Chapter 3 - The Family I Kept Carrying
The ambulance arrived twelve minutes later.
By then, Emily was sitting at the kitchen table with a towel around her shoulders, breathing slowly while I knelt beside her. The paramedics said it could be stress, dehydration, early contractions, or all three.
Stress.
Dehydration.
In my apartment.
With four able-bodied adults watching television while my pregnant wife scrubbed their greasy pans.
One paramedic, a woman named Carla, looked around the kitchen and then at my family in the living room.
Her expression said enough.
“When was the last time she ate?” Carla asked.
Emily hesitated.
I looked at her.
“Em?”
She whispered, “Lunch.”
It was after ten at night.
I stood so fast the chair scraped backward.
Teresa rolled her eyes. “She said she wasn’t hungry.”
Emily’s face burned with shame. “There wasn’t enough food after everyone ate.”
The apartment went quiet.
I looked at the pizza boxes. The half-empty soda cups. The chips in my mother’s lap.
There wasn’t enough food.
For my wife.
For my son.
Because my mother and sisters had treated my home like a motel with free room service.
Carla helped Emily onto the stretcher. “We’re taking her in for monitoring.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
Teresa stepped forward. “Ethan, you’re exhausted. Let the hospital handle her. You need to sleep.”
I stared at her.
For a second, I didn’t recognize my own mother. Or maybe I finally did.
“My wife is going to the hospital,” I said. “I’m going with her.”
“You’re being manipulated.”
Emily closed her eyes.
I turned toward my sisters. “Clean this apartment before I get back.”
Kayla laughed nervously. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
Brittany’s mouth twisted. “We didn’t make her do anything. She chose to clean.”
That sentence followed me into the hallway.
She chose to clean.
Like she had a choice with Teresa’s voice in her ear all day and my sisters laughing at her swollen feet.
At the hospital, Emily was hooked to monitors. The baby’s heartbeat filled the room, fast and steady, and I nearly broke down from relief.
The nurse said, “She needs rest. Hydration. Less stress.”
Less stress.
I sat beside Emily’s bed and held her hand.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She looked at me with tired eyes. “You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
Her fingers moved against mine.
“I didn’t want you to lose your family.”
May you like
I looked at the monitor. At the little heartbeat that was ours.
“They already lost me,” I said.
