One of them, a man with a gray mustache and a calm voice, knelt beside me on the step.

“Ma’am, how far apart are the contractions?”

I told him.

He asked me to lean back, and I did, and he took my pulse while the other one talked into a radio.

Charles stood in the doorway with his phone still in his hand and his signet ring going around.

“This is my house,” he said to the paramedic.

“This woman is having some kind of episode.”

The paramedic didn’t look up.