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  Cassidy swung the bag as they walked out into the hospital’s empty lobby and through the familiar glass-doored exit, feeling the same sense of excitement she had as a child, leaving with a new toy.

  “You really feel ready?” Noeli asked as she drove back to the farm. Cassidy was uncomfortable behind the wheel now that she had to move the seat back to accommodate the baby.

  “Ready to not be pregnant anymore. Not ready to give birth. Or to have a baby.” She tried to shift her weight from her sciatic nerve, which protested when Cassidy stood or sat for more than five minutes at a time.

  “Well, I’m glad I’m not the only terrified one,” Noeli said.

  “It will be fine.” Cassidy rubbed Noeli’s shoulder. “You’re going to be great.”

  When Cassidy woke that night with her belly hard, she lay still, pillow between her knees, Noeli pressed against the wall beside her. After a few seconds, her belly grew soft again. A few minutes later, it hardened. There was no pain or discomfort; the muscles simply stiffened and then released. It was dark outside, but something in the quality of the stillness signaled the far side of midnight. Even the night animals had hushed, respecting the sanctity of the wee hours.

  Cassidy remained in bed, eyes closed, telling herself it could be nothing, or it could be something and still take a very long time, but it was impossible to stay put. She rolled out of bed, went to the empty master bedroom, and sat cross-legged on the floor of her parents’ closet with her laptop. There were hundreds of contraction timers online, so she opened the first one and began clicking the button on the screen each time her stomach tightened.

  Six minutes, thirty-four seconds.

  Five minutes, thirteen seconds.

  Seven minutes, twelve seconds.

  Six minutes, twenty-five seconds.

  The intervals weren’t long, but they weren’t regular, either. Cassidy opened a new tab, and the muscle memory in her fingers was so strong, she nearly opened the cam site, despite not having broadcast for weeks. Instead she opened Netflix and pressed play on 10 Things I Hate About You. Normally, Julia Stiles was a guaranteed distraction, but right now Cassidy could barely focus on her face, so she moved between trying to watch the movie and walking up and down the stairs, peering out the octagonal window at the coming dawn. Though the light was still a navy gray, insects began to sing their morning songs. The grass, bent as if it, too, had been resting for the night, began to spring to attention.

  As Letters to Cleo played “I Want You to Want Me” and the credits rolled on the unwatched movie, Cassidy, on hands and knees before it, alternately arched her back like an angry cat and let her belly hang low to the ground like a hammock. Mid-cat, Noeli peeked her head in the door.

  “Everything okay in here?”

  “I think I’m having contractions.” Cassidy looked up at her.

  “Really?!”

  “Yeah, I got up a couple hours ago. You should keep sleeping, though. It could be a while. Like, days.”

  “Okay . . .” Noeli watched her skeptically for a moment before backing out of the room. Cassidy heard the bed squeak and the covers rustle then settle.

  As the sun began to peek above the strip mine, hanging heavy below the tree cover, Cassidy restarted the movie. Suddenly she sprung to her feet with more agility than she’d mustered in months. It was instinctual—her body needed to walk, and now was the time, before the humidity made it impossible. She tiptoed down the stairs and opened the front door as quietly as possible, then stepped out into the still-cool air.

  She walked, just down the driveway at first. Then, setting out like an explorer breaking new ground, she lifted her right foot with effort from the gray-and-white gravel and turned at a forty-five-degree angle onto the unruly grass. Each step was a challenge, her muscles straining to move each foot forward. She kept going, though her hips began to ache. The grass tickled her ankles and as she went farther, her thighs. A firefly, not ready for the night to end, flashed three feet ahead. Another to her right answered and soon, above and below, to her left and her right, they flickered and danced, their secret signals a language not meant for her.

  They flashed whether Cassidy was here or not and she felt awe at the honor of witnessing them. Insects flitted about her, emitting a low, constant whir. Each time her belly hardened, Cassidy stopped walking, put her hands on her abdomen, and breathed. With each one, the whir of wings heightened momentarily until it sounded like a rug beating against her ears.

  Cassidy walked and walked as the sun rose higher and higher. She could almost feel the old farm cat there with her. She could almost feel her dad. Carefully, she trudged, one foot, then the other, until she reached the maple tree where her father lay. She was driven by something deep and internal, the process living through her, the baby directing. Lying next to the stone that marked Ken’s resting place, the wet grass rose around her body. Pressing her cheek to the cool stone, she stared at the ground below. Layers of leaves pressed into the wet ground. Soft moss grew on roots and trunks. There were signs of life everywhere, and death. A dead spider, smaller than Cassidy’s fingernail, lay unmoving under a piece of bark. Beside it, on a spindly fern, a small white caterpillar dangled from a glinting string, curling and twisting its way up to the plant, which was drooping ever so slightly with its minuscule weight. There were worlds here. Cassidy had forgotten them, had grown so accustomed to buildings and to concrete. Even the “outside” she knew now was manicured and sanitized. She had forgotten about the layers, the whole worlds that lived in each square inch. She would learn to remember.

  Cassidy breathed in the scent of the dirt, earthy and wet, until she felt vitalized—ready. She wanted to see Noeli. As she rose slowly to her feet, she noticed the branches of the trees just ahead hung lower than they had only a few weeks before. Stepping closer she saw why. There were apples! The scene was surreal—Cassidy could not remember seeing apples on the farm, and these dangled like decorations at a woodland feast—and yet, Cassidy felt totally present. She reached out and picked a golden fruit, took a bite. Her mouth filled with the taste of honey. She moaned in pleasure and continued back toward the house.

  As she walked, the contractions picked up speed and strength, but this did not slow Cassidy down. Her own strength and energy seemed to increase with the demands of labor, and she made it back in half the time her walk out had taken. She opened the door and stepped back into the world of people. There was her purple coat. There was her father’s watch. In the bedroom, Noeli was sitting up and smiling.

  “How are you doing? Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sorry. I should have left a note. I wanted to walk a little.”

  “I figured,” Noeli said, and Cassidy sat beside her.

  “Oh, whoa. That feels different, sitting.”

  “Are you okay?” Noeli put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Yeah.” Cassidy laughed through clenched teeth. “I think you’re going to have to stop asking that. Maybe go back to sleep.”

  Noeli lay back down. “I’ll try.”

  Cassidy tried to lie next to her, but reposing, she could no longer pretend the waves weren’t uncomfortable. She jumped up and paced back and forth down the hall between her bedroom and the master, watched the scene with Heath Ledger on the bleachers, then timed a few contractions. They were regular now—five minutes apart. She went downstairs and tried to eat a strawberry.

  Somehow the morning passed this way, walking from room to room, trying one activity for a few minutes and then giving up. The contractions weren’t quite as painful as period cramps, as long as she kept moving, but they were more distracting. Cassidy’s thoughts were consumed by the intervals, her life occurring in five-minute cycles.

  Noeli woke up and watched Cassidy nervously for a while. “You need to stop looking at me,” Cassidy said, and Noeli hid behind her own laptop screen, occasionally peeking up.

&nbs
p; “Do you think we should go to the hospital?” Cassidy asked. She had no idea how much time had passed.

  “Do you think we should go to the hospital?”

  “I don’t know. They hurt, but it isn’t bad and they’re still almost three minutes apart.”

  “Three minutes?” Noeli’s eyes grew wide. “I thought the nurse said we were supposed to go at four or five.”

  “That’s if you want an epidural.”

  “You remember it takes fifteen minutes to get to town and that you agreed to a hep lock and external monitoring? Are you going to be cool getting that all set up when you’re . . . in the thick of it?”

  “Oh,” Cassidy said. She hadn’t remembered—she’d been lost in the primal feel of it all, the sinking into herself. “Maybe we should go.”

  At that, Noeli snapped into action, grabbing the hospital bag, a big red yoga ball, and Cassidy’s phone.

  In the next moment, though, Cassidy knew they were not going to town. A contraction followed the previous one, almost on its heels, and it was different—very different, this time.

  “Uhh,” Cassidy half said, half groaned, and when she emerged from this world-dissolving contraction, she was surprised to see both Paloma and Grandma Jane there with her, beside Noeli.

  “Wha—”

  “I used your phone to call them while you were on your walk,” Noeli said.

  “Let’s go, sweetheart,” Paloma said. “I’ll help you down the steps.”

  “I’m not getting in the car,” Cassidy said as the next contraction began, with barely a break from the last one, and her world collapsed again. Moaning, she rocked side to side, and someone held her, rocking with her, dancing. She wasn’t sure if it was her mom or Noeli, and it didn’t matter.

  “Let’s go,” Paloma said again when the contraction ended. “Before the next one starts.”

  “I’m not going,” she managed to bellow before the next began. Her voice was low and raspy, animalistic. Cassidy felt the world around her close to a pinhole, like the end of Looney Tunes episodes. As the wave subsided, the hole opened and she took in the room around her—posters, furniture, Noeli’s things so at home now in this familiar space. Noeli herself, pacing and biting her lower lip, unusually pink in its lack of red lipstick. “I’m not going anywhere,” she breathed. “Ohhhh.”

  Her groans grew louder as the contractions grew closer and more intense. Her mind space felt like a physical space—one she had visited, a place inside herself that she knew. It was familiar, though she wasn’t sure she’d actually been there before. “I don’t know if I can do this.” She looked at Noeli, her eyes as wide as a scared child’s. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

  “You knew it would hurt,” Noeli said, coming to her.

  “I knew it would hurt, but I didn’t know I would be here.” Cassidy knew Noeli wouldn’t understand what this meant, but it didn’t matter. Noeli held her and Cassidy melted into her arms. As another contraction built, Noeli rested her forehead against Cassidy’s so that they were nose to nose. As the tightening grew, crested, and then subsided, they looked right into each other’s eyes. Somehow, like this, Cassidy managed to keep one foot there, in her room, even as the rest of her inhabited that strange yet familiar internal world.

  “We need to call 911.” Paloma’s voice sounded far away, like a television in another room.

  “I don’t have service,” Noeli said.

  “Here, take my phone.” Paloma handed it to Noeli.

  And suddenly a deer. Its eyes black, flowers wildly strewn about its ears. It stared at Cassidy. “There’s a deer. The deer is here,” she practically screamed. “Am I dying?” She was frantic, thrashing, searching for Noeli. Her absence was stabbing.

  “No, Cass, you’re not dying,” Noeli said softly as she returned and put a hand behind Cassidy’s head, cradling it firmly. Paloma and Jane were both surrounding her now too, the arms of all three of them encircling her like the pattern on a wedding ring quilt.

  The contractions continued, one on top of the other, each bringing Cassidy to the closed glass house inside herself, a place beyond thoughts of cars or hospital bags or any of the love she’d felt a moment ago. It was a place completely solitary, and yet totally raw and open, vulnerable to all the hurts she had carried one on top of another since she was three and the burden of memory had graced her with its double-edged gift.

  In her mind, she saw the hotel room from their trip to the state fair. She could smell the old cigarette smoke clinging to the curtains, hear the screams from the Tornado and the Zipper echoing in her mind. She watched as her father turned his head away, upset that she’d said she didn’t want to go back to Buckhannon. Grandma Jane had turned her head in the exact same way when she said she would have taken his place. “In a heartbeat,” she had said.

  Paloma squeezed her shoulders, tried to bring her back to them, but all Cassidy could hear was her mother’s voice telling her she’d been lonely for so long. “I understand,” Cassidy said aloud. “But what about me?” Paloma held her harder.

  Each wave brought her back to that place—the one where all of these hurts lived, and all of her mother’s hurts lived, and her father’s hurts, and her grandmother’s hurts, and every hurt that had been felt here for years and years and years and years and years. With each contraction, it rose around her, shattering the walls in a dizzying crescendo. All of it, everything, had been leading to this moment.

  Then there were moments between, just long enough to fill Cassidy with love, its weight almost as heavy as the hurts. Her father’s smile. Her mother’s arms. Her grandmother’s hands there with her, now.

  She saw the flow of events in the world and in her life, continuous and legible. Her grandmother had grown up during the war, had worked for the war effort. The results of that war had led to the Soviet invasion of Prague and her parents’ meeting. It all led to this moment. It was as if someone had written it, had known the whole story.

  Only flashes broke through the ups and downs.

  Noeli: “They said it would be about fifteen minutes.”

  Paloma: “Get some towels.”

  Cassidy, her own voice sounding far away now: “Don’t you dare go anywhere.”

  Now, Noeli’s arms were around her. Now, she was wiping the sweat from her brow. Now, Noeli’s arms held her up. Now, their tears streamed together.

  Suddenly it was time, and Cassidy knew it without questioning. She squatted, supported by Paloma on one side and Noeli on the other, and without thinking consciously about what to do, she pushed. Her body pushed without her telling it to, a bearing down that was not unlike the sensation of throwing up.

  Grandma Jane brushed the sweaty hair from Cassidy’s forehead and again the world came in flashes. The paramedics arriving. Noeli whispering, “I’m right here with you.” Changing positions, all fours now. Bright lights—the sun streaming through the window. The deer again, this time benevolent, her eyes soft, encouraging, welcoming Cassidy to motherhood.

  A flash of searing, stretching pain and then—and then he was here—pink, writhing, Cassidy’s arms reaching back through her legs for him and sitting up on her knees, bringing him to her chest. His face in a halo of light. This was what he looked like. Of course. He could not have looked like anything but this. His face, so soft and perfectly round, his eyes closed tight against the imposing sunlight, two slits that seemed to span his whole tiny face, his mouth open in a perfect Cupid’s bow, almost a smile. His tiny fingers flexed wide and then relaxed against Cassidy, his knuckles crescent moons.

  “Hola, mi amor,” Noeli said, her tears falling down on them both. Paloma and Grandma Jane, holding each other beside them, were crying, too.

  The paramedic, faceless and sexless, stood in the shadow of the presence of Cassidy’s child, who was really, really here, checking both her and the baby, then standing back. This
child was holy; there was no other word for it.

  They insisted on taking them in, just to check on them both. At St. Joe’s they ran the usual tests, washed the vernix from her baby’s hair and fuzzy shoulders, sutured Cassidy with two quick stitches, and produced a bottle of extra-strength ibuprofen.

  “Wesley,” she said, stroking her son’s impossibly soft hair and bringing him to her breast for the first time. “Daddy’s middle name. Wesley Antonio. For Abuela.”

  Noeli smiled and kissed Cassidy’s forehead and then Wesley’s.

  “Let’s go home,” Cassidy said. She searched Noeli’s face.

  “We are home,” Noeli said, putting a hand to Cassidy’s cheek. Cassidy breathed in. She looked up at Noeli, whose doe eyes shone back at her, and then at Wesley, whose lower lip curled under in a sloppy latch. She spoke to them both. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, the notes of a hymn on her lips, salty.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Mommy, for everything.

  Daddy, thank you for making me feel like a writer.

  Thank you to my husband, Jer, for being proud of me and for understanding when I worked on the book instead of hanging out.

  Thank you, Sadie, for reading and encouraging me, and for helping me work through my insecurities.

  Thank you, Grandma, for modeling avid reading, for being so brave and adventurous, for believing in me, and for your endless love.

  Thank you, Marc and Terry, for the babysitting and support.

  Thank you, J, Eric, and Connor, for your pod-ship and enthusiasm.

  Thank you to Liz Worth, for your early coaching.

  Thank you, Diana, for reading and for your pride in me, and for your help with the Spanish.

  Thank you, Amy Tenney, the Upshur County Historical Society, Cindy Gueli, and Bruce Damer, for your help with the historical research.