Page 115 of Carry Me Home

‘I need the hospital. I need it now. I can’t do this in a car, I can’t⁠—’

‘You can. Hold on.’

‘Don’t tell me to hold on. You’re not the one whose body is trying to turn itself inside—’ She screams. Actually screams, loud enough to echo off the windows.

Kit’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel. But his voice stays steady. ‘Nine minutes.’

‘I hate you.’

‘I know.’

‘This is your fault.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m never doing this again. Never. We’re adopting. We’re getting cats. We’re—’ Another scream, ragged, tearing through her.

‘Eight minutes.’

I hold on to her and pray.

The hospital appears around the corner like salvation.

Kit pulls up to the entrance, abandons the car at an angle that’ll definitely get him a ticket, and is out the door before the engine’s fully stopped.

‘She needs help,’ he tells the first nurse he sees. ‘Now. Please.’

They take one look at Isla and mobilise. Wheelchair. Forms. Rapid-fire questions: how far apart, how long, first baby, any complications.

Kit answers what he can. I fill in the gaps. And within minutes, Isla’s being whisked away towards the delivery suite, her hand reaching back for both of us.

‘Don’t leave,’ she calls. ‘Either of you. Don’t⁠—’

‘We’re right here.’ Kit’s voice cracks. Just slightly. Just enough. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’

They let me stay.

I don’t know if that’s normal – a friend in the delivery room alongside the father – but Isla’s hand is locked around mine and Kit’s on her other side and nobody asks me to leave, so I don’t.

The hours blur. The epidural takes the edge off and Isla becomes herself again between contractions – sharp, funny, bossing Kit around with the focused authority of a woman who has done this before and knows exactly what she needs. Kit takes it. He takes all of it. He holds her hand and fetches ice chips and absorbs every insult she throws at him with the same stoic patience he brings to hauling nets in a gale.

‘If you tell me to breathe one more time,’ Isla says at one point, teeth gritted, ‘I will divorce you.’

‘We’re not married.’

‘Then I’ll marry you just so I can divorce you.’

‘Noted.’

I hold her other hand. I wipe her forehead with a damp cloth. I do the small, useless things that feel enormous when someone you love is in pain – handing her cups of water, adjusting pillows, being present in a way that doesn’t fix anything. It’s all I can offer.

And I think – briefly, involuntarily, the way you touch a bruise – that Tom would be out in that corridor right now. If things were different. He’d be the one who’d thought to bring proper coffee from the café instead of vending-machine grief. He’d be sitting in a plastic chair with his legs stretched out, saying nothing useful, being completely essential.

I let the thought come. I let it go.

At 6:41, the midwife says it’s time.

What follows is the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever witnessed. Not beautiful – not in the way people mean when they say birth is beautiful. Raw. Brutal. Loud. Isla screaming, Kit white-faced and gripping her hand, the midwife calm and steady, the room full of urgency and sweat and the metallic smell of blood and effort.