The doctor said "push." I pushed. I screamed. The contractions were the kind of pain that makes your vision go grey at the edges. Mason was standing next to the bed. He had the decency to hold my hand. And in the middle of a contraction so strong I was biting down on my own lip to keep from biting him, he leaned down and he said something to me. He said it quietly, so the nurses wouldn't hear. He said, and I am going to remember his exact words until I die: "I can't believe I'm here. I don't want this. I never wanted this. I'm only here because your mom would kill me." And then he stepped back, let go of my hand, and the contraction tore through me while the man I had married six years earlier waited for his own daughter to be born with an expression on his face I will not be able to forget. Our daughter Emory was born eleven minutes later. She is almost six years old now. She is the best thing in my life.