You’re 8 months pregnant.
You’re having Braxton-Hicks contractions — meant to prepare your body for real labor in just 9 weeks. You shrug off the discomfort, knowing the real deal will be much more intense, but still. You’re uncomfortable, and you hold up your big, round belly by clasping both hands beneath it as you leave the coffeeshop where you’d been working.
You decide you need ice cream. You walk the block and a half to your favorite little ice cream shop — the one where you met your husband 8 years prior. A white-haired man in a vintage car cuts you off, but you don’t care. It’s one foot in front of the other, now. Just like always. A kindly man next to you says, “I would have let you go,” and you say thank you, but it’s ok — you move slowly these days. You both laugh, and he wishes you good luck as he turns down the corner.
In the shop, the air conditioning feels amazing, and they’re playing Ray Charles. You ask for a big scoop of chocolate on a sugar cone, please, from the young man behind the counter. He asks how you are, and you say you’re treating yourself to a cone because you’re having contractions — minor ones, but still, a treat would be nice right now. He gives you a giant cone and refuses to take your money. You protest. “Next time, next time,” he says, smiling and waving you off.
You walk down the street, heading toward home. You don’t notice until it’s too late that splats of chocolate have landed on your light grey tank top. You don’t care; you chuckle. You lick up the ice cream as fast as you can but it’s running everywhere. You don’t care about that, either. You sit on a bench and do your best work to savor the creaminess and the kindness even as the heat works to obliterate the former.
You are 8 months pregnant. You have 9 weeks to go. Your son is already in your stories, and he has no idea.
