much force she couldn’t understand how the baby’s head was still wedged there. The monitors whirred and beeped and Rose was tired—so, so tired. “Push, push,” Landon said beside her, voice thick with emotion Rose could not think too deeply about. She could not think anymore. She could only feel.
Push.
Push.
Push.
Pull. The doctor pulled hard—hard enough a head finally,mercifully, miraculously broke through. “You’re doing great, Rose,” she said. “Baby’s head is right here. I’m going to need another good push. Three more pushes and we can get baby out safe. You give me three more good pushes.”
Three pushes, Rose thought, desperate for anything to hold on to. Sweat streamed down her face, matted her hair to her skin, and fell into her eyes.
“You can do this,” Landon said beside her. “You have to do this, Rose.”
