Then her face hardened.
“Do not make a scene.”
I looked at her as if she had become a stranger.
“You just knocked my phone away.”
“And you are about to interrupt your sister-in-law’s wedding over something women have managed for thousands of years.”
“My water broke.”
“I heard you.”
“I need a doctor.”
“You need five minutes.”
She started pulling me toward the side corridor.
I resisted.
Not violently.
I simply planted my feet.
“Let go.”
Her fingers tightened.
Several guests were watching now.
She leaned toward me and smiled again.
“Walk.”
“No.”
Her smile disappeared.
The contraction came hard enough to bend me forward.
I gasped.
My mother-in-law used the moment to grab my upper arm with both hands.
“Stop embarrassing this family.”
Then she shoved me.
Not toward the floor.
Toward the service hallway.
My shoulder struck the doorframe.
Pain flashed through me.
I stared at her.
She had touched me before.
A hand on my shoulder when she wanted to steer me out of a conversation.
A little push against my back when she decided I was standing in the wrong place.
Never like this.
Never with enough force to hurt.
My baby moved suddenly.
I gripped my stomach.
The fear finally arrived.
Not fear of her.
Fear for him.
Something felt wrong.
Not necessarily pain.
Pressure.
Low and strange.
I said, “Please get my husband.”
“You will see him after the vows.”
“Are you insane?”
Her face changed at the word.
Nobody called her that.
Certainly not me.
“Watch yourself.”
“I’m in labor.”
“You are leaking fluid. That does not mean the child is falling out.”
“I said something feels wrong.”
For half a second, something almost human entered her eyes.
Then music began in the ballroom.
The processional.
Her daughter’s wedding.
Whatever concern she might have felt disappeared beneath it.
She looked toward the ballroom doors.
Then back at me.
“Five minutes.”
“No.”
“Ten at most.”
“Call my husband.”
“You are not stealing this moment.”
I stared at her.
“This is not about attention.”
“To you, perhaps.”
She opened a gray service door farther down the corridor.
I saw shelves inside.
Boxes.
Folded linens.
Cleaning supplies.
A storage room.
I backed away.
“No.”
Her hand clamped around my wrist.
I pulled.
“Let go of me.”
“You need somewhere private.”
“That is a closet.”
“You need to calm down.”
“I need medical help.”
I reached toward the wall, trying to brace myself.
She slapped my hand away.
Hard.
Then she grabbed my shoulder and shoved again.
I stumbled through the doorway.