Page 59

“Yes.” Maya nodded. “Yes. Let’s go.”

Elle’s thoughts were running at the speed of light and were tangling themselves as a result. They got into the car and sped to Maya’s hospital where she knew the midwives and felt the most comfortable.

“I was hoping labor would start with peaceful contractions and I’d be able to stay home,” Maya said from the back seat.

“That’s fine. It’s fine,” Elle kept repeating. “Everything will be all right. It doesn’t matter how labor started, only that it will end well.” She glanced at Maya in the rearview mirror.

“Are you reassuring me or yourself?” Maya laughed weakly, feeling the contractions growing in strength.

“Are you all right?” Elle glanced back again.

“I’m in labor, Elle.” Maya knit her eyebrows together. “Keep your eyes on the road, okay?”

“Sure. Sure.” Elle gripped the wheel tighter.

In her entire career as a firefighters’ driver, she’d never experienced the amount of stress soaring through her veins as she did now while driving through the night streets to the hospital with Maya. The shapes of street lamps and passing cars seemed blurred in her determination to get there fast, the focus on speed taking her thoughts away from the anxiety of Maya giving birth. As a firefighter, she witnessed a few emergency births, but nothing could have prepared her for experiencing her love at the beginning of labor, the journey she knew would be painful and tiring.

“How are you doing?” she asked again, this time still keeping her eyes on the road.

“The same as before.” Maya’s voice reached Elle’s ears. “Fucking stressed, too.”

As a doctor, Maya knew exactly what was happening and would happen with her body, yet the experience itself was similar to nothing she had experienced before. The feeling of her body putting all its efforts into one place, one horribly difficult action pulsed through her mind, and she was so, so glad to be with Elle in this moment. She wouldn’t want anyone else in the world to be with her in the delivery room.

Upon getting to the hospital, Elle realized she’d have to pull herself together and offer her calm support the way she’d done in the past. The nurses led them to a delivery room through a series of artificial smelling corridors, white walls licked by LED lights. Elle knew Maya would be in the best hands, yet still she couldn’t help feeling that this was the highest stakes situation of her life, with two people she cared about the most directly concerned—her love and her child. Her heartbeat nested in her throat, and as she entered the birthing room, cold sweat began running down her back.

“You’ll be all right.” She took Maya’s hand in her own. “I’ll be here the whole time.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Maya looked at Elle in concern. “You look like a ghost.”

“Dear, I’m about to pass out from stress, but it’s not about me today.” Elle showed her thumbs up, as she couldn’t think of anything more to say. She desperately wanted to be able to talk to Maya and tell her important things, valuable advice or some encouraging words, but her mind was like a lightning bolt, immediate and overcome with sensations, electrifying and quite useless.

For the entire labor, Maya was free to move around, and she did, feeling very restless. They joked with Elle that the baby would be sporty, forcing her mother to participate in her hyperactive ways. Maya couldn’t be more grateful for the little jokes. Whenever Elle would say some lighthearted comment she felt secure.

When the contractions got the most intense, however, Maya lay down. For some time, Elle thought she couldn’t stand being in the room anymore, but she couldn’t be out of it, either. She generally felt as if her existence was in an in-between state that could end only together with the birth, her state of being hanging by the thinnest of threads.

She held Maya’s hand. Maya gripped Elle so tightly that the blood stopped flowing to her fingers, and then when she no longer wanted it, Elle began pacing the room like mad, circling around and occasionally bumping into the irritated-with-her midwife.

The midwife kept saying that Maya was indeed doing great, and no complications were on the way, but Elle’s thoughts were stubborn, or perhaps it was more her heart, because her thoughts themselves seemed to soar off somewhere inaccessible, leaving her only with love and anxiety racing through her mind.

Push, push, that the midwife had been repeating for a long time burned into her skull, only push, and Maya’s face twisted with pain, groans that sounded like death, but she knew they in fact meant only life—hopefully meant only life. Definitely meant only life. That was what the midwife kept saying.

“How is she doing?” she asked a nurse, her face as white as a sheet and glistening with beads of sweat, her hair stuck to her temples.

“She’s doing great, darling. There really isn’t much to worry about.” The nurse patted Elle’s back. “You look like you’re the one giving birth.”

Their exchange was interrupted by an enthusiastic shout.

“Look, the head!” The midwife pointed it out with her finger for Maya to see, but Maya was too tired to look. She only sighed with relief. “Is she alive?” The question had been beating around her mind the entire time. The only thing she felt besides the struggle and pain was the anxiety. Is she alive?

“Of course she’s alive!” The midwife seemed almost angry at such a silly question. “Of course she is. I’d have told you otherwise. Now push, push, stay strong.”

While everyone was busy, dawn slowly crept up the delivery room’s windows. Amidst the gentle strokes of early light, the sound everyone had been waiting for filled the room with screaming new life. The little girl was crying, and together with her, Maya and Elle. When the umbilical cord had been cut and the baby dried off with a towel, she rested on Maya’s chest, calming down and quietly breathing, making little sounds that melted everyone’s hearts. Elle embraced Maya, kissing her sweaty face and trying desperately not to cry but then realizing that this would probably be the best moment to do so.

“Can I hold her?” she asked, gently stroking the little girl’s hair.

“Of course.” Maya delicately passed the towel-wrapped baby into Elle’s arms. “She’s perfect” Maya declared, looking at her child lovingly, then meeting Elle’s eyes.

“She absolutely is.” Elle nodded, kissing the newborn’s head. Nothing existed to her in that moment besides her daughter and Maya. “Hello, Alex, nice to meet you.”

Silver paths of tears decorated both their faces, happy and exhausted. It felt only right that their daughter saw the world at dawn, welcomed by a newborn sun embacing the clouds with a soft, pink glow. The occasional flock of birds graced the sky, and the streets were empty, with only bakers working on their morning bread. The couple looked outside the window at the peaceful scenery, holding their baby and each other’s hands, wondering how on Earth their lives could contain so much beauty.