The next day, one week before my surgery (not that I’m counting the days or anything), Mom and Dad leave to visit our aunt Jayne in Cleveland, two hours away.
“Call me if you even think you might, maybe, sort of be going into labor,” Mom says, giving Abbi a hug.
“Mom!” Abbi says. “I’m not due for weeks.”
“And first babies are almost always late,” I say. “I learned that in childbirth class.”
Mom purses her lips. It’s true that Abbi’s been having false contractions for a week, but the doctor assured her that these were just her body’s way of “practicing” for real labor and they don’t necessarily mean that she’s going into labor immediately or anything. But I can tell that Mom’s still worried about leaving her.
“I’ll be here,” I remind her. “And I’m practically an expert on childbirth now. I watched the video.”
“You might as well be a doctor,” Mom says, sounding unconvinced.
“Let’s hit the road!” Dad says, holding out Mom’s jacket. Like all dads since the beginning of time, he’s obsessed with “making good time” on the road.
“All right, all right,” Mom says, shrugging into her faux-leather motorcycle jacket before giving us both one more hug.
And then they’re gone, and Abbi immediately slumps against the wall in relief. “Holy-moly. I thought I was going to collapse under the weight of being watched so intensely.”
“Come on,” I say, pushing her toward the living room. “You’re under strict orders to relax and not overexert yourself. What’s on TV?”
“Oh! A marathon of Snapped!” Abbi says as she presses the on button on the remote. Snapped is a show all about women who, well, snap and either murder or try to murder someone. We find it very comforting, for reasons that are probably best left unexamined.
“Perfect,” I say. Derek still won’t answer my texts, so I’ve given up on bothering him. It still stings to think about him, but thankfully, TV is here to solve all our problems.
After literally hours of watching Snapped, Abbi stands up and stretches. “This baby needs ice cream. You want some?”
I shake my head. “No, but I’ll pause it. I know you don’t want to miss this woman who tries to kill someone with horse tranquilizers.”
Abbi heads to the kitchen, and I scroll through my phone, not that there’s much to see. I have a nice text from Noah checking in on me to see if I’m ready for surgery and a few texts from Evelyn. Nothing from Derek, of course.
I think about what I would say to him if he ever responded to me. That I’m sorry I acted like I don’t have feelings for him? That I do have a crush on him but it freaks me out? That I just couldn’t believe a guy like him would actually want to date a girl like me, and if we try it and it doesn’t work out then it might actually kill me even if surgery doesn’t? Those just aren’t things you can say through text.
After about ten minutes of scrolling through Instagram, I realize Abbi’s still not back. “Abs?” I call, getting up from the chair and walking toward the kitchen. “You okay? Did you go into a Chunky Monkey coma?”
But when I step into the kitchen, I see Abbi sitting on the floor, staring straight ahead.
“Abbi!” I kneel beside her, then realize the floor is wet. “Did you spill something?”
She looks up at me, her eyes wide. “You know how Kathy told us my water wouldn’t break until we got to the hospital?”
I nod.
“Well, either I just peed all over the kitchen floor or my water broke.”
“What?” I leap up. “You mean I’m kneeling in your amniotic fluid?”
“That’s the least of our worries right now!” Abbi says, and when she starts crying I realize—duh—that this is a problem. The baby isn’t due for weeks. And if Abbi’s water broke, then she needs to go to the hospital. Which means that someone needs to take her. And since Mom and Dad are at Aunt Jayne’s, that leaves …
Me.
Oh no.
“Do you have your bag packed?” I ask, trying to remember anything we learned in class.
“No!” Abbi yells at me. “I thought I had time!”
“Okay, so we need to get an outfit for the baby, your robe…”
Abbi lies down, wincing, on our unmopped kitchen floor. “If this is what a contraction is, I don’t like it.”
“Um.… okay. Remember your breathing?” I pick a crumb out of Abbi’s hair.
“I don’t want to do the breathing!” Abbi says. “I want to wait until my due date!”
“I’m pretty sure we don’t have that option.”
Abbi pushes herself up off the floor with a groan. “You need to take me to the hospital.”
“Let’s just call Mom and Dad and see if they can come back…”
“I’m not waiting around, Jolie,” Abbi says.
“But Mom and Dad are supposed to do this,” I say. I’m thinking of all the movies I’ve seen where a woman goes into labor in a taxi or an elevator. What am I going to do if Abbi gives birth in my Ford Focus? There’s not even enough room in there for her to spread out, let alone have a baby. And I just vacuumed those seats.
Plus, I’m just really, totally, not even a little equipped to deal with this.
As if Abbi can read my thoughts, she says, “You went to the classes with me—you know enough to help me. But,” she says, her voice cracking, “it’s too early. I’m scared.”
I press my lips together and summon up determination I’m not sure I actually have. I’m scared, too, but I’m not the one who’s about to give birth, so I push it down. I have to be strong for Abbi.
“Let’s go,” I say, helping her up off the floor.
* * *
Abbi sits in the backseat—I figure if she does give birth in the Focus, at least she’ll have more space back there—and times her contractions.
“Do the breathing,” I suggest.
“I don’t remember how to do the breathing!” Abbi yells.
“I thought you took notes!”
“Yeah, well, it turns out notes are useless right now.” Then she attempts to do the breathing we learned in class, a loud “HEEEEE” followed by a loud “HOOOOO.”
“Is it helping?” I ask.
“Heeeee. I don’t know. Hooooooo. I’m not sure it’s supposed to be done in a car. Oh God,” she groans.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
“No. I mean, yeah, but it’s not that bad. Yet. I’m just freaking out. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.”
“How was it supposed to happen?” I ask, thinking that keeping her talking might stop her from panicking.
“For starters, I was supposed to be married to the love of my life, a gorgeous pediatrician who—HEEEE—loves me and our two black Lab mixes. HOOOOO. I was supposed to live in a house with a turret and know how to make a piecrust. I was supposed to have some great career—HEEEEEE—that I would keep after I had a kid but not because I needed the money, just because—HOOOOOO—I loved it so much that I couldn’t imagine not doing it.”
I keep my eyes on the road, realizing that Abbi thinks I’m asking how her entire life was supposed to go, not her birth process.
“I’ll tell you what wasn’t supposed to happen!” she says with sudden passion. “I wasn’t supposed to get knocked up by a shitbag sociology professor who doesn’t even have the guts to tell his wife about me!”
I resist reaching up to cover my right ear, the one that Abbi is nearly screaming into. Okay, so conversation wasn’t a good idea. I push the radio on and turn up the volume on the oldies station.
“I HATE THIS SONG!” Abbi shouts.
“Okay, okay.” I press off as quickly as I can. I wasn’t aware that the mellow tunes of James Taylor could upset anyone so much, but I’m determined to give Abbi what she wants right now.
“How slow are you going?” she asks, her voice suddenly low and menacing. I press my foot on the gas. The hospital is only a few miles away, but I’m not sure I’ll make it there alive.