The entire time I raged, wept, and pleaded, my resentment for the club he’d called home his entire life grew. It grew to such massive proportions that I couldn’t bear to see the members of the Sacramento Chapter when they came to check on me. Even Michael was turned away at my front door, his confusion apparent when I shut it in his face.

Asa called as often as he could, but the calls were often stilted and awkward. He refused to talk about anything to do with his incarceration, and answered any questions I asked with yes or no replies that made me want to pull my hair out. Most of our conversations were carried by me as I spoke on and on about the baby.

As those first months passed by, I grew.

My belly became more and more prominent, becoming so large that even maternity shirts left a little sliver of belly showing whenever I moved. As it swelled, I gained line after line of angry red stretch marks, beginning at my hips and wrapping around the lower half of my belly, making me look like I’d gone head to head with Freddy Kruger and his knife fingers.

My bump wasn’t the only thing that grew in those months. My boobs became massive, so massive that Farrah would run around the house with my bra on her head like a yarmulke, spouting off random Hebrew words. My feet were so swollen that Gram made me spend hours each night with them elevated, though it never seemed to help. My cheeks, thighs, and ass grew rounder until I looked like a snowman with all my lumps.

And as my body changed and I recorded everything for Asa, my resentment grew.

One morning, almost five months after Asa went to prison, I woke up having contractions. It scared the hell out of me and filled me with so much adrenaline I was shaking. I climbed out of bed slowly, taking the time to shower and blow dry my hair before I woke Farrah up. When I was finally ready, I strode into her room, only to find her up and putting her shoes on.

“I heard you in the shower and you never get up this early. Baby time?” she asked me briskly as she pulled her hair into a high ponytail. She’d slowly but surely come back to the girl she was before, and I wondered how much of it was because of her need to take care of me. It seemed that both of us had broken at different times and the only thing that put us back together was the other’s need. It was a hell of a cycle.

“Yep. Let’s go over and wake Gram up,” I told her as she passed me. “Wait for me!”

The bubble I was floating on at the thought of racing to the hospital and popping out my son was burst when we got to Gram’s apartment.

“You don’t need to go to the hospital yet,” she stated matter-of-factly. “I’m gonna go get dressed. I’ll be out in a minute.”

I watched her walk into my old room with my jaw hanging wide open at her nonchalant reaction. I was having a baby! Did she not see the urgency in the situation? What the hell?

Farrah was pacing behind me when Gram finally came out of her room, wearing an entire set of jogging gear. She even had a sweatband on her head.

‘What the hell are you wearing?” Farrah barked, bending at the waist as she burst out in hysterical laughter.

I glared at Gram, waiting for an explanation, but she just smiled cheerily back at me.

“Time to go for a walk!” she ordered, clapping her hands together.

“I’m in labor, Gram. We need to go to the hospital,” I explained slowly, wondering if she’d finally lost her mind.

“Walking first, Callie Rose,” she told me as she pushed me toward the door. “Trust me on this; go put some tennis shoes on.”

She closed the door on Farrah’s laughter as I stood on the landing, gaping.

I wished my brother hadn’t left for school a few months before. He’d understand my need for the hospital. He wouldn’t tell me to put shoes on, or laugh, or force me to walk.

I trudged to the house and put shoes on, meeting Gram and Farrah outside.

“We’ll walk around the block first,” Gram informed us, taking off before we could reply. I had to race to catch up with her, which wasn’t helping my contractions or swollen feet one bit.

“First?” I practically yelled. “What the hell, Gram?”

“You’re not even breathing hard, and I bet those contractions barely hurt,” she said with a nod as she came to a stop on the sidewalk. “You don’t want to be sitting in a damn hospital bed waiting for hours and hours before anything even starts happening. Walking gets things moving.”

She gave me a squeeze on the arm before turning and stalking off again.

So, we walked.

And walked, and walked, and walked, until the sun was inching toward the middle of the sky and my contractions were coming hard and painful. Yet, we still didn’t head to the hospital.

First, Gram helped me take a shower and braided my hair. Next, she made a small breakfast for me and Farrah. Then she called my brother to let him know that we were leaving.

After all of that, I was still barely dilated when we got to the hospital.

It took hours for me to reach the point where I felt the need to push, and I was exhausted. The anesthesiologist had come in around six that night and put a huge needle in my back, almost instantly providing relief from the pain, but I still didn’t get any rest. It was impossible to turn my mind off long enough to get more than fifteen minutes of sleep at a time, and the pressure of the contractions wasn’t helping the situation.

I wanted Asa so badly that it was hard to breathe at times.

I wondered what he was doing as I was laboring and if he knew that we were at the hospital. I wondered if he could feel somewhere in his gut how badly I needed him in those moments.