Page 40 of For Her
“Agghh! Oh my God!” I shout, feeling shocked, terrified, all of it.
“What?” Jack asks with panic in his eyes as they scan up and down my body, searching for what could be wrong.
“I think my water broke,” I squeak out in a shaky voice before looking down to confirm. “Yup. Oh my God!”
“Holy shit, our kid’s coming!” Jack exclaims, looking around for what, I don’t know. He finally scoops me up in a cradle hold and walks us over to the stairs where he marches up them with no problem at all. If I weren’t in the beginning, frightening, scary-as-fuck stage of birthing another human being, I’d be turned on by the impressive display of strength.
When he reaches the kitchen, he sets me down carefully in one of the chairs before racing to the fridge and dispensing a glass of cold water which he rushes over to me.
I take it from him but don’t drink it as I’m too busy freaking out. This is happening. Oh my God, I’m going to give birth, and it’s going to hurt so bad!
I’m not even having any contractions yet, but my water broke which pretty much says it all. In the middle of all my gasping and panting, tears spring to the backs of my eyes. Jack pulls another chair up close to me and leans over to run his hands up and down my arms.
“Are you okay? Are you having contractions?”
“No, I don’t feel any pain yet, I’m just freaked out. Jack, I’m so scared,” I start to sniffle.
“I know, I know, Baby,” he leans in to kiss my cheek, “but it’s going to be okay. I’m with you every step of the way. Is he okay?” he asks, looking to my belly and back to me.
“I feel him moving,” I nod.
“That’s good, okay,” he says, trying to stay calm, but he can’t hide the side of his mouth trying to pull up in a smile. “I think you just need to catch your breath and get your bearings before anything else. Then we’ll go through all the steps we learned.”
“I’m not ready! I thought we had a while. I thought we had a few more weeks,” I feebly protest, trying so hard to calm down but failing miserably. “What’s today, even?”
Jack gets up and goes to the wall calendar by the garage door. After his eyes scan for a second for today’s date, he freezes, his face stunned. He lets out a deep breath before answering, “It’s June twenty-first.”
“See?” I resume my wigging out. “We’re not due until July!”
“It’s okay,” he tries calming me again as he crosses the room back over to me again.
“What do you mean ‘it’s okay’?” I challenge, hugging my belly, willing my baby to stay inside.
“I mean we’re three weeks and one day away from our due date. That means tomorrow you’re considered full-term anyway. I know it’s early,” he crouches down in front of me, “but it’s safe, it’s okay. And guess what else?” he says, cupping my face in his large, callused hands.
“What?”
“I’ve got something to show you, but I have to go grab it from my office. Will you be okay for just a few seconds?”
“Okay,” I whimper, though I try not to. If there’s ever a time to prove I can be tough, it’s now, and besides, I hate crying!
“You’ll be okay?”
I nod, trying to reassure him, and he dashes off up the stairs. While he’s gone, I try to regroup. I try to think of my yoga breathing and pull any and all of my mediation regimes from my inner filing system. I settle on some squared breathing that I only get through one round of before Jack is back, but it helped a little; just enough for me to focus on the notebook he’s carrying.
“What’s that?” I ask as he squats in front of me again.
“This…” he starts flipping through pages, “is the notebook I always hand on hand around the time that I met you. Look,” he instructs when he finds the page he wants. He holds it out to me and I take it with one hand, resting it on my belly.
On the page he has flipped to, I can see a row of words on every line. Some words are crossed out with an alternate written above them, some lines are crossed out altogether, and there are lots of notes scribbled in the margins. But at the very top of the page, are the wordsSee Her.
“Is this when you were writing it?” I ask, referring to the song that made the band famous; the first one they ever recorded and had played on the radio.
“Yeah,” he nods gently before pointing to the top right-hand corner of the page where I see6/21/16jotted in his handwriting. “That’s the day I started. June twenty-first, five years ago, is the day I sat down and started writingSee Her. That was the night I realized I was hopelessly in love with you, so much so that it inspired a song. Now here we are, five years later, and you’re pregnant, and about to give birth to our baby. It’s perfect,” he finishes with a heavy nod and closed eyes, trying to emphasize what this means to him. “Baby… I know it feels early and this took you by surprise, but this is the perfect day for him to be born; for this to be his birthday.”
Jack cups the side of my face again and holds my stare while he waits for me to jump on his line of thinking.
This is unbelievable. Five years ago today, he wrote the song that changed everything; for the band and for us, for our life. And now I’m having our baby. And I can see that Jack’s right. Now that I know the significance of today, all my fears about it being too early fade away, and I don’t want it to happen on any other day now. I want him to be born today.