"Hi, babe."

"Your timing is pretty good," the doctor observed.

"Five minutes earlier would have been better. Are you all right?" she asked. As it had been the last time, her face was bathed in sweat, and very tired. And she looked beautiful.

"It's all over. All over," he repeated. "I'm fine, how about you?"

"Her water broke two hours ago, and she'd be in a hurry if we weren't all waiting for you to get back from your boat ride. Otherwise everything looks good," the doctor answered. He seemed far more nervous than the mother. "Are you ready to push?"

"Yes!"

Cathy squeezed his hand. Her eyes closed and she summoned her strength for the effort. Her breath came out slowly.

"There's the head. Everything's fine. One more push and we're home," the doctor said. His gloved hands were poised to make the catch.

Jack turned as the rest of the newborn appeared. His position allowed him to tell even before the doctor did. The infant had already started screaming, as a healthy baby should. And that, too. Jack thought, is the sound of freedom.

"Boy," John Patrick Ryan Sr. told his wife just before he kissed her, "I love you."

The nearest corpsman assisted the doctor as he clamped off the cord and swaddled the infant in a white blanket to take him away a few feet. The placenta came next with an easy push.

"A little tearing," the doctor reported. He reached for a painkiller before he started the stitching.

"I can tell," Cathy replied with a slight grimace. "Is he okay?"

"Looks okay to me," the corpsman said. "Eight pounds even, and all the pieces are in the right places. Airway's fine, and the kid's got a great little heart."

Jack picked up his son, a small, noisy package of red flesh with an absurd little button of a nose.

"Welcome to the world. I'm your father," he said quietly. And your father isn't a murderer. That might not sound like much, but it's a lot more than most people think. He cradled the newborn to his chest for a moment and reminded himself that there really was a God. After a moment he looked down at his wife. "Do you want to see your son?"

"I'm afraid he doesn't have much of a mother left."

"She looks pretty good to me." Jack placed his son in Cathy's arms. "Are you all right?"

"Except for Sally, I think I have everything here that I need, Jack."

"Finished," the doctor said. "I may not be much of an OB, but I do one hell of a good stitch." He looked up to see the usual aftermath of a birth, and he wondered why he'd decided against obstetrics. It had to be the happiest discipline of them all. But the hours were lousy, he reminded himself.

The corpsman reclaimed the infant, and took John Patrick Ryan Jr. to the nursery, where he'd be the only baby for a while. It would give the pediatric people something to do.

Jack watched his wife drift off to sleep after—he checked his watch—a twenty-three-hour day. She needed it. So did he, but not quite yet. He kissed his wife one more time before another corpsman wheeled her away to the recovery room. There was one thing left for him to do.

Ryan walked out to the waiting room to announce the birth of his son, a handsome young man who would have two complete, but very different, sets of godparents.