Page 147 of Tides That Bind

The nurse reappears, motioning at the door. “You coming?”

“I…” I look down at my phone and shove it back into my pocket, wiping my sweaty palm on my shorts. The nurse is already at Harper’s side when I enter, finding her sitting on the edge of the bed in a hospital gown, her bare legs dangling.

“I called Claire. She’s looking for a flight but a lot are cancelled. Hopefully she’ll come down in the morning.” The morning is really only like 12 hours from now.

Harper wipes her face. “Anything from Nate?”

It should be Nate. But because it can’t be Nate, it should be his mom, Claire. Or my sister Caroline, because she’s one of Harper’s only friends here. But it’s me, Riley, the guy who knows nothing about babies apart from how they are made, the guy who should be studying for a law school exam I’ve procrastinated putting off because I know I’ll probably fail anyway. It’s me—Harper’s husband’s best friend. The guy she admittedly can’t stand.

I shake my head.

“Alright,” the nurse begins, “let’s get some fluids into you.”

When Harper looks over at the small tray with a needle, cannula, and antiseptic, she’s painted with a sheen of sweat that rivals my own. And then she turns green.

I take one giant step and grab her other hand. When she links her fingers with mine, I wonder if maybe she hates me less than she hates needles.

“Don’t think about it,” I tell her, even though I am.

Harper shivers and flinches preemptively, her fingers digging into my flesh. “What should I think about then?”

I look at our hands linked and not the needle. “Think about how one day, this will make a really great story.”

If I’m being honest, witnessing what it takes to bring a child into this world has solidified my desire to not procreate. It’s a done deal. Nail in the coffin. Bury the coffin in an unmarked grave and throw the shovel in the ocean.

I wonder, as I hold a small, plastic tub in front of Harper and she pukes in it for the third time, if I might feel differently if this weremykid trying to make its way out of its mother and that mother happened to be someone I loved, or at the very least, liked.

“Are you sure you don’t want an epidural?” The nurse says.

Harper shakes her head immediately.

“Harper, maybe—”

“I said no. No more needles, please.”

The nurse takes the container from me, disposing of its contents. “I’m going to check you now,” she says.

I reach over, handing Harper a cup of ice chips.

“I’ll go.” I know from a few hours ago that this “check” involves hands going places I have no business being around, and well, Harper told me to get the hell out the last time when I wasn’t sure what was happening in the first place.

Harper grabs me. “Riley.” She looks at the nurse who washes her hands at the sink before reaching for gloves and then back at me. “Can you stay?”

There’s a change in her tone, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been a good substitute birth partner by catching vomit all night, or if maybe, Harper is scared and it doesn’t matter what my role is, or who we are and how we hate each other.

Right now, I’m all she has.

I nod and step closer to the head of the bed, out of the line of fire and I try to keep my eyes across the room as I hear wheels of a stool squeak across the floor as the nurse approaches the bed. My stomach curls into a tight bundle of nerves over the intimacy of the situation, what should be something that doesn’t involve me.

But I’m not able to hear my own anxious thoughts. Not over the sound of an alarm going off.

“Could you go ahead and push that red button?” the nurse asks me. Between the sound in the room and her calm demeanor, I can’t get a read on the situation. Harper tightens her hold on my hand and I reach out with my free one, slamming my palm into the red button.

An entirely different alarm sounds the room. And I don’t have to be a doctor to know it means something bad.

It mustreallybe bad because now there are four other people in the room and one standing by the door. I step to the side so the nurse can adjust the monitor on Harper’s stomach, but I don’t let go of her hand.

There’s talk about fetal distress.

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