“They found the address.”
The words came faintly through my father-in-law’s phone while Ryan’s name flashed across my screen.
For several seconds, I simply stared at it.
My husband—the man who had promised to answer on the first ring—was finally calling after ignoring me through contractions, after letting another woman whisper, “Don’t answer her,” after laughing and saying I would go back to sleep.
Now he wanted me.
“Is that Ryan?” General Thomas Hale asked.
“Yes.”
His voice hardened.
“Answer him.
Put me on mute if you need to.
I want you focused on getting to the hospital.”
The ambulance lights washed blue and red across my living room walls as I accepted Ryan’s call.
“Hey,” he said quickly.
“Sorry.
I was tied up.
What’s going on?”
Not hello.
Not are you okay.
Not I saw your message saying your water broke.
I gripped the banister while another contraction gathered low in my abdomen.
“My water broke.”
There was a pause.
“What?”
“I sent you that twelve minutes ago.”
“I didn’t see it.
We were in the middle of the drill.”
The lie was so immediate that it almost impressed me.
On the other line, muted but still connected, was the man who had just told me there was no drill.
I looked through the glass beside the front door as two paramedics hurried through the rain toward me.
“Ryan,” I said, “where are you?”
“On base.”
No hesitation.
No uncertainty.
“Still at the drill?”
“Yes.
Listen, I’ll get out as soon as I can.
Call somebody to take you in.”
A paramedic knocked hard.
“Someone is already here.”
“Good.
Good.
I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
Then, as if he remembered he was supposed to sound like a husband, he lowered his voice.
“You’re okay, right?”
I closed my eyes.
Twenty-seven seconds earlier in my life, that question might have broken me.
Now it only made me tired.
“I’ll see you at the hospital,” I said.
I ended the call.
The paramedics came inside, one carrying equipment while the other took my arm.
I told them my contractions were close, my water had broken, and I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant.
General Hale was still connected.
I unmuted him.
“Did you hear?”
“Enough,” he said.
The word landed like a door closing.
