At 36 weeks pregnant, I stood in my mother-in-law’s kitchen holding a gravy boat while she dug five orange-painted fingernails into my arm and told me to stop using pregnancy for attention. My husband was six feet away with a basket of dinner rolls in his hands, strong enough to carry roofing shingles up a ladder all day, and he stared at the gravy dripping onto the tile instead of telling his mother to let go.
Chapter 2
I owned a shoe-repair shop in Cranston that had belonged to my uncle.
It was narrow, smelled permanently of leather and glue, and contained machinery older than most of my customers. I had spent fifteen years standing behind its counter, replacing heels, stitching soles, stretching boots, and explaining to people why a pair of shoes bought for forty dollars was not worth a ninety-dollar repair.
The tailor next door was named Alda Romano.
She was sixty-eight, five feet tall, and had no interest in diplomacy.
On Tuesday morning, she found me on my knees sorting buckles from a bottom drawer.
“There’s a stool.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re purple.”
“It’s the lighting.”
She set down her coffee.
“What did Gloria do?”
Alda had met my mother-in-law once at our wedding and had considered that sufficient.
I rolled up my sleeve.
She stared at the bruises.
Then she used a word that would have disappointed her parish priest.
“So what’s your plan?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you’re auditioning for sainthood.”
“I’m not giving Gloria anything else to criticize.”
Alda folded her arms.
“Your strategy is to suffer until she feels guilty?”
“I’m proving a point.”
“To whom?”
I went back to my buckles.
The question irritated me because I did not have a good answer.
Still, I continued.
When a delivery driver tried to carry a box of rubber soles inside, I took it from him.
When a customer offered to move a chair for me, I moved it myself.
I climbed a stepladder for supplies I could have asked Alda to reach.
At home, Brian noticed.
“You don’t have to keep doing everything.”
“I’m pregnant, not sick.”
He smiled.
I hated how pleased he looked.
Sunday dinner at Gloria’s became the test.
I carried the lasagna from the kitchen.
I refused the chair with arms.
When Aunt Connie asked how I was sleeping, I said, “Beautifully.”
In truth, I slept in forty-minute stretches and woke feeling as if someone had poured concrete into my pelvis.
Gloria studied me.
During salad, she came around behind my chair.
I felt her before she touched me.
Perfume.
Bracelets.
Then both hands landed on my stomach.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
I did not move.
She pressed.
I stared at the wallpaper.
She pressed harder.
I stared harder.
Eventually she stopped.
I could feel her dissatisfaction.
Later she asked me to get a serving platter from the cabinet above the refrigerator.
I got it.
Then she remembered folding chairs in the basement.
I carried two upstairs.
By the time I reached the dining room, my vision had narrowed at the edges.
I put them down.
Gloria smiled.
“Well, look at you.”
“I feel great.”
She turned toward her sisters.
“You see? I told everybody she just needed somebody to be honest with her. One conversation and suddenly she’s capable of doing things.”
The sisters nodded.
Someone said, “You do look better, Rachel.”
I smiled until my cheeks hurt.
That was the moment I realized Alda had been right.
I had created a game I could not win.
If I admitted pain, Gloria called me dramatic.
If I denied pain, she took credit for curing me.
Across the table, Brian squeezed my knee.
On the ride home, he seemed relieved.
“That went well.”
“She bruised me two weeks ago.”
“I know.”
“And now she thinks it worked.”
“She didn’t say anything mean tonight.”
“She made me carry chairs from the basement.”
“You insisted you were fine.”
I looked at him.
He looked genuinely confused.
That frightened me more than an argument would have.
My prenatal appointment was the next afternoon.
My doctor, Dr. Elena Ramirez, was a compact woman in her fifties with gray beginning at her temples and a speaking style that suggested words cost money.
“How are you feeling?”
“Good.”
“Pain?”
“No.”
“Pressure?”
“Nothing unusual.”
She looked at my ankles.
They had become thick enough that my socks left deep grooves.
“Swelling?”
“A little.”
“Headaches?”
“No.”
“Sleeping?”
“Fine.”
She lowered her chart.
“Rachel.”
“Yes?”
“I cannot take care of a polite version of you.”
I blinked.
“This is not a dinner party. If something hurts, tell me.”
“I will.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
She studied me.
I smiled.
That was apparently the wrong answer.
She sighed and continued the exam.
That evening, Brian came home with news.
“Mom wants to come to your appointment next week.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“She has questions.”
“About?”
“Getting things moving.”
I was thirty-nine weeks by then.
“She thinks first babies in your family run late.”
“How would she know?”
“She asked your mom at the shower.”
I closed my eyes.
Brian continued, “She’s worried you’ll go past your due date.”
“Gloria is worried?”
“She’s excited.”
“I don’t want her there.”
He looked surprised.
“It’s just one appointment.”
“I don’t want her in the exam room.”
“She doesn’t have to be there for the whole thing.”
“No.”
He became quiet.
I could already imagine what would happen.
Brian would tell Gloria.
Gloria would cry.
She would tell her daughters I was excluding her from her grandson’s birth.
Somebody would call Brian.
He would become miserable.
I would become the villain again.
So I did what I had done too often.
I surrendered before the argument began.
“Fine.”
“Really?”
“Bring the whole family.”
I meant it sarcastically.
Brian did not realize that.
The following Sunday night, a little before midnight, my back began aching.
It came like a band tightening around my lower body.
Then it stopped.
Twelve minutes later, it happened again.
Then eleven.
Then twelve.
Practice contractions, I told myself.
Everything I had read said real labor became regular.
I drank water.
I lay on my left side.
I walked.
I took a warm shower.
Nothing stopped.
At one in the morning, I considered waking Brian.
Then I remembered the time, around thirty weeks, when I had woken him because of a severe pain under my ribs.
It turned out to be nothing dangerous.
Three days later, Gloria told an entire cookout that I had sent her poor son into a panic over indigestion.
So I let Brian sleep.
By dawn, the contractions were nine minutes apart.
Then seven.
Then eight.
Irregular, I told myself.
Therefore not real.
When Brian came downstairs at six, I was making coffee.
“You okay?”
“Great.”
A contraction began.
I kept one hand behind my back, gripping the counter.
He kissed my cheek.
“See you at the doctor.”
Then he left for work.
I opened the shoe shop at eight.
At nine, a construction worker brought in boots with a loose heel and said he needed them by lunch.
“No problem.”
It was a problem.
By ten, I had learned that if I timed my hammer strikes with contractions, nobody could hear me breathing through them.
When the man returned, I gave him change for a fifty even though he had handed me a twenty.
He returned the extra money.
“Ma’am, you all right?”
“Wonderful.”
He left slowly.
Alda came through the back hallway.
She found me leaning over my bench with both hands flat on the wood.
“How far apart?”
“They’re nothing.”
“How far?”
I waited until I could breathe.
“Seven minutes.”
She put down her coffee.
“Give me your keys.”
“No.”
“I’m driving you to the hospital.”
“I have a doctor appointment at one-thirty.”
“Rachel.”
“It’s across the street from the hospital.”
“You are in labor.”
“I am not going into labor and delivery just to have somebody send me home.”
Alda stared.
Then she understood.
“This is about Gloria.”
“No.”
“It is.”
“She’s going to be at the appointment.”
Alda closed her eyes.
“You are having contractions for somebody who isn’t even in the room.”
I could not answer.
A contraction was starting.
