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“Aight. Then we are getting you to the hospital right now.”

She nodded. Daddy looked at me.

“Call them.”

I already had my phone in my hand. I called the hospital while Mama held onto Daddy. The nurse started asking questions, and I answered what I could before putting the phone on speaker so Mama could answer the rest. When Mama told her how bad the pain was and that her water had broken, the nurse told us not to wait.

“I’m driving,” MJ said.

Daddy shook his head.

“Nah, your driving makes ya mama nerves bad… Tahari, drive.”

Another contraction hit Mama. She screamed and squeezed Daddy’s hand. He flinched but never let go.

“Look at me,” he told her. “Look at me, Eternity.”

She did.

“I got you.”

It took us a minute to get everyone downstairs, but once we were all packed into the truck Tahari had taken off. I sat in the third row of Daddy’s Durango with his wheelchair beside me. I was watching how Mama leaned against him in the seat in front of me. The wheelchair took up most of the space beside me, and every time Tahari made a turn, I reached over to make sure that it didn’t slam into my knee. Daddy had been in too much of a hurry to care about anything except getting Mama out of the house. I knew that his hip had to have been hurting since the fall, but he’d barely acknowledged it once we got him downstairs.

All his attention was on her. Mama had one hand wrapped around Daddy’s and the other pressed beneath her stomach.

“Breathe, baby,” he said.

“I am trying.”

“I know. Take your time.”

I could see her clearly in the rearview mirror. Her face tightened as she squeezed his hand harder.

“Ahhhh… Malik.”

“I’m right here.”

He’d been trying to keep his face straight since we left the house, but I could see the fear in it.

“We almost there,” he told her.

I looked toward the front. Tahari was driving with both hands gripping the steering wheel, while MJ sat in the passenger seat staring at the navigation screen.

“How much longer?” Daddy asked.

MJ checked.

“Eight minutes.”

“Eight?”

“That’s what it says, Pops.”

Mama cried out and doubled forward as much as her stomach would allow.

“Mama?”

She didn’t answer me.