Then a different animal instinct pierced the air. A sound that only a mother in the final stages of labor could produce came around the corner from Laura’s room. They each jerked their heads up at the sound, eyes popped wide, comically frozen for a heartbeat. Adrenaline, like a bucket of cold water splashed over them, snapped them back to reality.
Instantly, she shoved her body into her clothes. Unencumbered by the twisty aggravation of putting on a bra, Alex finished dressing ahead of her, and sprinted out the door.
Josie bolted after him seconds later, running as fast as possible back to Laura’s room, her view of Alex’s strong body in motion driving her forward. He had reacted like her, moving into instinctive action and dropping their amorous involvement in a split second to attend to Laura. It made her feel more connected to him, even as her heart raced and she entered the room disheveled and in chaos on the inside.
And outside.
“So soon?” she asked Mike, whose eyes were the first she could catch. He had his hands up in a helpless gesture as Laura crouched in an impossible twisting of her limbs over the bed, pulling on Dylan’s shoulders for support. The grunt that came from her tore Josie in two, just as she imagined Laura was being torn in two right now.
“The waters broke,” Alex said. “When did—”
“They just popped them,” Dylan explained, standing next to Laura now as Mike tried to catch her eyes and help her to breathe through the pain. Dylan checked the machines, the heart rate, pulse oxygen, all of it from Josie’s quick glance looking fine. “Sherri used that long hook thing, put a bunch of towels down, and a ton of fluid poured out.”
Sherri calmly, steadily strode into the room, hands tucked neatly in her scrubs as if Laura were the only person in the tiny hospital setting. “It looks like we’re ready to meet your daughter.”
She and Alex exchanged a look and he backed away, hovering in the doorway, whispering, “Mind if I stay?”
Sherri shook her head imperceptibly and then winked at him and he winked back. He just loves births, Josie thought, even when he isn’t the one in charge.
Chapter Four
Josie noticed that Sherri had dispensed with formalities, not even bothering to cover Laura’s lower half with a sheet as she palpated her belly. A nurse’s assistant tried to cover Laura to give her some privacy, but Josie just shook her head slightly and then Laura shouted in the middle of the exam.
“Don’t bother,” she said, her voice labored, and then she arched her back to the extent that a pregnant woman in labor can arch anything and tipped her neck back in a strange, unnatural curve.
She watched as the midwife seemed to do mental measurements—and that’s exactly what she was doing, Josie realized—to determine how far along everything was, and then a big grin spread across her face and she said the word that everyone in the room had been waiting for. “You are probably complete. The baby definitely dropped.”
“Probably?” Dylan asked, eyes bulging. “Can’t you do an exam?”
“I’d prefer not to now that the waters are broken. I can if we need to, but—”
A primal sound emerged from Laura. No amount of mellow meditation and breathing techniques under Mike’s tutelage could stop the baby that was barreling out of her birth canal now. A sound like an opera singer being stabbed to death in the middle of an aria poured out of Laura’s mouth as she stood, legs wide like a sumo wrestler’s. Her face turned a pinkish-purple Josie thought wasn’t quite found in nature anywhere but childbirth.
“You are likely complete. Laura,” she said, quietly, “you can start pushing now.”
“She beat you to it,” Dylan muttered, holding Laura’s upper arm to give her support.
“I want an epidural!” Laura said, panting after the contraction had subsided. Sherri casually crawled on the floor, under Laura, placing Chux pads beneath her to mop up the fluids, mixed with a tinge of blood, that were coming out in waves as the contraction bore down, then subsided. Josie would have thought the midwife was watering a plant, not monitoring a patient, given her neutral, calm countenance.
“It’s a little late for that, honey,” Mike explained, standing behind Laura now, arms ready to slide under hers and catch her.
“But I don’t—oh, not more!” She moaned, her head dipping down, breathing slowing as the contraction made her belly tighten, and Josie swore she could see the baby descend, Laura’s na**d belly on display for everyone now, her navel roiling as the womb tightened so fast and so hard it made Josie wince. The strangled soprano sound came forth again, Mike now holding Laura up, arms under her armpits as she let him support her.
“That’s it. That’s it,” he soothed.
“I can’t do this!”
“You are doing it,” Josie interjected. “You are doing it, Laura.” Laura shot her a look of exhausted resignation, a contradictory look. Nothing could save her from what was coming in these next few minutes, and she knew it, Josie knew it—everyone in the room knew it. Paralyzed and horrified, Josie realized her entire role right now distilled down to one, simple job: to usher Laura through the most barbaric pain ever, a pre-condition for meeting her baby daughter. That was it. She couldn’t soothe her, or take any of the pain away, or crack jokes to help Laura relax. This was real life, stretching back to the dawn of man, this baby entering the world the same way countless humans had before them, and no amount of intervention right this second could give Josie any power to alleviate Laura’s suffering.
The room began to spin and Josie reached out, grabbing onto the arm of a chair. She had never been queasy in her life in a medical situation, but right now was different. This wasn’t just some random medical situation, some kid who’d cut his head open, or some Alzheimer’s patient who needed ambulatory care or a diaper change. This wasn’t an emergency appendectomy or a gunshot wound; it was her best friend having a baby. And right now, as Laura bore down, her body folding in half, Dylan and Mike supporting her, a nurse and Sherri pulling on her knees, so that the baby’s head could emerge, Josie began a slow descent into a faint.
Strong hands wrapped around her ribcage and guided her to a chair.
“It’s okay,” Alex murmured in her ear, his voice comforting and solid. “You’re fine.”
He settled her in place and gently pushed her head down between her knees. “I’ll be right back,” he said.