At the hospital, they whisk Abbi away immediately to check her. I’m not allowed to go with her, which is fine with me. I don’t like to think about her being alone back there, but I also can’t handle any more responsibility right now. There are only a few other people in the waiting room—an older couple who look like they’re waiting to be grandparents, a woman holding a pink-and-blue box that must be a baby gift. We all silently watch the TV mounted in the corner, which is playing an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, as if we’ve made a tacit agreement not to bother each other with conversation.
When Mom and Dad walk into the waiting room, I slump, instantly relieved. I hadn’t realized I was holding my body rigid with tension, but upon simply seeing them, I’m overcome with gratitude that I’m not in charge of this situation anymore.
“She’s in the delivery room,” I say, pointing down the hallway. My mom takes off for somewhere—to the nurse’s station? The delivery room? If anyone can fight her way back there, it’s my mom—and my dad sits down beside me.
He hands me a vending-machine coffee and points to the copy of HGTV Magazine in my hands. “Getting into decorating?”
I look down at the magazine in my lap. My fingers are anxiously flipping through the pages, but all I’ve been able to see for the past hour are colors and shapes. My eyes focus on the headlines on the front.
“Well, you know me.” I shrug. “Always looking for a way to liven up my outdoor entertaining space.”
I toss the magazine on the table and eagerly take a swig of the coffee. It’s disgusting, but this is what you do in waiting rooms, according to all the television shows I’ve seen: You drink coffee and worry.
“Is this bad?” I ask Dad. “I mean, with Abbi. The baby isn’t due for a few more weeks.”
He shrugs. “I’m a teacher, Jolie,” he says. “Not an obstetrician.”
I nod.
“Here’s what I’ll tell you, though,” he says. “Sometimes when I start a project, I have all these expectations. I start with a plan for how I’m gonna build whatever it is I’m building—a table, a bookcase, a bed frame. And I look at that plan and think, ‘Yes. That’s exactly how this whole thing is gonna turn out.’”
I take another sip and wonder where exactly this woodworking lesson is going.
“But you know how often it turns out according to the plan?” he asks, taking a sip of his own coffee. “Almost never. Maybe a board breaks. Maybe the hardware store’s out of the wood stain I want. Maybe it was just a bad plan.”
My confusion must be written all over my face, because Dad holds up a hand. “I’m getting to the point, I promise. What I’m trying to say is, at the end of the day, no matter how far off-plan I went, I still end up with a table, or a bookcase, or a bed frame. Maybe things look a little bit different than I wanted them to, but it’s okay.”
I nod, finally getting it. “So, even though Abbi isn’t following her plan, everything’s still gonna be okay with the baby?”
Dad looks at me, confused. “What are you talking about babies for? I was just talking about a table.”
I sigh heavily and he cracks up, spilling some of his coffee on his lap. Once he calms down, he pats me on my knee in the most Dad-like gesture ever. “It’s gonna be okay, Jolie. I promise.”
I pull my knees up to my chest and try to get comfortable in the hopelessly uncomfortable chair. Of all the ways I could’ve chosen to spend my day, sitting in a hospital waiting room while my sister is in labor early wouldn’t have been one of them, but right now, sitting in companionable silence with my dad while Channing Tatum dances with Ellen on TV, I think I can handle it.
* * *
Mom comes out occasionally, relaying details that involve dilation and centimeters and other words I sort of remember from class. All I really pick up on is that everything’s going to be okay, eventually, and that Abbi’s gonna have a table at the end of this whole thing.
After a few episodes of courtroom TV shows, Dad says he needs to “wander” and walks off toward the courtyard. That’s when I see a familiar person walking down the corridor: Dr. Jones.
“Hi!” I say brightly before remembering that her son hates me now. I shrink back a little, but she doesn’t make things awkward. Instead, she sits down beside me and pulls me in for a hug. Even though we’re in a hospital, she still manages to smell good.
“I stopped in to see Abbi,” she says, pulling back. “She’s doing great.”
I sigh with relief. I know my mom said things were okay, but it feels better to hear that from a doctor. “Oh, good. Because she was really scared.”
Dr. Jones lifts a shoulder. “Well, childbirth can be scary. But then again, most things that are worth it are usually a little bit scary.”
I nod. “So, did Derek…” I gulp, trying to think of a way to phrase it.
Dr. Jones smiles kindly. “I’ve noticed you haven’t been around the house lately. And I’ve noticed that he’s been moping a lot. But if you’re asking me if I know all the details of what’s going on, no, I don’t. This may shock you, but Derek doesn’t exactly come to me with his personal problems.”
That, at least, makes me smile. “Okay. I just wondered…” I don’t know where I’m going with this, so I let the thought trail off.
Dr. Jones puts her hand on my knee. “You guys will make up. Real friends can get through anything.”
“You’re right,” I say, and give her a tight smile because I’m not one hundred percent sure she is right. Sure, Evelyn and I can fight and make up, but Evelyn and I aren’t harboring awkward, potentially friendship-killing romantic feelings for each other. But I’m not about to mention to Dr. Jones that I think I might want to totally make out with her son.
Her name blares over the speakers, and she stands up. “That’s my cue. Congratulations, Jolie—you’re going to be an aunt!”
I wave as she strides down the hallway, all confidence and capability. I wonder if I’ll ever feel that sure of myself.
Dad wanders back into the room holding a cookie and a bottle of Coke.
“Here,” he says. “Keep yourself awake with caffeine and sugar.”
“Thank God,” I say, practically lunging at them.
But I guess the caffeine and sugar are no match for my stress fatigue, because the next thing I know, I’m waking up with a start. I realize I fell asleep on Dad’s shoulder.
“Well, hello there, sunshine,” Dad says.
“How long have I been out?” I mumble.
“Only about half an hour,” he says, flipping past magazine advertisements for cat food and yogurt.
Only half an hour. And yet it feels like we’ve been in this waiting room for our entire lives. In fact, I’m starting to feel like we’ll spend the rest of our lives here, like we’ll never leave, like …
“She’s here!” Mom says, bursting into the room. “The baby’s here!”
Dad and I stand up immediately, his magazine falling to the floor.
“Really?” I ask.
Mom nods, a smile overtaking her entire face, and I realize that she’s crying. I can’t remember many times when I’ve seen my mom cry without half a glass of wine in her system. Maybe when Sleater-Kinney announced their reunion tour and she got super emotional, but that’s about it.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, panicked.
“More than okay. She’s perfect. She’s beautiful. I mean, you and Abbi were beautiful babies, but she is just next level.”
“I’ll try not to be insulted by that,” I say as Dad and I follow Mom, but I notice that she said I was a beautiful baby.
I can hear other babies crying as we make our way down the corridor. I can’t believe this is the moment I’m going to meet my niece. My niece! Even thinking the word feels weird. I’m an aunt—I thought aunts were, like, my aunt Jayne, who lives with her boyfriend and their yorkipoos, not sixteen-year-old girls.
Mom pushes open a door and waves us in. Abbi’s sitting with her baby in bed, still in her hospital gown, her hair plastered to her forehead and every trace of makeup rubbed off her face. She looks exhausted.
She also looks happy—maybe the happiest I’ve ever seen her.
“Meet Margaret,” Abbi says.
“Margaret?” I ask. “Like my middle name?”
“Yeah,” Abbi says. “Duh, Jolie. Like your middle name. I wanted to name her after my number one birth partner, even if you weren’t here for the big moment.”
I’m not a big crier. I mean, I managed to make it through Inside Out without so much as smudging my eyeliner, and when I stub my toe I just let out a string of profanity. But this? Okay, I’ll admit it. A few tears spring to my eyes.
“So, she’s … okay?” I ask gingerly.
Abbi nods, not taking her eyes off Margaret. “We must’ve calculated my due date wrong, or maybe she was just ready to meet us a little early.”
“Hi, Margaret,” I say, reaching out a finger. Her teeny-tiny fingers curl around mine, and I gasp.
“Is she supposed to do that?” I whisper.
Everyone laughs, so I pretend I was joking.
“She’s basically the strongest baby in the world,” Abbi says, gazing at her. “And smart. And so, so beautiful.”
A golf-ball-sized knot wells up in my throat. Abbi’s right—Margaret is beautiful. And as Abbi starts talking about how she wants us to go get her pancakes from the hospital cafeteria because she’s only had ice chips since she got here, I realize that Margaret’s beauty has pretty much nothing to do with what she looks like. She’s beautiful just for existing, for being this little perfect miracle that came early and still turned out okay. For having those little fingers that curl around mine, for bringing us all here and making us happy.
I think about all the time I’ve spent wondering why I couldn’t look different, why I couldn’t just look normal, pretty, beautiful. Would I want Margaret to ever feel that way about herself? No. It’s literally her first day on earth, and I just met her, but I never, ever want her to feel like she’s somehow not enough.
I just want everything for her already. Like, I want her to be an athlete or a doctor or an astronaut or a beauty queen or an artist or anything she could ever possibly dream of. I don’t want her to be afraid of trying, or afraid of people looking at her, or afraid of failing publicly.
And maybe to actually help Margaret do everything she wants to do, I have to do the things I want to do, too, even if they’re scary. Like how I was in the musical. Like how I made nonromantic friends with Noah. Like how I’m going to get surgery because I want to, and it’s a risk, but some risks are worth taking. Like how it might be worth jeopardizing a friendship if there’s something a whole lot bigger at stake.
“Welcome to the world, Margaret,” I say.