“Ben.”
“Yeah?”
“Turn off the stove.”
He laughed, a little hysterical, and turned off the stove, and kissed me, and called his mother, and we drove to the hospital with the hazard lights on even though there was no reason to.
The labor took eleven hours. The nurses said that was good for a first baby. It didn’t feel good. It felt like being pulled apart from the inside. But Ben stayed by my side the whole time. He fed me ice chips. He let me squeeze his hand until his fingers went white. He whispered, “You’re doing it, you’re doing it, you’re so strong,” until I told him to please stop talking.
Diane sat in the corner the whole night. Every time I looked at her, she gave me a small, tight smile.
At 6:14 in the morning, Evelyn was born.
The doctor held her up, and I saw her for the first time. Purple and furious and covered in white stuff, her tiny mouth wide open in a scream, her arms flailing.
