2. Heidi
HEIDI
Three days later, an instructor at County Memorial asks every labor partner to put one hand against the small of the pregnant person's back.
Beau's hand lands in exactly the right place.
“Firm pressure during a contraction,” the instructor says. “Ask before changing position. What worked ten minutes ago may stop working.”
“She will tell me,” Beau says quietly.
“I will,” I agree.
We are one of seven couples touring the maternity unit. Most of the pregnant women have reached the stage where standing from a chair requires thought. We smile at one another with the fellowship of people carrying bowling balls inside their bodies.
The unease from Celeste's call has faded during the tour. Beau asks where the ice machine is. He writes down the admissions number. When the instructor mentions backup support, he confirms that my brother Dash is on our list.
Dash is two years older than I am and has approached his assignment as designated backup labor support with grave concern and several inappropriate questions. He is waiting for the call, but Beau is the person I want beside me.
The instructor leads us past the delivery rooms and explains that one support person can stay during early labor, with a second admitted if circumstances allow.
Beau squeezes my hand. We are almost there.
The instructor gives each couple a card for recording contractions. Beau writes my name at the top and adds a small box beside it.
“What's that?”
“For whether you want me to speak.”
“During labor?”
“You said I become very informative when nervous.”
“You explained the mechanics of a drawbridge while I was having dental work.”
“It was relevant to the hinge.”
I lean into his shoulder, laughing. For a few minutes the call in the nursery feels like something we can absorb. He is here. He has planned for me. When I picture labor, I picture his hand beneath mine and his voice close to my ear.
His phone vibrates.
He glances at the screen and silences it. A moment later it vibrates again.
“Take it,” I whisper. “It might be work.”
He steps toward the windows. I hear Celeste's name before the group moves on.
By the time I reach him, he has his coat over one arm.
“She hasn't felt the baby move since breakfast,” he says. “Saint Catherine's told her to come in.”
“Then she should go in.”
“April is at work across town. Celeste is outside her apartment and panicking.”
“Where is the baby's father?”
“Reachable, not nearby. I'm eleven minutes away.”
“From Celeste,” I say.
He hears the accusation. His jaw tightens.
“From Saint Catherine's.”
“We are at County Memorial.”
He glances toward the doors as though distance has already become the only question. Around us, partners practice helping women rise from chairs. The instructor is explaining what to pack if labor begins away from home.
I want Beau to put his coat back down. I want him to look embarrassed that leaving has even occurred to him. Instead, he is waiting for me to understand why he has to go.
“Has she called the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Then medical people have already told her what to do.”
“They told her to come in.”
“And she called you.”
He lowers his voice. “Because she is scared.”
The old shame arrives before the argument has properly begun. If I object, I become the woman who resents a frightened pregnant person. Beau gets to stand on the generous side of the choice while I explain why his wife should matter.
“We are in the middle of our maternity tour.”
His face tightens as if I have asked him to ignore a medical emergency. “Reduced movement needs assessment.”
“I know. I'm a nurse. She can take a taxi. She can call hospital transport. She can ask April to meet her there.”
“A taxi driver won't know what to do if something happens.”
“Neither will you. You'll drive her to the hospital, which is what the taxi would do.”
The other couples are passing us. One man looks away when I meet his eyes.
Beau lowers his voice. “I can get her there and come back before this finishes.”
“You don't know that.”
“Heidi, if our baby stopped moving, I would want somebody to help you.”
I cannot answer at first. I put a hand over the daughter shifting beneath my ribs.
“You are helping me,” I say. “Right now.”
He kisses my forehead. “I'll be back.”
Then he leaves.
The doors close behind him before I believe he has made the decision.
I stay where he left me, one hand beneath my stomach. The instructor calls my name softly. I turn and discover that the whole group has slowed.
“I'm fine,” I say.
Nobody asked.
The woman nearest me is wearing a green sweater stretched over a stomach almost as large as mine. Her partner has one hand at her back. She starts to offer me his empty chair, then seems to think better of it.
I follow the group because standing in the corridor would make the abandonment visible in a different way.
During the next exercise, partners are asked to practice eye contact while the pregnant person breathes through a timed minute. The instructor stands opposite me.
“You can watch me,” she says.
Her voice is kind. That makes it worse.
I keep my eyes on hers while she counts. At forty seconds, my throat closes. At fifty, I decide I will not cry in a room full of strangers wearing name stickers.
At sixty, everybody's partner tells them they did well.
The instructor squeezes my hand.
I join the group at a room staged for practicing labor positions. The instructor looks past me.
“Would you rather wait for your husband?”
Every face turns toward me.
“Work emergency,” I say. “He owns a building company. Something came up at a site.”
The lie arrives easily because it is less humiliating than the truth.
I practice leaning over a raised bed while another expectant mother reads the instructions to me. During the partner exercise, the instructor demonstrates the pressure Beau should have been learning to give.
He does not return.
Two hours later, while I wait alone for a taxi outside County Memorial, his message appears.
The hospital's automatic doors breathe warm air across my back every time somebody walks out. Beau has our car. I could call Dash, but then I would have to explain why I need collecting from a class my husband attended with me for less than half of it.
So I order a taxi and watch the small car icon move slowly across the map.
My lower back aches from standing. I sit on the edge of a concrete planter, then stand again because the pressure is uncomfortable. A couple from the tour passes on the way to their car. The woman in the green sweater lifts one hand.
“Good luck,” she says.
“You too.”
Her partner opens the passenger door for her. I look down at my phone until they drive away.
Celeste and baby are fine. Monitor looked good. Taking her home now.
I type, I'm glad.
He answers with a heart and a photograph of the reassuring monitor strip Celeste has apparently allowed him to see.
I wait for another message.
Nothing comes.
No question about the rest of the tour. No acknowledgment that he took our car. No recognition that I am standing outside the hospital where I will soon deliver our daughter, trying to decide whether asking my husband to come back would make me unreasonable.
I call him.
He answers on the fourth ring. Road noise fills the line.
“Are you still with her?”
“I'm driving her home.”
“You said you would come back.”
He is quiet for half a second. “The tour must be finished by now.”
“That isn't the point.”
“I didn't want her taking a taxi after the scare.”
The same taxi he thought was unsafe for Celeste is on its way to collect me.
“I'm going home,” I say.
“I'll meet you there.”
“Take your time.”
He hears the anger then. “Heidi.”
My taxi turns into the hospital drive.
“I have to go.”
I end the call before he can make the healthy monitor responsible for forgiving him.
I enlarge the photograph before I can stop myself. Beau must have taken it close to Celeste's bed. Her name and the hospital number are outside the frame, but I can see the clean rise and fall of the baby's heartbeat.
I am relieved for a child who has done nothing wrong.
I am furious that relief is supposed to end the conversation.
When the taxi arrives, the driver asks whether my husband is meeting us at home. I say yes. It is the second lie I have told for Beau today, and this one comes out sounding almost natural.