THE TROUBLE WITH PAPER PLANES(85)

A wheelchair miraculously appeared as we were checking her in, and then we were on our way up to the maternity ward. The whole hour seemed to fly by. Jas was whisked into a delivery room, with Vinnie right behind her, and Bridget, Alex, Maia and I were left to stew in our own juices in the waiting room down the hall.

My God, the noise.

Not Jas, but some other woman, just up the hall from her. She sounded like a wounded animal and it grated on my nerves. I wished someone would shut her the hell up.

Maia reached for my hand, as if reading my mind. “I’m so nervous for them.”

I stared down at our hands, laced together on my thigh. I felt sick, now that the adrenaline rush had worn off. I kept seeing the puddle of water on the kitchen floor at Jas’s feet. I could only imagine what Vinnie was going through.

“How long do you reckon it’ll take?” Alex asked, sitting across from us, his elbows resting on his knees as he wrung his hands.

Bridget smiled, reaching over to put an arm around his shoulder and give him a squeeze. “There’s no way of knowing, but I think we’ll be here a while.”

Alex leaned back in his seat, frowning. “How long’s a while?”

“Well, with Em it took about twelve hours. With you, about eight.”

I gaped at her. Twelve hours? In pain like that?

Right on time, the woman up the hall let out a guttural moan that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Bridget cringed. “Poor love. Just as well it’s worth it in the end.”

Jesus, it’d better be.

She was grinning at me, her eyes crinkling with merriment. I frowned at her.

“Your face,” she giggled, although she was trying not to.

“How can you laugh at a time like this?” I snapped.

She sighed. Indulgently, like you do with children. It made me even angrier.

“Childbirth is such a privilege,” she said patiently. “It changes your life. Your body is torn apart, but your heart is suddenly stronger and yet more vulnerable at the same time. The pain is part of the journey. Nothing worth having is easy.”

She looked wistful, pulling Alex closer and leaning her head on his shoulder. He let her, to his credit, which was a big concession for him. The past few days had definitely made an impact on him.

“I remember thinking, with both my babies, that I would miss being pregnant. I would miss that connection, feeling their little body inside of mine. It was me and my baby against the world, and once they were born, I worried about losing that. But when the baby’s born, you’re so busy loving them and caring for them and getting to know them as the wonderful little human beings they are, you don’t get a chance to miss them. You just get used to sharing them.”

Maia squeezed my hand, and I looked over at her. She had tears in her eyes. I knew what she was thinking.

What if I’m her baby?

With each new day, it became more obvious that the pain of not knowing where she fit in the world was bearing down on her. Being surrounded by birth and death and love and loss was only reminding her of what she might be missing out on.

“She’s going to be fine,” Bridget said quietly.

It took me a moment to realise she was talking about Jas. “Yeah. Of course she is.”

I wondered how Vinnie was holding up.





MAIA WAS ASLEEP, SPRAWLED across the three chairs to my right. Her hair was pooled behind her, one hand tucked under her chin. She looked beautiful, even in this light. I stood across the room, leaning against the wall, on my third cup of coffee. It had been five hours and still no sign of the new arrival. Jas must be exhausted.


The screamer down the hall had finally given birth an hour ago, and they’d moved her and baby to another room. One other woman had been admitted, but there wasn’t much action from her yet.

Vinnie had come out a couple of times for a break, and Bridget had gone in to be with Jas. He was tired and scared. He said Jas wasn’t acting like herself. He said she was in a lot of pain, demanding an epidural, even though that wasn’t in her birth plan. When he reminded her of that, she swore at him. Like a sailor. I’d never even heard Jas swear before, but Vinnie said she came out with a few words that had even made him cringe.

The woman up the hall had nothing on Jas. She’d been screaming like a banshee for half an hour. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take of this. I sure as hell didn’t know how Maia could sleep through it all, but I was jealous that she could. I was on tenterhooks.