Hooked by Catherine Greenman

Author:Catherine Greenman [Greenman, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780375898884
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-08-08T14:00:00+00:00

27.

The morning I went into labor, I crocheted and watched the Movie Channel, thinking it would teach me something about life. I’d finally found the ring, and as I did more of them, I was able to recognize what the ring looked like (it looked like a hole!) and how it changed shape a little after each stitch. After a few hours I finished a yellow, slightly lopsided version of the bikini bottom that didn’t look half bad. It was a far cry from the multicolored zigzags I’d pictured, but it was a step.

I decided to walk downtown and across the Brooklyn Bridge because I was a week past my due date and my doctor had told me to walk. My water broke just as I reached the high, arched midpoint. I stopped short and doubled over, and a guy running behind me crashed into me.

“Jesus, watch out,” he said. We were both sprawled on the wooden walkway, bikers and cars whizzing past. He was practically on top of me, his flimsy blue nylon shorts draping my leg. Then he saw my huge belly and my wet, streaked jeans.

“Shit, are you okay?” He stood up and held out his arm. “Can you stand up?”

“I need to get to the hospital,” I said, dusting myself off.

“I don’t have a phone!” He waved his arms frantically around his skimpy shorts.

“I do,” I said. I dialed Will at school.

“It’s happening,” I said. “My water broke. Meet me at NYU.”

“Where are you?”

“On the Brooklyn Bridge. I’m going to try and find a cab.” I started walking back to Manhattan, the guy in shorts following me.

“I’m okay,” I said, wanting him to go away. Nothing hurt yet. “Thanks.”

“You sure?” he asked tentatively, looking relieved.

I nodded and started walking faster. My flats made awful squishy sounds as I got to the end of the bridge and then to Chambers Street. I passed a discount store where a guy in the window was blowing up soccer balls and throwing them into a big bin. There were people moving everywhere, stepping on and off the filthy curb to get past each other. I had a stolen, surreal moment, thinking of my high school just a few blocks west on Chambers as the banners in front of the discount store waved at me in the wind. A cab stopped in front of an ice cream store a few feet away and someone got out.

I stood in front of the driver’s window so he could see me, wanting a little drama. “Can you take me to NYU Hospital?” I yelled.

He nodded offhandedly, as though he were just another cabbie carting another pregnant woman to her hospital cot.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked when we got there.

“You bet,” I said, hauling myself out.

A rush of people crowded around me at reception, and a nurse got me into a room and helped me into a gown. Will showed up just as some masochist attendant came in to do something called “strip the membranes,” which shocked me into submission and started me on a runaway train of screaming pain.

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