Still one week past due date because time elongates when you are forty-one weeks gravid. Einstein should have studied pregnancy as a force in physics, because forty-one weeks bends everything.

---

---

“An hour. Tops,” Declan promises me as we pull up to the same restaurant where we had our first date. I’ve been in such a fog, I didn’t listen when he told me where the charity ball is being held. The event, a fundraiser for a local art museum that is working on creating autism-friendly programs for children, is underwritten by some family trust on his mother’s side.

As the valet opens the door and helps me out, surprised by my size and clearly adjusting his arm-strength level to help me, Declan appears behind him, finishing the job, his arm around my waist with a possessive protectiveness that thrills me.

“We haven’t been here in ages,” I murmur as we enter the foyer of the restaurant, looking up to the high, domed ceiling where a large, circular window lets a few stars peek in. Dark mahogany is everywhere, making me realize how much this place is like my father-in-law’s office, the taste stately and old-fashioned, curated and rich. Nostalgia floods me with memories, eyes darting to the hallway where Declan kissed me for the first time.

“It’s fitting, isn’t it? Coming here on a night like this?” He rubs my belly, smiling with a relaxed, eager joy I don’t often see in him.

“It is. Now let’s get the hell out of here. You have fifty-nine minutes left.” I say it in a joking voice, but I kinda sorta really mean it.

He takes me down a short hallway and around a corner to find an elevator that looks like it was built by Sam Adams himself.

“What is that?”

“An antique.”

“No kidding.” I eye the stairs over in the main lobby, a long, curling set going left and right up an incline that looks harder to climb than Mount Everest. “This is my only choice, isn’t it?”

“The event is on the second floor.”

“Definitely my only choice.”

A pneumatic wheeze, accompanied by a clanking sound as the door opens, makes me lose even more confidence. The elevator door has a folding metal lattice-work door in front of it. A uniformed man opens it, gesturing for Dec and I to step in. We do.

“There isn’t really room for more than two people, is there?” I joke, hoping the attendant isn’t joining us.

“Three,” Dec says, patting the baby. I look around. At most, six adults could squeeze in here, shoulder to shoulder.

At most.

“Press the second-floor button, sir,” the attendant explains. “It’s electronic.”

“I thought these old elevators were manually operated,” Dec says, looking expectantly at the guy. “You’ve kept the ironwork.”

“It’s steampunk on the outside, high tech on the inside,” the man says as Dec laughs, the doors closing.

We creak our way up to the second floor, my back aching, the bowling ball between my legs pressing down harder. I’m so tired.

“Just an hour,” Dec murmurs in my ear. “I’m sure the time will fly.”

“Time has slowed,” I groan as the doors open, another attendant unlocking the iron lattice door on the second floor.

We walk into the large event space, a carpeted ballroom with twenty-foot vaulted ceilings, elaborate coffers offering elegance, and an almost royal atmosphere that reminds me of Windsor Castle, where Declan and I toured last year. Rich reds and sumptuous blues fill the room, old chandeliers and crystals spreading warm incandescent light.

A tall, affable man with kind eyes, wearing a tux like Declan’s, walks past, then hesitates just enough for me to realize I’m right.

“Dr. Derjian?” Declan and I say in unison, my own word clipped at the end as I inhale slowly through my nose, this aching back getting worse.

Glass in hand, with an olive and the remains of something clear in it, he pauses, mouth spreading in a huge smile as he recognizes us. “I knew Declan was going to be here, but I didn’t know you would. Oh...” His voice goes super deep as he sees my belly. “You’re about to have that baby.”

“Forty-one weeks,” I reply, trying to laugh it off.

“No, I mean you are about to have that baby. How dilated are you?” Clicking into professional mode, he gives me a look that says he’s all business. I half expect him to glove up and do a cervical exam in the coat-check room.

“Three centimeters,” I reply, hating this conversation. A deep, unsettled sense of fate starts bubbling inside. “But I’ve been stuck there for three weeks.”

“Take it easy,” he cautions. “Hydrate. And don’t do anything that might strain you.”

I lift the hem of my gala dress and show off my white sneakers. “Shhhh.”

“Perfect.” He winks. “I hear you’re the man of honor,” he says to Declan.

“Just another business obligation.” Dec leans in. “Is your wife here? We’d love to meet her.”

“Josie? Here? No,” he laughs. “She’s allergic to events like this. You’re more likely to run into her at Jeddy’s Diner than a gala ball. I’m only here because someone in my practice got tickets and they like to have physicians at these events, especially when it has to do with a pediatric issue.”

“Jeddy’s!” Declan laughs. “Haven’t thought about that place in ages.”

Dr. Derjian shrugs as someone calls out, “Alex!”

“Try it sometime. Gotta go. Take care!” He strides off, leaving me feeling distinctly worried.

One of Declan’s special senses is the ability to find the most powerful person in a crowd. He zeros in on whoever that is, body tensing, just as I see someone I recognize and whose power level doesn’t matter to me.

I just need a friendly face I’m not married to.

“Shelby?” A part of me can’t believe my eyes. “Is that you?” Transformed by the beauty standards imposed on the charity gala circuit, with no pass given for being 1,349 weeks pregnant like I am, Shelby is coiffed, make-upped, Spanxed, and sequined into a statue of perfection.

“Shannon?” she squeals, coming in for an air kiss that turns real, her hug genuine, if gingerly. “You are ready to burst!”

I chuckle. “I am. Forty-one weeks today.”

“That is ninety-seven too many. And you haven’t murdered anyone?”

Dec gives me a look. “Not yet,” he mutters. He smiles at her. “Shelby? The nursing mother back at our store, the one who inspired Shannon to redesign every single one of our new locations?”

She blinks rapidly. “Me?” Shelby looks at her chest. “Who knew the girls could be so inspiring?” Declan averts his eyes but laughs politely. My back aches, a long pull that makes me feel like my neck is being yanked down to my heels by a kettlebell attached to my spine.

“How’s Coffi?” I ask, grinning as I rub my belly.

“Wonderful! Started walking just last week. She’s a firecracker. Scares the dog constantly.”

“Walking! That went fast.”

Wistful eyes land on my belly. “Sure did. The time flies. People used to say that to me all the time and I hated it. Now I understand it, and Coffi’s only one year old. I can’t imagine what it’s like when they grow up and move out.”

My dad’s words resonate. You go from from disbelief that basic biology works, to incredulity that the hospital staff trust you to go home with a living human being, to a weird grief that your children are independent. If you do your job right, that’s the best possible outcome. And yet we mourn.

Declan touches my arm. “Water? Juice?”

“I’m fine.”

“But the doctor said to hydrate.”

“I drank plenty of water on the drive here.”

“Shannon.” His touch lingers, the soothing rocking of our lovemaking hours ago embedded in my body. As he runs his fingertips down my arm, his hand instinctively goes to my belly. It’s not hard to do, given that it reaches out about five feet from my ribcage.

The grin he gives me makes every part of me ache with love.

Especially my back.

I let out a sound that is half sigh, half groan. “I’m fine on water. I’ll need to pee in three seconds. What I am short on is chocolate.”

“I–I need to go see John,” he says, clearly torn.

“Go. The sooner you schmooze, the sooner we can leave.” His rushed kiss on my cheek leaves an indelible mark.

“You’re really, really close, Shannon,” Shelby whispers, eyes big and assessing.

“I’ve been stuck at three centimeters for almost a month, Shelby. No jury will convict at this point if I kill someone for asking if I’ve had the baby yet.”

“Oh, gawd, yes, sister. I remember that. I’ll shut my mouth. Want some pie?”

“They have pie?”

“They have everything here, sweetie. What do you want? How about some sweet tea and shoo fly?”

“How about some no and nope?”

She chuckles.

“Do they have sparkling water and key lime pie?” I ask, hopeful. My belly is so big, my bladder a thin, overstretched balloon, and my stomach is somewhere around my collarbone, but by God I’ll suck down a piece of good key lime pie.

“Indeed they do. Let me get you some. Gives me an excuse to eat some, too.” She flattens her palms against her tight, not-pregnant belly. “I don’t even care if the Spanx complains. No charity event is tolerable without alcohol or sugar, and at the rate things are going, I’ll need both.”

My polite laugh turns into a sharp inhale as this back pain gets worse. My evening gown is large and flowing, but it still feels like a rubber band over every inch of my body. Back pain is common at the end of pregnancy, but this is getting worse by the minute. How do women manage this? I channel our childbirth classes and my hypnosis tapes and breathe the pain into pressure, down, down, down, noticing all the tension in my body, trying to release it where it’s needed more in the universe.

And then I inhale peace.

Exhale pain.

Inhale love.

Exhale–

“Shannon? Are you having an asthma attack?”

Steve. Steve Raleigh. My ex.

Low groaning noises are all I can respond with, and they have nothing to do with my pain.

“What are you doing here?” I finally grunt out.

“My company is one of the donors. I assume you’re here because of him?” Steve’s voice has an affect, turning low with disapproval at the end.

“Him?” I point to my belly. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

“I meant your husband. So it’s a boy?”

“Yes.”

“Nice.”

“Thank you.” We’re lobbing words back and forth like a tennis game no one really wants to play. Faking recognition of someone in the crowd, he scurries off to talk to anyone but me.

And that makes the pain astronomically easier to manage.

“Who was that?” Shelby asks, her tone making it clear she has a very acute bullshit detector and it’s going off ding ding ding.

“My ex.”

Shelby chortles. “Your ex?” Her eyes narrow as she watches him. “Wait a minute. Is that the sleazy narcissist who sucked up to Tom and tried to get him to buy a bunch of bullshit products from some financial investment firm?”

“You really do have an uncanny ability to assess people, Shelby.”

“That’s why I like you so much, Shannon,” she says, handing me a pale-green piece of comfort topped with real whipped cream.

I take a bite.

I moan.

“It’s good, isn’t it?”

I can’t stop moaning.

“Now hold on there, sugar. The pie ain’t that good. Are you in labor?”

I shake my head. “No. Just my back. It’s killing me.”

“Enough to make you moan like a French courtesan being forced to screw two guys on a bed of gold?”

“I really do love key lime.”

“Shannon.” Shelby hands me my water, the back pain dropping. “Drink up.”

“Why?”

“You need to hydrate. Where, exactly, is that back pain?”

“Somewhere below my breasts. I haven’t seen anything down there in two months, so I just have to guess.”

“Any bloody show?”

“No.”

“Pee that ain’t pee?”

“No.”

“Contractions?”

“Just back pain.”

“Could it be back labor?”

“Why do you sound like my midwife?”

“Maybe because I just had a baby a year ago and I know what you’re going through?”

“But this doesn’t feel like labor. Just more cruelty from a God who thinks it’s fun to torture me.”

“Sounds like the very definition of labor to me, sugar.”

I stand, squaring my shoulders as much as I can while wearing a forty-pound sack of sand attached to my boobs and abs. “I think I just need to take a walk.”

“SHELBY!” a woman cries out, rushing over to us in a blur of silver sparkles and burgundy fabric. “I wondered if you would come.” Long blonde hair, perfectly straight down her back, comes attached to a body only a jerk could date.

“Jessica,” Shelby says, giving me a look I can’t quite decipher. They air kiss, then Jessica turns to me, pretending to only now discover my presence.

“Why, Shannon, I guess congratulations are in order. Not only did you bag Boston’s most eligible bachelor, you’re the size of a small whale in order to give him an heir. How wonderful that you have those nice, wide hips for childbirth.”

Shelby’s entire face turns into puzzle pieces of abject horror, then rage on my behalf.

I keep my smile nice and steady, silently telling her I’m okay.

“We can’t all be like you, Jessica. The whole package. Some of us need more than a full-length mirror and a vibrator to meet our need for love and connection. Sorry to hear about the bot purge on your Twitter account. It must suck to be down to seventeen followers, and knowing thirteen are your own dummy accounts.”

Shelby snickers.

Jessica looks murderous.

“Cranky pregnant women are mean,” she says to Shelby, losing her edge.

“At least I have an excuse,” I say, flouncing off, if by flouncing you mean waddling like an animatronic extra in a Godzilla movie, moving at under a mile an hour and still tortured by their conversation.

“Oh, Jessica,” Shelby says to her. “Bless your heart.” She leans in, pulls the curtain of her cousin-by-marriage’s hair behind her ear, and adds: “In the South, that means you should go fu–”

“Why, look at you. The most beautiful woman at this ball,” says a man who wraps his arm around her waist like he has the right to do so, which means he must be her husband, Tom. “Let’s dance, Shelby.”

“What are you doing?” she hisses.

“Rescuing you from yourself. If anyone is going to tell Jessica to go perform sex on herself, it’ll be me. You don’t get to snipe that honor from your husband.”

As Tom takes her away, Shelby’s pique melting as he charms her, I laugh until the sound dies in my throat, replaced by a tightness around my hips that is crushing. It’s the opposite of having Declan squeeze my hips for relief, and it’s brutal.

Relax, I tell myself, willing the pressure down to the soles of my feet, where the universe will take it away to wherever it’s needed more.

Huh. Those hypnosis tapes actually work, because a minute later, the pain recedes.

And now I have to pee.

The event is in full swing, so there’s a line to use the women’s restrooms, but here’s one of the best benefits of being enormously pregnant: women push you to the head of bathroom lines. After lots of thank yous and appreciative smiles, I’m next in line in a row of twenty women, and grateful for the sisterhood that gives my bladder relief.

As I wash my hands, another wave of painful pressure takes over my pelvis.

Ah, baby. There you are.

By the time I make it back to the event, I see Declan and Andrew, heads huddled, serious expressions on their faces. I know Amanda’s in Vegas right now at a mystery shopping industry convention, but it feels empty to be here without my best friend. Who am I going to snark with about women’s ball gowns? Then again, as I look down at the basketball doubling as a belly button on my torso, maybe other people are snarking about me.

Rarely do I notice the resemblance, but when Dec and Andrew are this close to each other, I see it. Our little boy will look like a blend of me and Declan. How much will he resemble Andrew? Terry? My nephews Jeffrey and Tyler? My own father?

Ever-ready tears fill my eyes as Declan happens to look over and see me. Threading his way through the crowd, his steady, warm presence is suddenly there as the band of pain recedes.

I can breathe again.

And then I can’t.

Long, slow, controlled breathing is getting me through the backache when I’m interrupted by the view of a man I never, ever expected to see again. Our eyes meet. He glides right past me, then reverses course, catching my gaze, looking down.

Widening.

Mr. I’m Important.

He does that frozen gazelle move we all have when we’re caught in a moment of intense consideration, unsure of the next move but knowing we need to be decisive. Whatever evolutionary process speeds through his rat brain, it ends with a decision to acknowledge me.

Damn it.

“Shannon.” Paul looks over my head, not bothering to extend a hand for me to shake. “Declan’s getting ready to give his speech, I see.”

“Mmm,” is all I can answer, my belly tightening, the ripple effect hard and hurting. These aren’t contractions–not like they’ve been described to me, and definitely nothing like the little Braxton-Hicks twinges I’ve felt before.

He evaluates me, eyebrows together, puzzled. “Nothing I say gets me an audience with your husband.”

“Same here,” I choke out.

As if I’m sending out subsonic signals, Declan appears from behind Paul, who now has his eyes on Shelby, who looks like she’s sucking on a lemon while speaking with a well-known local amateur historian who thinks high society should be based on Mayflower blood.

“Who is that?” Paul asks me, pointing to Shelby.

“A friend.”

“Shannon,” Paul says loudly as Declan appears, his arm going around my waist, or what’s left of it. I breathe into the touch and lean against him, suddenly exhausted. “Good to see you.”

Paul’s show doesn’t register for Dec, who checks in with me. “How are you?” he asks me, clearly concerned.

“Ready to go home.”

“Can you wait forty minutes?”

“No.”

Dec pulls out his phone and texts, then waits, watching me the entire time.

Completely ignoring Paul.

Seconds later, he nods at his phone. “Andrew says Gerald’s circling the block. He’ll take you home.”

“But Gerald doesn’t work for us.”

“He’ll take you home,” Declan says firmly. I know that voice. There is no arguing with that tone.

Thank God.

“Good,” I say.

“I wish I could leave. My speech...” Declan’s torn. I don’t want him to be.

“I just need some rest. Feet up. You know.”

He kisses my cheek and heads for the podium.

I start to move toward the elevator when Paul says, “That woman. You said she’s a friend?”

“Yes.”

“Any chance you could introduce us?”

“She’s married.”

“So?”

“That’s the woman you were an ass to in my coffee shop ten months ago.”

“When was I an ass to a woman in your coffee shop?”

“When weren’t you?”

With that, I move to the elevator, away from all of this.

Just... away.

Steve. Jessica. Paul. Could more jerks be at one social event?

Then again: Shelby. Dr. Derjian. Declan.

The universe always provides balance, right?

A man in a crimson uniform with a name tag that says Jerry nods at me, opening the interlocked iron door, gesturing for me to enter. I do, pressing the Ground Floor button with relief. The next few steps in my progression to peace are simple. Get off elevator. Find Gerald. Ride home.

Breathe.

As the doors start to close, I lean against the wall and let my back scream.

The elevator door does that weird, spasmodic motion that indicates someone has pressed the door button. Three fingers slip between the doors, the machine programmed to retreat in the face of an obstacle.

And then I realize I’m programmed the same way.

Because that obstacle?

Is Steve Raleigh’s hand.

Deftly, he slips into the elevator, looming over me with a look that says he’s about as interested in being in this elevator as he is in hearing me do a review of his lovemaking skills. Before either of us can react, the uniformed elevator worker pulls the inner metal grate shut with a rattling sound, and then the outside doors slide closed.

We stare at each other.

The elevator begins its slow descent.

“Shannon.” His eyes drop to my boobs, then my belly. Or maybe my belly, then my boobs. That whole region has merged together, like Pangea. The arctic is kissing Costa Rica, and I can’t see the Cape of Good Hope without a mirror.

“Steve.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I gasp, the back pain radiating with an unusual rip. My muscles seem to tear in a band around my lower back, then move down. It’s as if someone is pulling a sheet down to the end of a bed, only instead of a sheet, it’s every muscle in my belly.

Steve’s eyes narrow. I do my best to hide what I’m experiencing. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because Steve doesn’t deserve to see me have an emotion. I spent too many years being invalidated by him to waste one precious drop of authenticity on him.

Besides, he has a nose for weakness. Trying to hide weakness around Steve is like hiding leftover Halloween candy from my nephews. Good luck.

“When are you due?” he asks, eyes glued to my belly/boobs.

“Last week.”

I get a genuine laugh. “Ha ha. Cute.”

“No. Really. I’m exactly seven days late. They tell me it’s normal for first babies.”

“I wouldn’t know. Who wants to mess up their life with a kid? It’s so limiting.”

“So is being a jerk, Steve, but so far you haven’t let that stop you.”

“Hey!” His bark of surprise gives me pleasure for about three seconds before someone decides to reach a very large, flat hand across my lower belly and pull slowly, like I’m in a giant tug of war for my uterus. “I’ve heard pregnancy can make women emotional and irritable, but this–”

Someone uncorks a bottle of Champagne.

All down my legs.

He looks up, seeking the source of the sound, then notices the growing puddle on the floor. “Did you pop a bottle of prosecco?”

“Is that what they’re calling the bag of waters these days?” I gasp, my pain and pressure suddenly five feet away as I look down, trying to see my feet. Can’t see them, but I can feel them.

They’re wet.

“Did you–my God, Shannon, did you pee your pants?”

“I’m not wearing pants, Ste–” I can’t even finish his name. The pressure increases, a band around my lower half. I breathe into it, remembering Helen’s advice. She might have been crazy about regimentation, but for a brief time, she did give some solid help in terms of managing the mind into submission.

The mind processes sensation however we train it to. This is not pain. It is only pressure. If I tell myself it’s productive pressure, I’ll never feel the pain. My breath becomes a cloud of Declan, the love in his eyes turning to molecules I inhale. I bend over, my belly hard as a rock, the tight wave moving down gradually. I ache between my legs, the pull worsening. As the pressure lessens, I look up.

Into the eyes of a cartoon character.

Who knew eyelids could go that far back into the socket? Huh.

“Shannon, you need to stop this right now!” Steve insists. Dodging the growing puddle of amniotic fluid on the ground, he gives me a look of distaste. I know that look well. I remember it from college, when a bee stung me and I started wheezing.

“I can’t stop labor.”

“This is labor?”

“No, Steve. It’s an amateur porn video. We’re combining golden showers, breeding, and elevator fetishes. We’ll make a killing in ad revenue.”

“I never gave permission to be in a pornographic film! You can’t just–oh,” he says flatly, realizing I’m being sarcastic.

Breathe. All I can do is breathe as my legs start to shake. The cold, wet skin around my ankles feels disjointed, like someone’s handed me a wax ankle covered in water. That’s not mine. Those aren’t my feet down on the floor, covered in my baby’s bag of waters, right?

“Labor,” I gasp, reaching for my purse. “Oh, my God, I’m really in labor. I have to call Declan.”

“Screw Declan!” Steve growls.

“Not right now.” And not ever again, I think, as the baby shoves a knitting needle into my cervix.

Patience washes over me, a bubbling brook that flows like a summer spring, sweet and clear. I tune out the world, the asshole in this little box with me, my own doubts, the sense of pain. If I close my eyes and journey inward, like Helen said, I can find my baby. He’s there, waiting for me to guide him out.

He’s coming. It’s time to meet him.

“Call 911! Call your doctor! Call–” Steve backs away from me in a panic, slamming into the control panel with all the buttons just as the little light shows we’ve reached the lobby floor. The elevator jerks to a stop, sudden and unexpected, turning my hips to unstable rollers, gravity throwing me sideways. I drop on one knee, arms wrapping around my belly, protective. My hip and knee take the brunt of my fall.

Steve screams.

An alarm, distant but regular, sounds above us.

“Give me my phone,” I gasp, unable to speak as the rising crescendo of pressure pulls at me like the tide, a growing intensity that I can either fight or submit to. Can’t flee. Can’t run screaming. Can’t avoid. The only way out is through, but I’ll be damned if I’ll go through this with Steve Raleigh.

Steve takes one step toward my evening bag, his highly shined shoe gliding on the fluid. “Urk!” he squawks, then slips, grabbing the handrail just in time to avoid falling on me. I am on my right side, breathing through a long, deep contraction, the pain bearable. I stop thinking about myself as an individual with free will. Completely stripped from me, any sense of control is rapidly fading, replaced by a muscular destiny I know nothing about.

But am about to become an expert in.

“Oh, Shannon, that looks like it hurts,” Steve says, his voice pained as I low-moan my way through the back pain, my spine being pulled out of my flesh and shoved as hard as possible through my butthole. “But could you keep it down? The echo in here is really strong.”

Empathy without compassion is just another form of narcissism. It steals your emotional truth from you. Is it really empathy if the other person says all the right things, repeats all the expected, comforting words, but never lifts a finger to help when asked?

No. It’s not. Then it’s just empty. You can’t spell empathy without empty.

And that is all Steve Raleigh is.

Empty. Hollow. A shell.

And that’s when gratitude washes over me.

I was so close to living half a life, with my emotions brushed aside like dirt on a patio chair cushion. Worse–I was completely ready to accept that living half a life was the best I could find in the world. Settling for someone like Steve Raleigh used to represent success.

The next wave of pressure hurts a little bit more, the pain of what I could have been radiating out of me.

Meanwhile, Steve fiddles with his phone until soft music starts to play from its tinny speakers.

Muzak. Very, very familiar muzak, in fact.

New-agey crap, irritating and electronic, pours forth.

“Turn that off,” I say, the words closer to a growl than a request.

“John Tesh is the perfect music for calming down, Shannon.”

“I am not listening to this crap, Steve,” I seethe. “You made me hear it when we had sex. It’s triggering waves of nausea.”

“John Tesh music makes you sick to your stomach?”

“No. Memories of sex with you do, Steve. Give. Me. My. Phone,” I demand, my evening bag just out of reach. “I can’t believe you wasted time turning on John Tesh music when you could have called 9-1-1 for me!” My breathing feels stiff and unsure, coming fast suddenly, then super slow. I can’t catch myself. I am falling and slipping, rolling and spinning, all at the same time. My bones twist inside my skin. I imagine them cracking, splintering, separating like boulders being rolled down a large hill.

Gravity. Gravity is pulling my bones. But where?

“HELLO?” blasts a voice from the stainless-steel speaker by the elevator buttons. “Are you trapped? This is Jerry, the elevator operator. We’re working on getting you freed.”

Steve pushes some button on the panel and says, “Thank you.” He releases the button and looks at me.

“TELL THEM I AM IN LABOR, YOU ASSHOLE!”

“I’m sure they’re working hard to free us,” he says as he kicks my bag toward me, the bottom of it sliding into a puddle of amniotic fluid. My grip on reality is tenuous at best, but as the world throbs, I find my phone and call 9-1-1, ignoring a slew of texts from Declan. My eyes take in a few of the words, like “elevator alarm” and “where are you?” in there.

“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” the operator asks in a warm voice that reminds me of mothers, grandmothers, aunties and sweet women surrounding me with smiles and gentle hands.

“I am in labor and stuck in an elevator at the–” Too much pain takes over, cutting off my words.

“Okay, ma’am. Stay calm. What’s your name?”

“Shannon Jacob–er, McCormick.”

“We’ve had other 9-1-1 calls come in about you already from an elevator operator at the building, honey. Emergency services are on their way. How far along are you?” Her voice has a nasal tone to it, not unpleasant.

“Forty-one weeks. No question I’m in labor. My water broke. I–”

Steve’s phone rings. He answers it, watching me as I curl into a ball on the floor, my back splitting in half. It’s as if I can feel each individual bone in my lower spine separating from the nerves, muscles, tendons, and flesh, being peeled away to be mounted in a museum exhibit.

“Steve Raleigh. Wait–who? Declan? How in the hell did you get this number?”

“SHANNON!” booms from Steve’s phone. But I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Can’t do or be.

I am just pressure, all of it condensed into my bones, the baby breaking me in order to come forth.

“Hello? Hello? I’m keeping this line open. We’re sending an ambulance.” I hear the 9-1-1 operator’s words from my phone as she continues, but my ears ring, my belly pushing down, down as my pelvis opens, like someone has taken each side and is cracking me in half like a pistachio shell.

I give in to the pain.

I have no choice.

Steve is yelling into his phone, Declan’s bellowing my name, and all I can do is close my eyes to tell the baby:

Come. Come now. Come well, my child.

I am waiting.

---

---

“What the hell do you mean, you didn’t call 9-1-1? Are you crazy? I called 9-1-1 the second I learned the elevator was stuck, you piece of useless–”

“Hey!” Steve Raleigh whines into his phone. “I don’t have to take this abuse from you.”

I’d hang up on him if it weren’t for the fact that he’s the only person who can help Shannon. I tried calling her. Tried texting. Dave got Steve’s number for me.

“Listen to me. That’s my wife in there.”

“I know who she is,” he says in a nasty tone. “She’s made one hell of a mess in here, too. Her water broke.”

“Her water WHAT?”

Worried, uniformed men surround me, talking to each other about accessing electrical panels and mechanical rooms, past elevator failures, and a host of other words that add up to the fact that my extremely pregnant wife has just had her water break inside a stuck elevator where she is trapped with the most narcissistic man in the world.

The guy who didn’t take her anaphylaxis from a bee sting seriously when they were in college.

The guy I want to throttle.

The guy I’d trade places with in a heartbeat.

“Get me into that elevator,” I snap at a worker in a blue short-sleeved shirt, a name tag on his breast. He’s the only person carrying a tool box.

A shadow covers the guy’s name tag as someone else walks up to us. Tuxedo. My brain registers a tux, and right now, anyone in a tux is useless. I ignore him.

“Look,” I say to the guy in blue. Gus. His name is Gus. “Gus. Get me in that elevator. My wife is forty-one weeks pregnant and her water broke.”

“Doing our best, man. Give it a coupla minutes,” he says, serious but not giving me the words I want to hear.

“DEC!” I hear Shannon call out on Steve’s phone. “Help!”

“Steve, what are you doing to help her?” I bark at him.

“Help?”

“She’s in labor. The baby is coming. You need to help. Their lives are at risk,” the last words coming out of my mouth with a surreal detachment that makes them feel like bubbles, popping as they rise, weightless. Impossible to survive intact and complete any journey.

“There’s fluid all over the floor. My shoes are ruined. And Shannon’s on the ground, on her side, panting. How much longer before the doors open? I can’t be expected to help in a medical emergency! I’m not trained for this!” Hysteria tinges his words.

Jesus Christ. Are you kidding me?

“You do what you have to in a crisis, you dumbass,” I instruct him. “Now go help my -- ”

“Stop calling me names!” Click.

“STEVE! STEVE!” I’m about to throw my phone across the room when a vice grip grabs me, shocking my system, body in overdrive from rage and fear. Shannon’s in pain in that elevator and I can’t think.

“Declan.” It’s Dr. Derjian. “Someone said there’s a woman having a baby. Shannon, I assume.” Calm and rational but laser-focused, he’s exactly who I need right now.

The opposite of that asshole Steve Raleigh.

“Elevator malfunction. Her water broke. She’s stuck in there with her ex.”

Eyebrows go up.

“I wouldn’t want him, either. He’s useless.”

“ETA on fixing the elevator?” Dr. Derjian asks me, urgency mirroring mine. Stress spikes in my blood like a poison.

I look at Gus. He shakes his head sadly.

A loud groan comes from the elevator, followed by a high-pitched scream. Dr. Derjian and I turn to Gus. I grab his elbow and shout, “Get her out of there!”

“We’re trying. It’s complicated. We got a guy in the mechanical room who’s already working on it. These old hydraulic lifts–”

“Get me in that elevator,” I snap. “Is there an access panel on top?”

“Like in the movies?” Gus asks, giving me the kind of look only a Southie guy in the trades can give.

“Yes. Like that.” I stare him down, heart jackrabbiting out of my chest. Images of poor Shannon writhing in agony, helpless, trapped with that asshole, won’t stop filling my mind, distracting me.

I cannot be distracted.

“You want to break into the elevator car itself through the ceiling?” Gus’s face makes it clear I’m nuts.

“Yes.”

“You’re crazy.”

“We’ll debate my mental state later.”

“Declan, he’s right,” Dr. Derjian says. “The best approach is to wait until they can fix the elevator. I’m sure it won’t be long.”

“My wife is in there, having my baby, with a useless piece of shit ex-boyfriend who treated her like dirt. He hung up on me when I tried to get him to help her. Give me a better reason to break into the elevator,” I demand of Gus.

Gus and a uniformed elevator operator whose name tag says Jerry blow out long, disgusted sighs. “I ain’t got one, bud. Let’s get you in there,” Gus says. He leads us over to the elevator doors, where he uses a walkie-talkie.

“Hey, Bernie. You killed the power yet?” he says.

“You’re turning off the power?” I snap. “How will we open the doors?”

A long, frustrated breath comes out of him. “Look, bud. I know you’re upset. But you gotta trust me. I know how these systems work. It’s all I do. You gonna let me do my job or what?”

“It’s just that Dr. Derjian and I need to–”

The doctor pulls me away and gets in my face. “First of all, call me Alex. Second, he’s right. The workmen will get her out faster if you leave them alone. They’re not incompetent asses like your wife’s ex.”

I nod. Speaking of which... I dial Steve Raleigh’s number again.

Voicemail.

“Son of a bitch!” I need to punch something. “He blocked my number.”

Gus starts prying the elevator doors open. “Power’s off. Let’s get you in there.”

“What about the doors below? Can’t you pry it open on the ground floor?” My hands itch to touch Shannon. To be there for her. With her. If anything happens to her or the baby, so help me God...

“Some kinda glitch. Something’s stuck in the track. We don’t know why, but it looks like–” He grunts. “Yup. Got it.” A two-foot gap, enough for me to squeeze through, shows the elevator shaft, the top of the car down below, a good handful of feet..

“Any chance you have a video camera in the car?” Alex asks Gus, turning to me. “I could at least observe her state. This doesn’t look like a good idea,” he says to me, peering down the cable-lined shaft.

“No, man. Sorry. Not yet. We upgraded electrical but the camera was next,” Gus says. “You got two choices. Go in through the top panel, or wait until they pry the ground floor doors open.”

Shannon screams again, the sound going feral, low, like an animal in pain. I hear the muted tones of Steve Raleigh. It’s not the sound of comfort.

That jackass is berating her.

I pull out my phone and look at Alex. “What’s your number?”

“What’s your plan?”

“Get in there. Help Shannon until they pry the doors open. I’ll need you on the phone in case.”

“In case what?” Gus asks, alarmed suddenly.

“In case she has the baby,” Alex says.

“First baby?” Gus laughs. “My wife took eighteen hours with that one. You think she’ll give birth in there?”

I look to Alex. He shrugs. “Babies are unpredictable. Her water’s broken. Probably not. No one knows.” His words have weight. Actual experts understand that ambiguity is where the truth resides in any given situation. Poseurs think that certainty makes them the authority. They’re wrong.

It’s the person who has knowledge, skills, and the insight to understand that uncertainty is its own natural state who you want in a situation like this.

A loud scream comes from below, making my gut coil inward, my heart racing harder.

“Those screams are less than a minute apart,” Alex says, frowning. I know what that means.

“Get me in there so I know what the hell is going on,” I demand as Alex pulls me away from the edge as Gus climbs down, straddling the top of the car. Gus and some other guy in jeans and a hoodie use tools to remove screws.

“Declan, this is a bad idea,” Alex cautions.

“Let’s get our numbers in each other’s phones,” I insist, thumbs flying faster than my heart as he reads off his number. I text. He buzzes.

Good.

Gus finishes removing the top panel just as a guy in a firefighter uniform appears, looking like he has some authority and is about to use it. Shannon lets out a horrible sound, making me move closer and look down at the elevator. Gus comes over, the firefighter and I helping haul him up. I look down, wedging myself in the shaft doorway.

Gus reads my mind. “Hey, bud, it’s bad enough I put my job on the line here, you can’t just–”

I skirt past everyone, shrugging out of my tux jacket, and look at the edge of the elevator shaft. All I see is the top of the elevator, a face peering back at me in shock.

It’s Steve.

Where the hell is my wife?

Over yells and shouts behind me, I grab the cable and take a step out, bracing my legs to distribute my weight evenly. Crouching, I grab the edges of the opening.

“MOVE!” I shout down to Steve, who looks up at me dumbly. I can see Shannon, curled on her side, her body tense, belly a hard ball, low between her legs.

“What are you–?”

I jump, ignoring Steve’s question.

He makes a nice landing cushion.

Girlish screams fill the air, mingling with my wife’s low moans.

“Shut up, Steve,” I order, his piercing whine making my ears ring. I stand, trying not to touch him, and slip on something wet. Looking down, I see a pool of fluid under Shannon’s legs, her body up on hands and knees now, her back bent impossibly low as she groans, the sound digging into my bones. Acting on instinct, I place my palms on her hips and squeeze, hard.

Her entire body roils, like I’ve pushed on a huge muscle and it’s just rolled over.

“Oh,” she gasps. “More.” Words are clearly hard for her in whatever state she’s in, the small space hot and stuffy now, scented with a strange musk that must be amniotic fluid.

And Steve Raleigh.

“You can’t just break into a broken elevator like that and jump on me, Declan! Just because you’re a billionaire and married my girlfriend doesn’t mean–”

I don’t plan it.

I don’t.

But I don’t regret it, either, when my elbow pulls back and I give him an uppercut that snaps his teeth shut like a nutcracker. As he goes down, I slide my arms around his ribs, ready to wrestle him into a corner and make him shut the hell up, but he’s unconscious, a soft sack of potatoes I let fall, shoving the sole of my shoe against his thigh until he’s as far away from Shannon as possible.

Which isn’t far. The elevator is tiny.

“Declan?” Alex’s very muffled voice comes from the other side of the elevator doors. “I’m down here. They’re about to pry these open. Stand back.”

I inch toward Shannon, hands on her hips again, as she shudders like a horse in a stable after a long, hard ride. Heat pours off her, her hair long and loose around her head, the sides of her belly taut. I can almost see the outline of the baby.

Metal scrapes and suddenly, an inch of bright light pours in, the cool, fresh air shallow but welcome.

Alex’s eye peers in. “Is she–”

“Ahhhhh,” Shannon intones, the sound long and vibrant, her belly going impossibly tight as she rocks, Alex watching intently.

“We can’t get no further,” Gus says behind Alex. “It’s gonna be a while.”

“You have to!” I shout.

“Dec,” Shannon moans.

“Look at me. Declan! Look. At. Me,” Alex orders. I do. I see eyes that know I shouldn’t have to do this. No man should deliver his own child in a broken elevator.

But I also see eyes that tell me I can do it.

And that’s a man I can trust.

“Get her in whatever position is best for having visibility. You are going to have to go by how her belly looks and feels. At this point, don’t touch her vagina or vulva until the very end, when the baby starts to crown. I’ll be right here the entire time, talking you through this.”

Shannon’s panting behind me, crying and sniffling, her breath ragged.

“You think the baby’s coming now?” I ask him.

“Oh, God,” Shannon moans, body going tight again, the low groan turning louder and more intense, one hand scraping against the ground, fingernails breaking as she tries to grab something, anything, to get through it.

“Yes,” Alex declares. “Absolutely. And you’re going to catch your son.”

My son.

“I’ve never delivered a baby,” I start, the words coming out before I can think.

“That’s not a statement you’ll ever make again,” Alex informs me, almost cheerful, until his eyes go dark with determination. “Now do exactly as I say.”

“Shannon, honey? We need to get you in a position where I can see the baby.” I move her ball gown skirt up, so her belly is exposed, the slip of underwear light and unobtrusive. I snap it off. She’s wearing tennis shoes I made fun of an hour and a half ago, but now I’m grateful. Thigh highs, but not full pantyhose. No obstacles.

“Do I move her on her back?” I ask Alex as Shannon grabs my hand and clenches so hard, I feel pinkie bones pop. Enduring this is nothing compared to what she’s going through. If the transference of some of her pain into me is helping, I’ll take it all.

“No. Women will give birth in whatever position the body naturally moves them into. You’re not in a hospital. Your focus is twofold: Shannon’s comfort and visibility. You need to be able to see the baby as he comes out.”

Shannon lets out an enormous groan of pain, her thighs swelling as she flexes them, the baby moving under her skin in a decisive downward stretch, more fluid leaking down her legs.

“I think the baby’s coming!” I shout.

“Get visibility. You need to look.”

I do. No baby yet, but my empathy for my wife just skyrocketed. Ouch.

Alex shoves a thin, white blanket through the inches-wide crack in the door. “Here. For the baby. And another one to get under Shannon.” I take the cloths and spread one under her, setting another aside.

Steve Raleigh lets out a snore.

“I can’t do this, Declan! I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” Chanting low and from a place of pure panic, Shannon says the words until they’re a well-worn groove in my head, the earworm no one wants in a crisis.

“You are doing it.”

“I’m dying,” she moans as another contraction takes over. I can watch its power, her ribs sucking in, the long muscles of her uterus pushing down, the skin over her mons swelling like a balloon.

“You’re not dying.” I won’t let you, I think, my brain racing as Shannon’s body seems to convulse, then go rigid, every muscle tight and hard, her belly condensing down as the baby’s head comes into view.

The baby.

My baby.

My son.

Emotion is useless in times of crisis. Evolutionarily, we’re designed to push it aside, shove it away, when our lives are threatened. Survival instincts keep us alive.

“If something happens, save the baby,” she groans.

“I will save you both.”

“I mean it, Dec–” Her words cut off with a low groan that shifts into a high scream as blood pools between her legs, the trickle turning the knee of my tuxedo pants from black to sinister. The wetness doesn’t register, but the sight of dark, thick, wet hair emerging from my wife’s body sure as hell does.

He’s here.

And then he isn’t, Shannon panting hard, her shoulders falling back as she makes whimpering sounds.

“ALEX!” I shout. “There’s blood! Too much! The baby was here but went back in! The head was there and now it’s gone.”

I will save you both.

I move to her head, to check on her. Shannon’s eyes have gone glassy and she’s in another world. I have no role here other than guide. My job is to clear obstacles. To prevent harm. But there is no active duty I can fulfill. I’m a creature of circumstance, only allowed to react, never to plan.

I am here to witness.

I am here to lead.

“Perfectly normal,” Alex says in that calm tone I know too well. He’s talking me down. “I am watching and the amount of blood is fine. Just wait.”

“Just wait? Just wait? He was here, his forehead was right there, and–”

“Declan, it’s fine. With each contraction, more of the baby will emerge. This is part of the process. When his neck comes, watch for a cord. That’s the next concern. It’s unfolding as it is meant to be.”

As it is meant to be.

I look at Shannon’s face, craning around her body. She’s both here and gone, turned so far inward, it’s as if she’s absent. Her pain is my pain, except I cannot allow myself to feel it. To feel anything right now would be dangerous. Unsafe.

Potentially fatal.

I can face my own death. I cannot–will not–face one of theirs.

I will save you both.

Shannon’s beyond using words now, my hand on her belly telling me before she makes a sound that the baby is trying to come again. Biochemistry is a complex series of very simple processes. Muscles need to stretch. Chemicals need to send signals to systems. The baby is on his own trajectory, the process already destined, the fate unsure.

A low rumbling sound, a vibration like a bass instrument from an ancient culture, makes its way from my wife’s mouth, her breastbone, her soul. As she pushes she grabs my hand, crushing it, and I feel pleasure. Finally, the pleasure of progress, of being able to absorb some of her pain, to take whatever I can off her overworked system as Shannon–and her body, alone–brings new life into the world.

I cannot take one inch of the work away from her body, but I can give her my hand to squeeze.

“He’s coming!” I tell her, watching the marvel of my child’s head emerging.

“Declan, listen to me,” Alex says, commanding and firm.

“I see his head!”

“Which direction is he facing?”

“What?”

“Do you see his face or just scalp?”

“Scalp! And hair, oh my GOD he has so much hair!”

“He’s posterior. That’s why Shannon’s in so much pain. I want you to support Shannon’s perineum, and hold one hand under the–”

Before the rest of his sentence comes out, instinct makes me reach for the baby’s head like a catcher going for a grounder, and Shannon moves up on her knees, the baby slipping out like a seal into my hands, his butt on my forearm, my hands filled with jelly and the body–the precious body–of my child.

“He’s out! He’s out!” I shout, Shannon’s knees going wide, the cord draped out of her like the shoulder strap of a fashionable purse, curled lazily.

But purses don’t pulsate.

“Is he breathing?” Shannon begs, struggling to turn around, a wave of blood coming out of her.

“Wrap the baby in something warm! You need to keep him warm. Remember the blanket? We’re seconds away from getting the doors open,” Alex says. “Check for breaths. Is he breathing? How fast?”

I reach for the blanket, wrapping the slimy, bluish being in the cotton, curling his body into the crook of my arm, fingers touching his face.

His eyes meet mine and it’s like staring at every person who ever lived. Every damn last one of them. In two beautiful, deep-grey eyes.

A gasp. A cough. A choke.

“Declan! Is he alive?”

And then the most beautiful sound in the world.

My baby starts to wail.

“He is.”

Metal on metal, like the sound of bones crushing with a screech, makes the doors behind me turn into danger, a screaming baby in my arms, Shannon’s hands reaching for him, begging me to move closer. I can’t easily. Steve Raleigh’s stupidly unconscious body is in the way.

Light pours in, the doors opening just as I move to the right, paparazzi camera flashes going crazy taking pictures of poor Shannon’s legs spread, cord still attached to the baby. I move quickly, but I can’t cover her fast enough, the baby in my arms so fragile, so vulnerable, more important–for a split second–than my wife’s modesty.

Alex jumps in, big and brash, blocking the view with sheer size.

“Please! Let me hold him,” Shannon begs.

“Give me one second,” Alex says, compassionate yet professional, managing the umbilical cord. The placenta still hasn’t come out. “I just want to make sure his breathing is fine.” He looks at the baby, peeling back the blood-soaked blanket, his face changing with shock.

Shannon sees it, too. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with him?”

A firefighter hands a warming blanket to Alex, who moves the baby closer to Shannon as he wraps him up. She looks shocked, too, then starts to laugh, the sound so tired.

“Make sure Shannon’s okay. She was bleeding heavily,” I insist, my arms around her as she tries to hold our son.

Paramedics appear with kits and a gurney, starting to touch Shannon, leaving Alex to manage–

“Oh! Oh!” Shannon cries as the baby is placed in her arms, tears rolling down her face like rivers. I look at her and there, too, I see eternity.

“He’s fine, right?”

Shannon starts to laugh. “Well, no.” Peeling back the blanket, she lifts him up.

He is a she.

I turn to Alex, dumbfounded. “It’s a girl?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Hard to deny it when the baby is in your wife’s arms. Congratulations.”

“We were told it was a boy!”

“Ultrasounds aren’t one hundred percent correct.”

“I have a daughter?”

“You do. Congratulations, Declan. And welcome to the world, baby...” A questioning look appears on his face. “What’s her name?”

“We don’t have a name for her. Her name is supposed to be Finn.”

“Finn could be a girl’s name.”

“No,” Shannon says softly as the baby is handed back to her, my eyes glued to both of them, my throat unable to make coherent sound. The beauty of them both is too much. “I know her name.”

“You do?”

“Dec,” she says, “her name is Elena.”

My mother’s name.

“We can’t–” I choke.

“We can. We will. Her face says it. I’m looking at little Elena.” Breathing hard, her exhales shaky with effort, Shannon meets my eyes. “I think after what I just went through,” she says, sobbing but happy, “I get naming rights.”

“You get whatever the hell you want, Shannon. I’ll go lasso the moon and drag it down to you right now.”

“I’d settle for a glass of water and some ibuprofen.” Alex takes her pulse, looks at her face, and starts gently probing her belly as Shannon gives me an expectant look.

“Ellie,” I whisper. “Elena is too big a name for such a tiny thing.”

“Ellie it is.”

I kiss them both on the forehead as the EMTs and Alex make it clear I need to get out of the way. “Elena McCormick,” I whisper. “Elena Marie McCormick.”

Shannon’s head snaps up in tearful wonder. “Really? You would do that?”

“We can’t honor one grandmother and not the other,” I tell her.

“It does flow. Elena Marie McCormick.”

“I guess we have a name, then,” a firefighter shouts. “Elena!”

“Ellie!” Declan calls back.

“BABY ELLIE!” someone outside the elevator shouts. A crowd cheers.

“There’s a crowd out there? That many people saw my–” Shannon gestures at her midsection.

I laugh, unable to stop, holding her hand as they offer me the baby and lift Shannon onto a stretcher. I place Ellie back in her arms, the rolling gurney moving as we make our way to the ambulance and I have to step back, Shannon completely engrossed in our baby.

As it should be.

“You go in the ambulance,” Alex tells me as I see Gerald run up, nodding to the Anterdec SUV limo.

“I’m good. Can you accompany her – them -- to the hospital? You’re the expert. And if something goes wrong...” I shake my head, unable to say the rest.

He flashes me a big grin and claps my shoulder. “Already there, bud.”

Emotion makes my chest go tight, eyes stinging with tears. “Thank you, Alex. Sincerely.”

The EMTs are closing one door, so Alex runs off, climbing in, waving once before turning to give his full attention to Shannon and Ellie.

“Declan?” Gerald asks, his voice soothing. “Ready?”

On legs that feel like stilts, I pretend I am, walking to the Anterdec limo with my heart wrapped in a warming blanket, sitting in my wife’s lap.

In a vehicle we’re about to follow.

My wife.

My baby.

Who are both alive.

Both.