Chapter 16 - Only the People I Chose
My contractions started in the car. Mara drove with both hands on the wheel while I held my phone against my chest and breathed through each wave.
"He's texting again," she said at a stoplight.
"Let him. I can't solve his mother while I'm having a baby."
At the hospital I told the admissions nurse, "Please put my privacy request in the chart. No Linda Parker. No information if she calls."
"Understood," the nurse said, and asked me whom I did want beside me.
"Mara. And Daniel, if he can respect what I say."
Daniel arrived carrying nothing but his wallet and car keys. He didn't ask about Linda. He took my hand when I offered it and stepped away when I needed room. For hours we counted breaths and watched the monitor. I tried to hate him cleanly, but I remembered the night he'd built the crib, laughing because he'd installed one side backward. Love didn't erase what he'd failed to do. It made the failure heavier.
During a pause between contractions he leaned close. "I owe you an explanation about that morning."
"Then owe it until we're safe," I said.
He nodded. For once that was all.
Mara checked her phone. Rachel had sent a message wishing us strength and promising not to share our location. Then Daniel's screen lit up with an alert from the old vehicle-tracking account he shared with his mother. Someone had accessed his car's location.
His face went gray. "I forgot she could still see the car."
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He disabled the shared access and called the nurses' station. But before he finished explaining, a familiar voice rose beyond the doors.
"I'm his mother! You cannot keep me out of my granddaughter's birth!"
