Samira hadn’t wanted a baby shower. She didn’t want the fuss, not when most of the aunties barely looked at her at the last gathering she’d attended, a Diwali celebration at the Dandenong Town Hall. The festival of lights was supposed to promote peace by celebrating the triumph of good over evil, light over dark, and blessings of freedom and enlightenment.
Some of those judgmental aunties could do with a hefty dose of enlightenment.
After Rory had left Melbourne, she hadn’t wanted to face them, so she’d chickened out and got her mom to break the pregnancy news to her cronies. Kushi had been circumspect when Samira had asked about their reactions, but she knew her mom was protecting her. The aunties, especially Sushma, would’ve had plentiful advice to remedy her unwed state and the scandal of having a child without a husband at her age or otherwise.
To take some of the heat off her mom, which she knew Kushi would be copping with, Samira had attended the Diwali celebration. But whether she’d been admiring the rangoli, the intricate floral design made of colored rice and flowers at the entrance to the town hall, or helping light the lanterns surrounding the main room’s perimeter, or watching the fireworks, she’d felt the aunties’ stares boring into her. Cynical. Harsh. Judgmental. They’d spoiled her appetite so she couldn’t even enjoy the Indian feast laid out for attendees.
So why would she want a baby shower with these women in attendance?
But Pia had insisted, saying they could be found lacking together, a way of giving the aunties the finger, that they were happy in their life choices and wouldn’t be criticized for it.
So Samira had gone along with it, but now, as she sat in the middle of her mom’s family room, surrounded by cakes made out of diapers and baskets filled with lotion and baby clothes, all she wished for was the sanctity of her apartment.
She’d been having Braxton-Hicks contractions all morning while the ache in her lower back intensified. If it persisted, she’d get it checked out, but at thirty-two weeks, this baby was a long way off from being born.
Besides, she may not want a relationship with Rory, but he deserved to be at the birth if he wanted, and she had no idea when he’d be getting back. He hadn’t responded to any of her texts beyond the same “thanks” to every one. He didn’t ask how she was feeling or whether she’d been attending prenatal classes. Then again, she’d made sure he wouldn’t when she’d told him she’d be marrying another man.
As for Manny, she’d distanced herself from him too. She felt bad using him as a tool to drive Rory away, even if he didn’t know it. So they’d chatted a few times on the phone, but there had been no more coffee dates, and she’d made Kushi promise on her grandchild’s life not to invite him around anymore.
Thankfully, her mom was resigned to the fact she’d be a single mother. The one and only time Kushi had asked about Rory, Samira had snapped that they weren’t together and she didn’t want to discuss it. Again, her mom had surprised her by giving her the space she wanted. But today, surrounded by baby paraphernalia and listening to tales of water births and hypnosis to experience a painless labor, a small part of her wished she had Rory by her side.
She thought she’d loved Avi once; she’d been wrong. Because ending her marriage hadn’t hurt half as much as watching Rory walk away from her car that night several months ago.
She’d been a fool. A fool who hadn’t thought this through much beyond that night, because what would happen when he came back and discovered she hadn’t married Manish after all? Could she keep holding him, and her feelings, at bay when he wanted to be involved in raising the baby? More importantly, did she want to?
“Samira, there’s one more gift,” Pia said, touching her arm before leaning in and murmuring, “Are you okay? You seem really out of it.”
“False labor pains.” She forced a smile that ended on a hiss at a particularly vicious stab low in her abdomen.
Pia’s gaze clouded with worry. “You sure it’s false? Because it’s too early—”
“I know,” she snapped, instantly regretting it when Pia’s expression closed off. “Sorry, Cuz, I know how hard this must be for you, throwing me a shower, and I can’t thank you enough. But this pain is making me crabby, and I really want to get out of here.”
Pia nodded as she started gathering up wads of torn gift wrapping and stuffing them into a trash bag. “Consider it done. Open this last gift, and I’ll start ushering them out on the pretext of a half-price sale at that new sari shop at the end of the block.”
When Samira was younger, she’d almost been caught in a stampede when the aunties had heard about one of those sales, so she knew it would do the trick.
“You’re a lifesaver . . .” Samira couldn’t speak as a slash of pain from her abdomen ripped through to her back. She stiffened, bracing for another, exhaling slowly when it didn’t come, but fear making every muscle in her body tense.
“You’re not okay,” Pia said, helping her to her feet. “Come with me. You rest in the bedroom. I’ll get rid of this crew.”
Samira managed a grateful smile and mumbled a collective thanks to the aunties before Pia led her to her old bedroom. Kushi had been in the kitchen, and when she entered the family room and took one look at her, her mom rushed over to help too.
“Don’t panic, you two, but I think I need to go to the hospital,” Samira said, as they led her to the bed and she sank onto it. “The pain is pretty intense, so I’m starting to wonder if it’s more than Braxton-Hicks.”
Pia blanched. “Fuck,” she muttered, and the fact Kushi didn’t even blink told Samira exactly how worried her mom was.
“I’ll send everyone home,” Kushi said, “and you ring for an ambulance.”
When Samira didn’t protest, her mom’s and cousin’s worry lines deepened. A worry that didn’t let up when the paramedics arrived, examined her, and pronounced her three centimeters dilated.
“Your baby is on its way.” The older paramedic, a woman with barb on her name tag, took her blood pressure. “Nothing can stop these little blighters when they want to come.”
Samira waited until the cuff pressure eased before murmuring, “But it’s too early. I’m only thirty-two weeks.”
She glimpsed a flicker of something in Barb’s eyes before the paramedic said, “We’ll take good care of you. You can give us your ob-gyn’s details in the ambulance, but I’ll be honest, love, you’re not going to the hospital you probably booked into. We’re taking you to the closest one.”
Samira bit back a cry as another blinding cramp, which she now knew to be a contraction, tore through her. Sweat broke out over her skin, and her palms grew clammy.
“Take me anywhere you goddamn want,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Done.” Barb squeezed her hand. “You’ll get the best possible care. Now, can you walk out to the stretcher?”
Samira nodded, though it was more a hobble as it felt like her baby had descended and was clawing its way out of her. She may be a physical therapist who knew about strengthening the pelvic floor and strong core and abdominals to help with labor, but she knew next to nothing about the possible complications of a premature birth.
She’d been lulled into a false sense of security, feeling invincible she could do this on her own. She thought she’d done everything right by this baby, but what if the stress of pining for Rory had brought this early labor on?
A wild supposition, maybe, but as they strapped her into the back of the ambulance, then she clung onto the metal railings as it seemed to travel at breakneck speed to the nearest hospital, she hated the ongoing doubt that she’d done the wrong thing in making herself unhappy and thus affecting her cortisol levels.
Her mom and Pia were driving behind the ambulance, and one of them would have her cell. Amid the terror and the fear and the pain, she knew what she had to do.
She had to contact Rory and tell him their baby was on the way.