Page 139 of Slapshot Baby

Biscuit runs to me the moment my neighbor hands him over. His tail keeps wagging, nose jamming into my thigh.

"Hey, girl. Easy."

I trudge to my door, unlock it. I don't remember the steps between the door and the cushion. Just that I’ve somehow arrived at the couch and I’m now lying and staring at the ceiling.

Exhaustion settles deep into my marrow. Every muscle I held rigid for an hour is releasing at once, cramping and twitching in waves that roll through my legs and back.

Biscuit climbs onto my chest. Her warm weight presses into me and a sob breaks loose that I didn't give permission.

Then another. Then another.

I cry with my dog on my chest and my hand on my belly, the ceiling blurring above me. I cry because Kai would have held my hand through every second of it if I'd let him.

And I didn't let him.

I've been so busy proving I can do this alone that I forgot to ask whether I should.

My mother made raising Lucy and I look survivable. She made it look like strength. But I remember her hands shaking over the bills at the kitchen table when she thought we'd gone to bed, hearing the sound of her crying through the wall.

I don’t want to live that kind of life.

I want Kai. I need his voice.

Now.

Not tomorrow, not tonight over takeout, now.

My phone is in my bag by the door. I slide off the couch and half-crawl to it because my legs have stopped cooperating. The screen blurs. My fingers are clumsy, swollen. I tap the screen, press the phone to my ear.

Two rings.

"Ava?"

Wrong voice. Only one person in the world has a voice as sharp as that.

"Lucy?"

"You called me. What's going on?"

"Sorry. Wrong number."

"Are you crying?"

"I'm fine."

"Don't you dare 'I'm fine' me. I can hear your nose running through the phone. Talk."

I should tell her I'm tired and hang up. Deal with this tomorrow when I have the energy to act in a way that won’t scare her.

"I had a blood transfusion for the baby."

There’s a charged silence.

"Tell me Kai was with you."

"He wasn't."

"Where was he?"