“Breathe,” Maksim says. “Don’t hold it. That makes it worse.”
She does as he says, but barely.
I can feel how frightened she is now. Not in the obvious way. In the way her whole body is trying to pull in around the pain and the blood and the terror of not knowing whether this is labor or something worse.
“How far?” I ask him quietly.
He doesn’t answer immediately.
That’s answer enough.
“I don’t know yet,” he says at last. “But I don’t like the blood.”
Neither do I.
The drive feels endless even though we’re moving too fast for any of it to be safe. Sienna’s head comes to rest against my shoulder between contractions, and every time she goes quiet for more than a few seconds, I say her name until she looks at me again.
At some point she whispers, “I’m sorry.”
I stare at her. “For what?”
“For ruining everything.”
The words hit me with such force I almost don’t understand them.
Then I do.
The wedding. The lawn. The blood. My family. The fact that this entire day has turned into something violent and broken and she’s found a way to make herself responsible for it.
“No,” I say. Her eyes close. I tighten my hold on her hand. “Look at me.” They open again. “This is not on you.”
Another contraction cuts off whatever she was going to say. She makes a helpless sound and turns into me, and I put my arm around her without caring whether Maksim thinks it useful.
“Good,” he says. “Stay with that. Don’t fight your body.”
She gives him a look through the pain that would almost be funny in another life. “Very inspiring.”
Maksim nearly smiles. “I’m not here to inspire. I’m here to get you through the next twenty minutes.”
That, at least, seems to reach her.
The blood on the towel is darker than I want it to be. I don’t look at it twice. If I do, I’ll stop thinking usefully.
Instead I ask, “How long?”
“Ten minutes,” the driver says.
Too long.
Maksim checks the towel again and says, “Still with me, Sienna?”
“Yes.”
“When you feel the pain coming, tell me.”
She nods weakly.
I brush damp hair back from her face and feel the heat of her skin under my palm. Too warm now from stress, from effort, from fear.