My eyes snapped open, and I met the maternity nurse's gaze. Aunt Clara's eyes were filled with concern as she hovered over me.
Suddenly, it struck me. The room, the scent of antiseptic, and the heaviness in the air were precisely unchanged.
This wasn't a dream.
I was really back, back in the day, eighteen years ago, when I gave birth to my son.
There was no time to fall apart. The contractions were getting worse, sharper, closer together. I knew I didn't have long.
"Aunt Clara, you have to listen to me," I said, grabbing her wrist. "You need to remember everything I'm about to say. Every word."
She stared at me, confused and silent. But I didn't wait. I told her everything I could that mattered, before they wheeled me into the delivery room.
As they pushed the gurney down the hall, the floodlights overhead poured down on my face, sterile and blinding.
The anesthesia hadn't kicked in yet, so my mind was still sharp. Every beep, every footstep, every breath felt magnified.
Outside, I could already hear my mother-in-law, Eleanor Wilson.
Her voice was shrill, slicing through the hallway like broken glass.