Chapter One

My water broke in the middle of my family’s tiny clinic.

Thirty-six weeks pregnant, breech baby, emergency C-section. I only had one request: not City Center Hospital.

Because the man I had been hiding from for eight months worked in a hospital.

I told myself there were hundreds of doctors in the city. It would not be him.

Then the operating room door opened.

My ex-boyfriend walked in wearing scrubs, looked at my chart, looked at my belly, and went completely still.

He was not just the man I had left.

He was the anesthesiologist about to put a needle in my spine.

And when our daughter was born wearing his exact face, there was no hiding left.

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If I ever made a ranking of the most humiliating moments of my life, the old top two used to be easy.

In high school, my mother caught me on a coffee-shop date, and the poor boy across from me panicked so hard he shoved his straw up his nose.

At my college graduation, my dress caught on the chair when I stood to receive my award, and half the faculty got a clear view of my cartoon-bear underwear.

After today, neither event deserved a medal.

Because at that moment, I was squatting beside Mrs. Walker at my family's tiny clinic, adjusting the drip on her IV, when warm fluid ran down my thighs.

At first, I thought I had peed.

Do not laugh. Late pregnancy does strange things to the human body. Sneezing had become a full-contact sport.

But this was not a trickle.

This was a flood.

I looked down.

My pants were soaked from the knees down. A clear puddle spread across the floor, heading straight for Mrs. Walker's slippers.

Mrs. Walker had been humming with her eyes closed. Her left foot went cold. She looked down, looked back up at me, and nearly launched herself out of the chair.

"Maya! Are you-"

"Mrs. Walker, don't move. You still have the needle in your hand."

"You are worried about my needle? Your pants are soaked!"

"Please keep your voice down."

Too late again.

My mother, Grace Reed, was at the front desk eating pretzel sticks and watching a drama on her phone. She poked her head in, saw my face, saw my pants, saw the water on the floor, and sprayed crumbs across the counter.

"What happened?"

Her eyes moved from my belly to the floor.

Then she shot up so fast her stool fell over behind her.

"Nora! Your sister's water broke!"

The volume could have passed for an air-raid siren.

My older sister, Nora Reed, rushed out of the next exam room with a stethoscope still in one hand. Her white coat snapped behind her like a flag.

She took one look at the floor, pinched my wrist with two fingers, and checked my pulse.

"Fast, but steady."

Then she crouched, looked again, and stood.

"Clear fluid. No sign of cord prolapse." She turned to me. "Maya, you are thirty-six weeks, your last scan showed the baby was breech, and your water just broke. We are going to the hospital. I am calling an ambulance. Sit down and do not stand again."

Mom had already gone pale. "Only thirty-six weeks? Is that too early? Is the baby going to-"

"Mom," Nora said without turning around, "go get her hospital bag and the folder with her records. Top shelf of her bedroom closet. Do not grab the wrong one. Run."

Mom ran.

I sat down. Fluid kept leaking. Mrs. Walker patted my shoulder with the hand that did not have tape on it.

"Don't be scared, honey. I had my oldest at seven months. He came out skinny and grew into a linebacker."

Nora put the ambulance call on speaker while removing Mrs. Walker's IV with the calm of a woman who could survive a hurricane with a clipboard.

"City Center Hospital, obstetric emergency. Premature rupture of membranes. Thirty-six weeks, breech presentation. First pregnancy."

Something inside my head went very still.

"Nora."

"What?"

"Not City Center."

She looked at me. "It has the best OB unit in the city and the NICU is upstairs. With a breech baby this early, if she needs anything-"

"Take me to St. Mary's."

"St. Mary's closed its labor unit last year. You want to deliver in a waiting room?"

I opened my mouth.

The dispatcher said the ambulance was seven minutes away.

Nora ended the call and stared at me. "Stop being strange. Why don't you want City Center?"

What was I supposed to say?

Because eight months ago I left my old city in the middle of the night because of a man who worked in a hospital?

Because I had spent the entire pregnancy avoiding any place where I might accidentally breathe the same air as him?

Because the father of my child was the one person I could not face?

I could not say any of that.

Besides, he should have been at Mercy General. He had no reason to be here.

No reason.

The ambulance siren grew louder down the street.

My daughter kicked me hard.

Not now, tiny traitor. Your mother is already fighting for her life.

Mom burst back in with the hospital bag and knocked over the potted plant by the door.

Nora took my arm in one hand and the bag in the other. "Lock the clinic and follow us."

When the paramedics loaded me onto the stretcher, I looked up at the sky.

Bright blue.

Not a cloud anywhere.

It did not look like the kind of day fate would choose for public execution.

I took a breath.

It would be fine.

There were plenty of anesthesiologists in this city.

It would not be him.

Absolutely not.