My fingers shook so badly that I missed the patio lock the first time.
Another contraction tightened across my abdomen, forcing me to stop with one hand against the glass.
Outside, Camila pressed both palms to the door.
“Isabel.
Open it.”
Her face looked completely different from the one I had seen in the hallway minutes earlier.
The polished excitement was gone.
Her ivory handbag lay abandoned on the patio beside her feet, and her eyes kept darting toward the side of the house as though she expected someone to come after her.
I managed to turn the lock.
Camila pulled the door open and dropped beside me.
“Oh my God.”
She looked at the water on the floor, then at my face.
“Your water really broke.”
I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
“Yes.”
Another wave of pain stole the rest of my breath.
Camila grabbed my phone from the kitchen island and called emergency services while I concentrated on staying conscious and breathing through the contractions.
She answered questions quickly, gave the address, and then knelt beside me with the phone still in her hand.
“Why did you come back?” I asked.
Her mouth opened, but she didn’t answer immediately.
That hesitation mattered.
Finally she said, “I couldn’t get in the car.”
I stared at her.
Camila looked toward the locked front door.
“When your water broke, Mom saw it.
Daniel saw it too.”
“I know.”
“No,” she said quietly.
“I mean they knew.
There was no question anymore.”
The words hurt more than I expected.
Part of me had still been protecting Daniel without realizing it.
Maybe he had panicked.
Maybe Verónica had convinced him it was another false alarm.
Maybe, somewhere between the kitchen and the driveway, he had misunderstood what was happening.
Camila destroyed that excuse in one sentence.
They had known.
She swallowed.
“Mom told him you were trying to sabotage the trip.
She said if he stayed, you’d learn you could control him every time you cried.”
I closed my eyes.
“And he agreed?”
Camila looked down.
“He locked the door.”
That was answer enough.
Help arrived soon afterward.
By then I had stopped thinking about Miami, the suitcases, or Verónica’s brunch reservations.
The pain had narrowed my world to breath, movement, and the terrifying awareness that my husband had chosen an airport over the birth of our child.
Camila came with me.
Daniel did not.
At the hospital, everything happened quickly.
I was admitted, examined, and told what my body had already made obvious: this was not a false alarm.
Labor was underway.
Camila stood near the bed holding my phone like it contained something dangerous.
It kept vibrating.
At first I assumed Daniel had finally realized what he’d done.
