6. Heidi
HEIDI
Dash arrives wearing one shoe cover and carrying the second in his hand.
“I came fast,” he says.
I am furious with him for not being Beau.
The thought is so unjust that I begin to cry before the contraction reaches its peak. Dash takes my hand, puts the cold cloth in the wrong place, and moves it the moment I tell him.
“Where is he?” Dash asks.
I cannot answer before the pain crests. He looks at the nurse, and she gives him the briefest explanation possible.
“Other hospital,” she says. “Another patient.”
Dash's face hardens.
“Don't,” I gasp.
“Don't what?”
“Make me defend him. Don't make me explain.”
He pulls the second shoe cover on and comes to the bed.
“You don't have to explain anything.”
The contraction ebbs. I open my eyes and see that he is frightened. Dash, who can joke during a fire alarm and once drove twenty miles with a broken wrist because he did not want to inconvenience anybody, is frightened for me.
“I need Beau,” I say.
“I know.”
He does not tell me Beau will come back. He puts his hand where I point.
“Call him.”
Dash calls. Beau does not answer.
The nurse checks me again. At 4:35, she tells me to push.
Dash calls again. The ringing stops and the line goes to voicemail.
“Leave it,” I say.
He starts speaking after the tone, then looks at me.
“Tell him I'm pushing.”
Dash says it exactly. No threat. No plea. He gives the room number and the time.
The nurse's voice stays calm, but the room changes around me. Another person brings a cart closer. The lights above the bed brighten.
I know what each preparation means. My training supplies labels while my fear ignores all of them.
“Is she all right?” I ask.
“Her heart rate looks good.”
“Say it again.”
She does.
Dash gives me water. Half of it runs down my chin. He wipes it with the corner of the cloth and pretends not to notice that I am shaking.
“I can't.”
The words leave me before I can stop them.
Dash leans close. “You don't have to be impressive.”
“That isn't helpful.”
“All right. You can break my hand.”
I make a sound that might be a laugh. The nurse tells me where to put my strength, and the next contraction gives me no choice about trying.
I push while Dash counts badly and stops when I swear at him. Between contractions, I look at the door.
Every time footsteps pass in the corridor, hope rises without my permission.
“Call again,” I say.
Dash does. No answer.
The nurse says she can see dark hair. I turn toward the empty place beside the bed because Beau should hear that. He should make the foolish face I have imagined for months. He should tell our daughter that she has already exceeded the design specifications.
“Dark hair,” Dash repeats, his voice breaking.
I grip his hand and push again.
Dash stands where Beau should be. He learns my breathing without a class. When I crush his fingers, he gives me the other hand. He does not tell me everything will be fine. He tells me what is true.
“I'm here, Heidi.”
Someone sends him a message. He ignores it until the contraction passes. Then his face changes as he looks at the screen.
“What?”
“Nothing you need now.”
“Show me.”
“After.”
“Dash.”
He turns the phone toward me.
A county gossip account has posted a photograph taken at 4:18 in the public corridor at Saint Catherine's. Beau supports Celeste with one arm around her waist while she grips his shirt. The caption congratulates an old local couple on the baby they appear to be expecting together.
Celeste has shared it.
Please respect our private family moment, she has written.
The post went live at 4:42.
The photograph is not ambiguous. Beau's body curves around Celeste as though the corridor belongs to the two of them. Her face is against his chest. One of his hands spreads over the side of her stomach.
I know why he is holding her. I know a contraction can fold a person and that a steady body becomes the nearest thing to grab.
The caption strips away every explanation.
“She shared that?” I ask.
Dash locks the phone. “You don't need this.”
“She wrote family.”
He looks toward the nurse.
“Heidi.”
“My husband is in another woman's family photograph while I am having his baby.”
The nurse takes my free hand. “Look at me. Your baby is coming now.”
I look because she is here.
The timestamp stays in the corner of my vision.
“Report it,” Dash says.
“No.”
“They are saying he is her baby's father.”
“Removing it won't bring him here.”
Pain tears the room away.
At 4:51, my daughter is born.
The final push tears a cry out of me. Then the pressure changes, the room moves, and a furious voice answers mine.
“She's here,” somebody says.
I cannot see her at first. Panic flashes through me.
“Why can't I see her?”
“One second. She's right here.”
Then they lift her.
She is red and wet and astonishingly small. Her mouth opens around another indignant cry. I reach with both hands, forgetting the line at my wrist and the people around the bed.
“Give her to me.”
The nurse settles her against my chest.
Heat. Weight. A slippery shoulder beneath my palm. My daughter turns her face against my skin as if she knows there is something here she needs.
I laugh and sob at once.
“Hello,” I say. “Hello, sweetheart. I have you.”
Dash stands beside me with his mouth pressed tight. I have never seen my brother cry this hard.
“Look at her ear,” I tell him.
It is the smallest perfect ear I have ever seen. I need someone else to witness it. I need Beau, and the need cuts through the joy so sharply that I gasp.
The nurse asks whether I am in pain.
“No.” I hold my daughter closer. “Yes. Not that.”
Dash understands. He puts his hand on my shoulder and keeps it there.
Against my chest, she quiets enough to listen to my heartbeat.
“Your uncle is here,” I tell her. “Your grandmother is coming. You are loved.”
Dash cries openly. When the nurse asks about the cord, he looks at me before touching anything.
“You,” I tell him.
His hands shake. He is very careful.
My mother, Suzanne, reaches the hospital soon after. She comes into the labor room with her coat half buttoned and both hands pressed over her mouth. Dash tells her the baby is healthy before he tells her anything else.
Mom comes straight to the bed, then stops as though she needs permission to enter the moment.
“Come here,” I say.
She bends over us. Her fingers touch my daughter's back, barely making contact.
“Oh, Heidi.”
I hear pride, fear, and the question she will not ask while I am holding my new baby.
“Beau left,” I say.
Her eyes close.
“Dash told me.”
“He knew I was nine centimeters.”
“I know.”
“I asked him not to go.”
Mom presses her mouth to my hair. “I know, honey.”
I begin crying again. The baby startles, and I force my breathing slower until she settles.
“I don't want this to be the first story she hears about herself.”
“It won't be,” Mom says. “The first story is that she came out shouting and you held her.”
I look down at my daughter's face.
“She did shout.”
“Excellent lungs,” Dash says.
His voice is rough. I reach for his hand.
The nurse asks whether we have a name.
I look at my daughter's small face. The card in the hospital folder is somewhere in Beau's bag.
“Ivy,” I say.
The name belongs to her as soon as it leaves my mouth.
“Ivy,” Mom repeats.
Dash laughs through his tears. “Good. I was worried you'd name her after me under pressure.”
“I considered it.”
“A girl named Dash would be formidable.”
The nurse writes Ivy on the card at the bassinet. I watch each letter appear.
“Her last name?” she asks.
“Dunmore.”
My voice holds.
Beau's name lives inside that answer. I resent it for half a second, then look at Ivy. It is her name too. She does not have to surrender anything because her father failed to arrive.
The nurse checks my bleeding and presses on my abdomen. Pain blooms beneath her hand. I gasp, and Mom takes my fingers.
“I thought the painful part was over,” Dash says from a safe distance.
“Leave while you remain loved,” I tell him.
He smiles, relieved to hear me sound like myself.
When the nurse finishes, I ask for my phone. There are six missed calls from Beau now. I do not listen to the messages.
I take a photograph of Ivy's ear instead.
I hold Ivy while my mother cries against my hair. Dash stands beside the bed with Beau's unanswered calls on his phone and the gossip post still gathering comments.
Dash bends close enough that his tears fall onto my gown. I laugh at him, then start crying again when Ivy opens one dark, unfocused eye. For this minute, I let my daughter be the whole room.