49. Declan #2
The labor room contains more cords, screens, and questions than my notebook prepared me for.
A nurse named Priya clips bands around Avery’s wrist, asks before every exam, and reads the admission page aloud when Avery says she can’t focus on the print.
I open the notebook when Avery tells me to track the answers.
Allergies. Last food. Contraction pattern.
Birth-plan copy. Who may receive updates.
Avery answers each one. I write the words she wants remembered and leave the choices where they belong.
Dr. Evans arrives after the examination confirms labor has changed her cervix enough to admit her. She reviews the monitor, asks Avery about pain relief, and tells her she may wait or request the epidural now. Avery looks at me, sweat gathering at her hairline.
“Don’t give me the neutral answer,” she says. “Tell me what you think.”
I want whatever stops the pain. But it is her body, not mine. “I think you don’t owe anybody a particular kind of birth. If you want the epidural, ask for it. If you don’t, I’ll keep pressing your back until you change your mind or our child arrives.”
“I want it.” Avery looks at Dr. Evans. “I wanted to wait. I don’t anymore.”
The anesthesiologist explains the process to her, not to me.
When Avery has to sit forward through contractions, she tells me to hold her hands and keep my face where she can see it.
I do, and I let the fear stay on it. I’m terrified enough for both of us, and pretending otherwise would leave her alone with the truth.
After the medication begins working, Avery lies back with a blood-pressure cuff around her arm and says she hates every person who ever described this as pressure.
She can move her legs, but the pain has receded enough that she drinks water, dozes between checks, and wakes angry whenever the cuff tightens.
I tell her another story about my mother, this one about the blue motorcycle and the seven paint cards she rejected. Avery knows the bike. The part she’s missing is that my mother chose the brightest blue on the card after a driver claimed he hadn’t seen her at an intersection.
“She said if somebody ran her over after that, she wanted them to have to admit they hit a color visible from space,” I say, replacing the wet cloth on Avery’s forehead after she nods.
“I liked her.” Avery opens her eyes. “She was terrifying.”
“She liked you too.” The sentence hurts in a room where Avery will become a mother before the day ends. “The last week, when she stopped talking much, she asked whether you were eating. She knew you were the one caring for her and worried you would forget yourself.”
Avery turns her face toward the window. “You never told me that.”
“I was angry she asked about you when she was dying. I wanted her attention. Then she died, and telling you would’ve meant admitting I was jealous of the woman washing her hair and warming her soup.” I fold the cloth before putting it back in the basin. “I should’ve told you.”
“You should have.” Avery keeps looking toward the pale line of morning around the blinds. “Tell me another one later.”
Hours pass in checks, position changes, ice chips, and the private indignities Avery handles by ordering me to stop looking worried.
She vomits into a basin after a wave of nausea catches her between checks, and I hold it while Priya fixes the pillow behind her.
Avery wipes her mouth, glares at the clear liquid in the cup I offer, and tells me labor has ruined water as a concept.
I write the time of the medication Dr. Evans orders, ask Priya to repeat the next position, and keep my questions useful.
Nothing makes a man ready to watch the person he loves hurt while all he can do is listen and follow directions.
My phone vibrates across the counter near midday. Cruz’s name lights the screen, disappears, then appears again. A message from Bones follows. Another call begins before the first preview clears.
The old need to take over wakes fast. Something happened. They need the route I built, the gun I know how to place, the answer no one else has. I can open one message, solve one problem, and return before Avery notices my attention left. That was how every Tuesday began.
“Your phone,” Avery says. Her eyes remain closed, but she heard the vibration. “Who is it?”
“Cruz called twice. Bones sent a message. I haven’t opened it.” I bring the phone to her bed without unlocking it. “Do you want to see the screen?”
She looks, then grips the rail as a contraction reaches her through the epidural. “Send them to Gage. Don’t ask me whether the club matters. I know it does. You told them who has command.”
I unlock the phone where she can watch and send one message to Cruz, Bones, and Gage with their own messages still sitting unread: Avery is in labor. Gage has command. Send every club matter to him. I’m turning off my phone. I show her the words before pressing send.
“Good,” she says, releasing the rail only to point at the side button. “Off. I don’t want another vibration making you wonder whether you should be somewhere else.”
I shut it down and place it face-down inside the bag. The unanswered calls stay where they are. I push the bag back against the wall with my boot. Gage has command, Avery asked me to stay, and there’s nowhere else in the world I have the right to be.
Late afternoon turns the window gold before Avery’s body begins shaking. The nurse says trembling can happen. Dr. Evans says the baby is tolerating labor. Every fact reaches me, and fear keeps trying to replace it with the sight of Avery gripping the bed while I stand useless beside her.
“Something is wrong,” Avery says, catching my shirt when another tremor runs through her arms. “I can’t stop shaking, and everybody keeps telling me it can happen like that makes it stop.”
She reaches, and I take her hand. “Priya checked the monitor. Dr. Evans is here. The baby’s heart is on the screen, and she said this can happen before birth. That’s what I know.”
“And what don’t you know?” Her eyes lock on mine, demanding the part fear always made me hide from her, and this room leaves nowhere for a comforting lie.
“How long it’ll take. Whether the next part gets harder. What you’ll need from me before it ends.” I put my other hand on the bed instead of on her. “Tell me one thing at a time, and I’ll do it.”
Her fingers tighten when pressure pulls her attention downward. Dr. Evans checks her, looks toward Priya, and tells Avery the baby is coming. The room begins moving around us: the end of the bed changes, a cart rolls closer, and another nurse enters after knocking even though the door is open.
Avery finds my hand before panic can send me searching for a task nobody gave me. She drags me near her shoulder and fixes her eyes on mine.
“Don’t move,” she says, dragging me near enough that my leg strikes the side of the bed. The promise she wants covers the next ten minutes and no further. She wants my feet in one place while our child arrives.
I brace my feet beside the bed and let her hold as hard as she needs. “I’m not moving.”