Dottie squealed in pain as she sat in the back of George’s car with her legs slung over Margaret’s lap.
“Can’t you go any faster?” Margaret asked.
“It’s not the car,” George said, stretching his head up to see better and adjusting his glasses as if that might help. “It’s the traffic.”
“We could walk there with as long as this is taking!”
“Of course we could, but I don’t think between you and me, we could carry a woman in her condition.”
Margaret slunk back, feeling helpless.
“It’s never like this on Navy Street. Can we cut over to St. Edward?”
George looked to his left, but in every direction, cars were stopped, either trying to find alternate routes or stuck behind whatever was keeping things from moving.
Margaret rolled the window down and stuck her head out. She pushed herself up until she could see beyond everything. She’d never encountered a backup like this and wouldn’t have thought there were this many people in all of Brooklyn. But up ahead, she saw that four cars had collided. She squinted her eyes and shaded them from the sun. None of the emergency vehicles had pulled out gurneys as far as she could tell. Surely that would indicate the seriousness of it.
On the other hand, they had an emergency of their own right here.
She sat back down and looked at where Dottie was sprawled across the seat.
“How are you?” she asked in a voice laced with the sympathy and desperation of one who cannot help as she’d like. She rubbed Dottie’s arm, eager to do something to ease her discomfort.
Dottie’s face and hair were drenched with sweat, but she forced a smile anyway. “I’m in between contractions. Ask me in two minutes and I might have a different answer.”
Indeed, two minutes brought a new round of wailing from Dottie, her screams filling the entirety of the vehicle to the point of hurting Margaret’s ears. But it was nothing compared to what Dottie was going through, and they had at last crawled a few feet closer to their turn.
Margaret looked over at George, whose hands gripped the steering wheel until they were white, and back at Dottie, whose breathing was starting to relax again.
Margaret closed her eyes, needing to think of something good to distract her.
And then, something brought a smile to her face. Just a few nights ago, Gladys had been out at a voter registration drive for women. Margaret had planned to go but decided at the last minute to stay with Dottie, worried about something happening while they were gone. Dottie had protested, but Margaret insisted on staying in the tiny apartment to finish up some socks for their next shipment.
A knock on the door, and Margaret opened it up to see George. He had flowers and ice cream with him.
“Margaret!” he’d said, looking down at his feet. And it was then that she realized that she wasn’t supposed to be here. That George and Dottie had arranged an evening together and she was an interloper.
She’d looked back at Dottie, who feigned surprise at George’s presence, but Margaret knew every single expression that her friend possessed. And this one had traces of what she’d seen when Dottie had been around John.
He really loves her, thought Margaret. And she might just love him back.
The thought resurrected a mixed set of emotions. It was always supposed to be John. And now it couldn’t be.
But they kind of made sense together. A glimmer of hope in all this madness. Certainly the state of the world and these particular circumstances might accelerate such a relationship to mere months. Even as Dottie and John’s romance had enjoyed the luxury of many years of simmering.
And now, here he was. At Dottie’s side at the most important moment of her life.
That had to mean something.
It took a half hour to drive the remaining blocks, but at last they pulled up to the imposing redbrick structure that served as the area’s hospital.
“I’ll go for help,” Margaret said, already halfway out of the car. She pulled open the glass doors of the entrance—impossibly heavy—and then went through two other sets before finally arriving at the receiving desk.
“My friend is having a baby! Where do I take her?”
The receptionist put on the glasses attached to a cord around her neck and looked toward the entrance.
“Where is she?”
“In the car. Outside. With a…friend.” Margaret’s breaths were frenetic despite the short run and her lungs felt like she’d swallowed knives. Her racing heartbeat had gotten a head start in George’s car.
“We’ll send a wheelchair out for her. There’s no need to worry.”
How did she know there was no need to worry? Had she seen Dottie? Did she know Dottie? Had she delivered any babies herself? The woman answered telephones. How did she know that everything would be okay?
Margaret bit her lip and inwardly chastised herself. She had to calm down. This was something that had happened billions upon billions of times since the beginning of the world. This was how nature was designed.
But that thought didn’t help as she’d hoped. This was Dottie’s first time. And that made it feel like the first time in the entire history of the human race.
The receptionist gave Margaret some paperwork, and filling it out was a welcome distraction.
Name. Dorothy Maria Troutwine.
Address. She closed her eyes. It would have to be Gladys’s—312 Harrison Street.
Gladys! Gladys didn’t know yet. Margaret remembered that she didn’t have a shift today and had gone with Oliver into Manhattan, where he was doing some research on the upcoming Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in the hopes of pitching an article to a stateside newspaper.
Gladys had an interest in all things newsworthy. And all things Oliver, as she’d reluctantly admitted to Margaret and Dottie.
She had to figure out how to alert her.
She filled in the next questions as best she could and was relieved that there was no question for “father.”
But that question would come, surely, on the birth certificate. And writing John’s name would bring on the bitterness of his absence once again.
“Owwwww!” Margaret jerked around to see a nurse pushing Dottie in a wheelchair and Dottie hunched over in pain.
“Can’t you do anything for her?” asked Margaret.
The nurse smiled, a model of amicability even as Margaret felt like she’d been turned inside out.
“We’ll take good care of her,” she promised. “There is a waiting room on the fourth floor. We’ll bring you updates there. In the meantime, you can find something to eat in the cafeteria in the basement. It could be a long night.”
Dottie grabbed Margaret’s hand with terrifying force.
“Don’t leave me!”
Margaret looked at the nurse, pleading with her eyes.
“I want to go in with her. I’m her sister,” she said. A stretch of the truth to be sure, but she would have been if Dottie had married John.
The nurse shook her head. “We’ll take good care of her,” she said again, as if she heard this request several times a day. It both riled and comforted Margaret. But she had to admit that there was nothing else she could do.
She slouched onto a bench near the door, and as she hoped, George came in shortly after.