12. Allison
ALLISON
My water breaks between two rows of winter pansies.
For one stupid second I look up at the roof, because the first thing a greenhouse person thinks about warm water is a leak. The glass is fine. Then another rush soaks my leggings and runs into my boots, and I grab the edge of the display bench and say “Oh,” to nobody.
The storm was supposed to hit tonight. It hit at breakfast instead, and now rain is drumming on the glass so hard I can barely hear the circulation fans, and the young maples along the delivery road are bent sideways in the wind.
Weather and my husband, I think. Neither one of them has ever shown up when they said they would.
My son isn’t supposed to come until December.
A contraction wraps around my back and cinches tight across my belly, and I stop thinking clever thoughts about the weather.
When it lets go I call my obstetrician’s office, with my hands shaking so badly I dial the pharmacy first, and the nurse asks if I’m sure my water broke.
I look down at the puddle around my boots.
“Either that or I’ve got a very specific plumbing problem.”
She doesn’t laugh. Medical people are a tough crowd. She asks how long I’ve had back pain, and when I tell her since before dawn, she says my name in a tone I haven’t heard since Mom caught me sneaking in after prom.
“You need to come in now. Don’t drive yourself.”
I call Mom. She picks up already talking.
“The underpass is flooded. I’m turning around.”
“My water broke.”
Mom goes quiet, and then Janet Barrett goes into full emergency mode, opinions included. She wants to know where Luis is, and I tell her I sent everybody home before the roads got worse. It felt responsible at the time. She says she’ll find another way, and I tell her not to drive into water.
“I know how water works.”
“You drove Dad’s station wagon into the creek.”
“The creek was shallow.”
“The car floated, Mom.”
“Briefly,” she says, and then she hears my breathing change and stops arguing. “Call the ambulance. I’m coming.”
The dispatcher is kind and very tired, and she can’t promise me an ambulance for a long while.
I sit in the rolling office chair because it’s closest, with water dripping off the ends of my hair, and think about my hospital bag packed upstairs next to the dresser.
The crib’s finally put together. The blue-gray sleeper’s washed and folded.
My son’s father doesn’t know any of it exists.
Sitting there alone, the fear finally catches up with me, and I’m so scared I can’t get a full breath.
My phone rings. It’s Scott.
“Your loading yard’s under water,” he says. “My driver can’t get the mulch in, and he says the drain’s backing up by the gate. You want me to have him leave it at my place?”
Behind him I can hear a hallway, and a man’s voice through a door asking whether the town board wants to take a break.
“Scott, I need a ride.”
His voice changes completely. “Where?”
“The hospital.”
“Coming.”
The line goes dead. I’m staring at the phone when the next contraction starts, and it’s closer than the last one, and I stop staring at anything.
His truck pulls up outside the retail house faster than I thought it could.
He comes in with rain running off his jacket, looks at me hanging on to the desk, and crouches down in front of the chair so we’re eye to eye.
He’s in a pressed shirt and a tie under the work jacket.
I’ve never seen him in a tie, and this one’s soaked.
“How close?”
“Every few minutes.”
“Any bleeding? Feel like pushing?”
“No and no.”
“Okay. What do you need?”
“Bag upstairs. My charger. My coat.”
He gets all three. Scott spreads a folded tarp across his passenger seat and lays a clean sweatshirt on top of it.
“Very elegant,” I tell him.
“Gallagher Landscaping offers premium maternity transport.”
“Your brochure needs work.”
“My best writer’s seven.” He holds the door and waits until I put my hand out before he takes it. “Molly’s with Mrs. Donnelly. School closed. I called her while I was getting your bag.”
I grip the handle over the door and breathe. He waits until I nod, and then he shuts it.
The drive should take a quarter of an hour.
It takes a lot longer. Rain sheets across the road faster than the drains can swallow it, and every time a slower car blocks us his knuckles go pale on the wheel, but he keeps the truck steady and under the limit.
He tells me before every turn so I can brace.
When I swear, he says, “Fair.” When a contraction folds me over and I say I can’t do this, he says, “You’re doing it now,” in the same voice he’d use to tell me a hose is running.
Between contractions I look at the tie.
“Why are you dressed like a banker?”
He keeps his eyes on the road. “I was at town hall. The Vermont committee was on the screen. That’s the Dorset job. They were on a break when I called you.”
“The Dorset job.” I know about the Dorset job. It’s an old resort up there that the town owns and wants restored, and he’s been drawing it at my potting bench for weeks. It’s the job that pays off his father’s equipment loans and keeps his crew through the winter. “Scott. You walked out on them?”
“They’ll call back or they won’t.”
He says it like it cost him nothing, and I know it did.
I know exactly what his face looks like when he’s worried about money, because he gets short with me every time I try to be nice about an invoice.
He’s not short right now. He’s watching a flooded intersection like it personally insulted him, and he walked out of the most important meeting of his year because I said I needed a ride.
I’m so grateful my throat closes up. I don’t know how to say thank you for something that size, so I look out the window at the rain.
“Do you want me to call anybody besides your mom?” he asks.
He doesn’t say Gavin’s name. It’s in the truck with us anyway.
“Not yet.”
He nods and lets it go. I almost wish he’d make me. That’s been my whole problem since April. I keep hoping somebody will make this decision for me, so it won’t be my fault.
At the hospital an orderly brings out a wheelchair, and the woman at registration asks Scott how he’s related to me.
“Friend,” he says.
“And the baby’s father?”
“In London,” I say.
Scott looks at the floor, and my face burns the whole way down the hall as the nurse wheels me away.
An hour later I’m in a hospital gown with two monitors belted around my belly. My wet work clothes are sealed in a plastic bag under the chair, and my wedding ring is hanging on its chain against my chest. My son’s heartbeat runs across the screen, quick and steady.
Dr. Shah checks me and says I’m three centimeters.
“First labors usually take a while,” she says. “Your contractions are close, so we’ll keep a careful eye on you both. Right now his heart looks great.”
“Right now,” I say.
“Right now is what I can promise.” She pats my knee. Because he’s early, the baby team will be in the room when he comes. That doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. It just means he’s early.
I like her more than anybody I’ve met in weeks.
Scott waits outside, because I haven’t asked him in. He texts me instead.
Janet found the east road. Mrs. Donnelly has Molly and has threatened us both with soup.
Then, a minute later: I can go when your mom gets here, or I can stay in the waiting room. Your call.
I type Stay till she comes. Please, and he sends a thumbs-up and nothing else. I have to press the heel of my hand against my eyes until the stinging stops.
Gavin’s number sits right there under my favorites.
I’ve put this off so many times it’s started to feel like one of the stages of pregnancy. My son has thrown out the schedule, and I can’t put it off anymore. My pulse is so loud in my ears I can barely hear the monitor.
I call my husband.
He picks up before the second ring. “Allison.”
There’s a big room behind him, voices and glasses and a band tuning up, somebody asking for the guests to start making their way toward the stage.
“Are you alone?”
“I can be.” A door shuts, and the noise drops away. “What’s wrong?”
He can hear it in my breathing. There isn’t a gentle way left to say it, so I don’t look for one.
“I’m in labor. The baby’s yours. It’s a boy.”
He doesn’t say anything for so long I think the call dropped.
“What baby?” he finally says, so quietly I almost don’t know his voice.
“Our baby. Our son.”
“How far along are you?”
“Thirty-six weeks.”
I hear him moving, and then I hear him doing the math, out loud, the way he does with a deal. “That’s before I left. So you knew. You found out after I left, and you’ve known since April.”
“Yes.”
“The night you called. When I asked if there was anything I needed to know.”
“Yes.”
He makes a sound I’ve never heard come out of him. Then, fast: “Are you safe?”
“The doctor says I’m fine. His heart’s good. He’s just early.”
“Is anyone with you?”
“Scott drove me. Mom’s on her way.”
“Who’s Scott?”
“A friend. He got here before the ambulance could.”
A contraction takes me, and I stop talking and grip the rail. Gavin keeps saying my name while I breathe through it, until his voice cracks.
“Allison. Is he mine?”
I open my eyes. It’s a fair question. I’ve lied to this man since spring. It still hurts so much my vision blurs.
“Yes. There’s never been anybody else.”
“I had to ask.”
“I know.” My voice is shaking. “And I hate you for making the answer sound like evidence.”
“I’m not the one who kept?—“
“Not now.”
He goes quiet. Then he says, “You’re right. Not now. Can I talk to your doctor? Please.”
It’s the please that gets me. I hand the phone to Dr. Shah, and she asks my permission with her eyebrows before she says a word to him. I hear pieces from the bed. His heart looks good. First labors take a while. No guarantees. She hands the phone back.
“The plane’s right outside the hangar,” Gavin says. “I’m telling the crew to get ready right now.”
I start crying so hard I can’t see, and relief pours through me until my legs tremble under the blanket. He’s coming. I think it before I can stop myself from thinking it.
“Leave now,” I say.
There’s a pause. A door opens behind him, and Rebecca says something I can’t hear, and Gavin says away from the phone, “Tell them to wait.” Then he’s back.
“The opening’s in an hour. Every client we’ve signed is in this hangar.”
All the relief drains out of me at once and leaves me cold and shaking.
“They signed because I promised I’d be up there tonight. If I walk out before the speech, they walk too, and the crews who moved here for this lose their jobs.”
“I don’t care.”
“The crews do.”
I press my fist against my mouth. Of course they do. Even now there’s a room full of people waiting for him, and even now I have to argue that I matter more than they do.
“If you leave now, you might make it,” I say. “Then choose.”