I should have known better than to bring my sister into the delivery room with me. I don’t know what I was thinking. The situation is difficult enough without having to put up with a smartass like her.

I mean, really, I’m there doing what has to be the most difficult task of my life, with a audience of practical strangers. I’m thirsty, I’m tired and I am just about out of energy. I push, and it feels like nothing happens. Sure, maybe from the other end they could see some progress, but from my perspective it was all sweaty misery. I know there is joy in the end, I get that, but that middle part is NOT a party. Anyway, so I’m there, exhausted from my efforts and I kind of whimper pathetically ‘I just don’t think I can.’

I needed sympathy, you know? Maybe a cool cloth on my forehead, something like that.

Instead, I get Margaret. She leans forward so she takes up my whole field of vision and she says ‘Can’t do this? The hell you can’t. The kid can’t stay in there – there’s no room for the crib.’

I will swear to the end of my days that reaching up to slap her gave me the energy I needed to push that baby out.

“I just don’t think I can.”

“Sure you can. You can do this. You were perfect in rehearsal yesterday. Your body knows how to do this, even if your mind is saying you don’t.”

“My mind is saying I’m an idiot. My mind is saying that I am 41 years old and I have no business doing a dance number on stage.”

“How old will you be if you don’t do the dance number?”

I’m sure she could hear my eye roll.

“Don’t try and positive affirmation me, Ginny! I just don’t think I can do this. I don’t want to.”

“Is this one of those times when you will swear up until the last second that you can’t do something and then at crunch time, you’ll be standing on your mark? All right, carry on with your faux-panic then.” She whirled off, the taps on her shoes clicking against the floorboards as she abandoned me to my self-pity.

The main problem with bringing my best friend when I try something new is that she knows me too well.

I straightened my shoulders and waited in the wings for my cue.

Except for the instructor, I was the last one left.

I stood in the open airplane door and looked down. I had forced myself to join everyone on the skydiving adventure. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who backed down because she was afraid, I wanted to be the kind of person who, when faced with a challenge, thought ‘Well, I jumped out of an airplane, how hard could anything else be?’

But as I stood there, I realized that I wasn’t consumed with thoughts of ‘I don’t think I can.’ Instead, I was thinking ‘Why the hell am I here? I don’t have to do this to be brave.’

So, I slid back along the inside of the plane, and sat back down. I blew the instructor a kiss and gave her the thumbs up before motioning for her to go on without me.

He was carrying on the way he always did, the heat was rising up my neck, colouring my cheeks.

‘I don’t think you realize what you have in me. It’s not every man who will put up with this kind of behaviour, you know, you’re lucky to have me. Lots of men would have walked away from a woman who doesn’t know her place, but I was at least willing to try, to give you a chance. You’ve gone too far this time, though, embarrassing me in public by dressing like that. It’s like you’re advertising! I don’t think you can make this up to me.’

I don’t know why this time was different, why the heat colouring my cheeks was from anger instead of humiliation, but somewhere a switch was flipped and I stood up, furious.

‘Devon, honey.’ He wasn’t bright enough to hear the venom in my words. ‘You know, I’m always an embarrassment to you, no matter how I dress, no matter how I act. And I know that you think I should try and make it up to you, but you’re right, I just don’t think I can.’

I threw my napkin on the table and walked out into the May evening. I wasn’t an embarrassment to anyone, for a change, I wasn’t even an embarrassment to myself.