The first thing Camila Rivera noticed when she entered the Chicago hospital was how cold the automatic doors felt against the morning air.
It was Tuesday, shortly after five in the morning.
The streets outside were gray with winter rain, and the fluorescent lights above the reception desk made everyone look exhausted.
Camila stood with one hand beneath her swollen belly and the other gripping the strap of an old backpack.
She was twenty-four years old, fourteen days past the date her doctor had originally expected her baby to arrive, and completely alone.
The receptionist looked up from her computer.
‘Is someone coming to stay with you?’
Camila shook her head.
‘Your partner? Your mother? Anyone we should call?’
She forced a small smile.
‘The father will be here soon.’
It was a lie she had repeated so often that the words almost sounded believable.
Lucas Bennett had disappeared seven months earlier.
One week, they had been discussing baby names and arguing over whether the nursery should be blue or green.
The next, he stopped answering her messages.
His apartment was empty when she went looking for him, and his phone eventually disconnected.
She had received no explanation.
No goodbye.
Not even a message acknowledging the child they had created together.
At first, Camila believed something terrible had happened.
She contacted his friends, visited places he used to frequent, and called hospitals.
Eventually, the painful truth settled in: Lucas had left, and she had no way of making him return.
She worked until her pregnancy made standing for long periods impossible.
She rented a small apartment, counted every dollar, and assembled a crib from a secondhand store.
On nights when the baby kicked so hard that she couldn’t sleep, she placed her palm against her stomach and whispered promises into the darkness.
You will never have to wonder whether you are wanted, she told him.
You will never have to earn someone’s love by begging them to stay.
Now, with labor gripping her body, those promises were all she had.
By seven in the morning, the contractions were coming so quickly that she could barely finish a sentence.
Nurses moved around her bed, checking her blood pressure and monitoring the baby’s heartbeat.
A nurse named Patricia held her hand through one particularly painful contraction.
‘You’re doing well, Camila.
Breathe with me.’
‘I can’t do this,’ Camila gasped.
‘You already are.’
Fourteen hours passed in a blur of pain, exhaustion, and whispered encouragement.
Camila cried out for her mother once, then covered her mouth, embarrassed by the sound.
No one criticized her.
No one told her to be stronger.
At last, a baby’s cry filled the room.
It was a small, furious sound, full of life.
Camila’s exhausted face crumpled.
Tears slipped into her hair as she tried to lift her head.
‘My baby? Is he okay?’
The nurse smiled.
‘He’s breathing beautifully.
He’s a strong little boy.’
The nurse placed him briefly against Camila’s chest.
His skin was warm, his fingers impossibly small.
He opened his mouth, made a soft sound, and settled against her as if he had known her forever.
Camila kissed his forehead.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she whispered.
‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
She had chosen the name Mateo months earlier.
Even when she had been angry with
