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there and chattered on and on in a bright, happy voice as we got her settled in. It took me twenty minutes of listening to her babble for me to realize Marcy was terrified.
    Her water hadn’t broken yet, so she’d been encouraged to walk up and down the halls to help with her labor. The first half an hour had been fine. She’d been upbeat, if still a little manic, but as time wore on and the contractions got harder and Wayne was nowhere to be found, Marcy had ceased with the little Susie Sunshine act.
    “God damn him,” she said. “I fucking told him to keep his motherfucking phone charged…. Fuck!” She clutched her belly and stopped, hunching. She breathed in a series of rapid, whistling breaths while I stood by, helpless to do anything but watch.
    “He’ll be here,” I repeated. Please God, I prayed. Let him get here. Soon.
    When the contraction stopped, the tears started. Marcy turned to me with a desperate look. “Thank you for being with me, Elle. Thank you.”
    Guilt stabbed me. “Of course I’d be here for you, Marcy. You know that.”
    She gripped my hand as another contraction rolled over her. Her lips thinned to pale lines in her face. “Fucking hell!”
    Marcy wasn’t the only woman in labor. I could hear the burble of television sets in some of the labor and delivery rooms, and an occasional grunt or cry. There were women giving birth all over the place here. The air was thick with the odor of blood and fear and joy; my stomach kept trying to turn and I wouldn’t let it.
    “I’m so glad you’re here.” Marcy gripped the wooden handrail along the wall. “You’re always so together, Elle. You’re always so calm.”
    I was anything but calm, but hell, Marcy was expecting me to be something for her and I could give her that, at least. “It’s all going to be okay.”
    She nodded and then looked up at me, her face a mask of surprise. I didn’t know why until a second later when the rapid patter of liquid hitting the tile floor caught my attention. We both looked down, though I doubted Marcy could see past her belly.
    “My water just broke!”
    “It’s okay.” I gripped her hand. “Let’s get you into your room.”
    It all happened very fast after that. Nurses and midwives showed up to do their jobs. Wayne, tie askew and hair windblown, arrived with a story about traffic and dead cell batteries. Marcy forgave him at once. The looks on their faces when he held her hand and kissed it was like something from a movie.
    Wayne’s eyes rolling up in the back of his head and him hitting the tile floor with the sound of a pumpkin breaking open was somewhat less glamorous.
    I’d been edging my way out of the room at that point, preferring to leave them to their privacy, but when Wayne hit the ground Marcy shrieked my name, and I found myself at her side in a second.
    “He’s okay,” I told her. Two orderlies got him to his feet and into a chair, where he promptly put his head between his knees.
    “Get ready to push,” the midwife said. “Elle, can you hold her leg for her?”
    Did I have a choice? I positioned myself at the foot of the table with Marcy’s knee lodged firmly in the stirrup of my hands as I kept it pulled back to help her push. She screamed. Wayne looked up, face pale but determined, and got to his feet. They slapped a gown and gloves on him as fast as a pit crew changing the tires on a race car. The midwife cooed soothing phrases I didn’t hear.
    And Marcy’s baby was born.
    I saw the head, crowning, the sleek dark hair wet and the skull pulsing. She pushed again, in silence this time. The baby slid forth in a gush of blood and liquid, the smell of it ripe and indescribable. Wayne held out his hands and his son slid into the welcoming cradle of his arms. He was crying. So was the baby, and Marcy.
    So was I.
    Ten minutes later she held him, dried and buffed and wrapped in a blanket, to her breast. She didn’t care who saw her nakedness, or that strangers were wiping her