39
EXACTLY THREE HOURSafter I’d hugged Lydia goodbye in front of my building and gunned my Prius through the streets of Boston and onto the highway, I was at the hospital, clomping through the lobby in the heeled sandals that I’d worn to Alewife this morning.
“Can I help you?” The bearded, white-haired man behind the reception desk peered up at me from behind his glasses.
“Oh,” I huffed with an anxious exhale, slowing down for the first time today long enough to notice that my heart was bouncing in my chest like a pinball machine, shoulders tight and pinched. Even my butt muscles were, well, clenched. “Yes, please. I have a friend in the maternity ward?”
He pointed a long finger toward the hallway to his left. “Waiting room is thataway,” Hospital Santa said and then looked back down at his computer screen.
I hustled off, following the trail of flickering overhead lights down the hallway and around the corner, which emptied out into a waiting room that was decidedly more cheerful than the one we’d crashed in a few nights ago. Cozy couches were positioned around a coffee table, and the walls were a soothing, inoffensive yellow.
And in the middle of the room was Eloise, pacing in a circle as she inhaled a Snickers bar.
“El!” I called, bolting toward her.
“OhmahgodClawa,” she said through a full mouth, collapsing against me as I caught her in a hug. “I’m so glad you made it.”
“Me too, how is she?” I rushed.
Eloise took a step back, gawking at me. “What. The. Fuck. Did you do to your hair?”
“I had my assistant cut it today.” I reached up and felt around the jagged edges where Lydia had attempted her best “French bob,” based on pictures she’d pulled up on her phone during the Uber ride to my apartment. “We didn’t have much time, so she kinda hacked it off in like, two chops. I might have had a little bit of a midlife crisis this morning. But it’s all good. I’m good.”
“I like it. I’ve just never seen you with short hair.” She took another bite, pausing to admire Lydia and my kitchen shears’ handiwork. “It’s, like, crazy uneven, but maybe that’s what’s cool right now?”
“I think you of all people would know if something was cool,” I said, my face breaking out into a massive grin. I was so happy to be back with my friends.
She swatted me away, pretending to be bashful.
“How is she?” I said, refocusing.
“She got the epidural when we got here, so she’s been resting, but the doctor thinks she’ll be pushing very soon. I’m about to head back in there.”
Eloise clenched her teeth together nervously. “I thought labor was supposed to be, like, days long, but this baby is coming fast.”
“Her mom must be freaking out,” I said.
“Oh, Marla and I have both been on the phone with her all morning,” she said. “She’s probably getting pulled over for speeding right now.”
“And everyone else is—”
“Back at Pine Lake. Mack tried to load everyone into his car, but Sam screamed at them to stay back, and I drove her.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly nervous that maybe I’d misread the intention of Sam’s texts. “Should I go there, then?”
“Clara,” she said, leveling a hard look at me as she licked the chocolate off her thumb. “She literally asked me no less than five times for your ETA.”
“Okay, phew,” I said, my heart swelling with relief that Sam hadn’t just wanted me here, she’d expected me, trusted I’d come. “So should we just wait out here then?”
Eloise let out a laugh as she crumpled up the wrapper, tossing it underhand in the trash can next to us.
“Oh no, my friend. You’re about to go help have a baby.”
“Me?” I was still in my work clothes, teetering in my uncomfortable heels, and decked out in the light blue suit set that I’d worn this morning, to match the color of our proposed branding palette for Alewife.
“Yes, you,” said Eloise finally. “I’m handling music and taking photos.”
“Wait. I don’t know what to do,” I said, my voice pitched with panic. I didn’t know the first thing about childbirth, other than every terrible portrayal I’d seen on TV. I was utterly lost, with no plan at all. “I told her I wanted to be here to help, but I didn’t mean like, doing labor!”
“Clara,” Eloise said, her voice firm. “She just wants you in there. You’ll figure the rest out.”
I nodded, remembering what Sam had said a few days earlier.
You’ll know when I really need your help.
I didn’t need to know what I was doing. I just needed to be there. To show up.
This, I finally knew how to do.
I lasted all of five minutes in the delivery room in my heels. Soon they were shoved next to the tiny plastic couch where Eloise sat, poised and elegant as if there wasn’t a person giving birth a mere two feet away across from her, as she tapped out mood music selections on Sam’s phone.
“I had everything planned.” It had been the first thing Sam had moaned at me when I walked into the room. She was naked except for a soft, wireless bra, her brow covered in the faintest sheen of sweat, ringlets swept off her face with a headband.
“I know you did,” I said, reaching down to stroke her forehead. I knew that feeling all too well.
“Please don’t touch me,” she grumbled, her eyes glazed over. “I can’t handle being touched right now.”
“You got it,” I said with a firm nod. “I’m here to help however you need me, okay?”
I reached up to tuck my hair behind my ears only to find I barely had anything there anymore. I kept forgetting today’s frantic chop in my kitchen, as Lydia hacked my hair off over the trash can. Had it really only been a few hours since I stood by the swan boats, watching a loon flail in the water next to a stranger? It seemed like decades ago, another lifetime, even.
Today had been chaotic and terrifying, reckless and racked with stress. Scary, for sure. But also joyful, and meaningful; and here, right now, full of love.
I didn’t need to follow any list to right the course of my life.
It was all here, waiting for me to just live it.
Suddenly, the Spice Girls burst forth from Eloise’s phone, and Sam waved a thumbs-up in her direction as she exhaled a low, guttural moan.
I shot Eloise a confused look. “Seriously?” I mouthed.
“It’s her labor playlist!” she whispered back as one of the nurses who’d been fluttering in and out of the room appeared to check Sam’s dilation, bending over her spread legs.
“If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends,” the Spice Girls warbled from the phone’s speaker.
“Clara, this song seems appropriate for your list,” Sam said in a husky, exhausted voice as the nurse bent over her. “Maybe you and Mack should dance to this?”
“I cannot believe you’re able to make jokes right now,” I said, positioning myself next to her head.
“Look, moms really are superheroes,” she quipped, closing her eyes. “And the epidural helps.”
Sam stilled, quiet, and then winced as she began breathing through another contraction, exhaling out a rumbling “Ahhhhh” as she clenched her hands, gripping the sheet beneath her.
“Honey, you’re nine centimeters dilated, and everything looks great,” the nurse said matter-of-factly. “The doctor will be right in any minute, okay? It’s almost time.”
“Time for what?” I asked her.
“Time for her to push,” the nurse said, like I should know exactly what was about to happen. “You can help by standing right by her and encouraging her.”
I knew what childbirth entailed, obviously. But I also felt completely clueless, desperate to duck out. But there was no leaving. I was here and determined to stay.
“Okay,” I said, heart racing. “Sam, is that cool? I’m going to be right here the whole time.”
“Give her something to focus on,” the nurse said, like it was obvious.
“Oh my god, should we seriously do the hypnotherapy breathing thing?” I asked, my voice rising an octave with panic.
“Just tell me a story,” Sam said, cracking a weary smile. “Like when the hell did you cut your hair?”
Another contraction hit before I could even open my mouth, and this time Sam let out a loud “Fuck!” just as the Spice Girls harmonized their final “zigazig-ah.”
My life in this moment was nothing like what I would have imagined it to be at fifteen. And yet somehow, I knew in my bones that being here, now, was everything I would have wanted.