At the admissions desk, the intake nurse looked up with the professional warmth of someone who had welcomed several thousand women through this particular threshold without ever making it feel routine. She had a kind face, soft brown eyes, and a ponytail so neat it seemed immune to the chaos of maternity wards.
“Morning, honey,” she said. “Name?”
“Clara Mendoza.”
The nurse typed quickly, glanced at the screen, then at Clara’s rounded belly, then back again. “All right, Clara. We’ve got you here. Looks like your doctor called ahead.” She smiled. “Is your partner on the way?”
The question slid into the space between them with the smooth familiarity of habit.
Clara had been asked some version of it eleven times in nine months. By the receptionist at the OB’s office. By the ultrasound technician with the silver cross necklace who had looked meaningfully toward the empty chair in the corner. By the woman at birthing class who had handed Clara an extra packet and said, in a voice saturated with pity she was trying to disguise as cheerfulness, “You can take this one home for your husband.” By strangers who saw her buying a crib alone, by acquaintances who asked when the baby shower was, by a cashier at a pharmacy who looked at the prenatal vitamins and the microwave dinners on the belt and said, “Bet your man is making lots of late-night snack runs.”
