Chapter 8: The Birth Plan
Emma’s due date approached like a weather system we could finally track without also tracking footsteps in the hall.
We toured the hospital bag twice. We wrote a birth plan that included a line Helen suggested: no visitors not approved by Emma, full stop. Emma added, in her own hand, Margaret Brooks is not approved. The ink was dark. I kissed her fingers afterward and did not make a speech about symbolism. Symbolism was for people who had not scrubbed ginger out of marble grout.
May you like
A prenatal class put us among other couples who complained about swollen ankles and nursery colors. Emma spoke little until a woman joked about mother-in-law advice. Emma said, mild, “Some advice arrives as orders.” The room laughed lightly. Only I heard the metal under the sentence. In the car she exhaled and said she was practicing being a person in public again. I drove the long way home so the practice could last another mile.
Money stabilized. The new account showed the dull beauty of a balance that did not bleed at the edges. I still checked it every morning. Habit is not always pathology. Sometimes it is how love counts.
