Those were her first words.
Not congratulations.
Not how are you?
She didn’t even look at Clara, my daughter, sleeping against my chest.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier, I’d had an emergency C-section after Clara’s heart rate suddenly dropped during labor.
Now every movement felt as though someone were dragging a wire through my abdomen.
I was exhausted, swollen, medicated, frightened, and so overwhelmed by love for the tiny warm body against me that sometimes looking at her made it hard to breathe.
Brielle raised her phone.
“The venue needs the deposit today.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“My birthday venue. I’ve called you fourteen times.”
For a second, I genuinely thought I had heard her wrong.
“Brielle, I gave birth yesterday.”
“I know when you gave birth.”
“Then maybe this conversation can wait.”
“It can’t.”
My mother sighed.
“Natalie, please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
