“Mom,” Grace said to me. “What are our options?”

I stared at the wall. I’d been asking myself the same question. “If the head is stuck, we might be able to turn it in a way that will allow it to pass through the pelvis.” I thought about it some more. Yes, it could work. The risk of a serious tear to Neva was increased, but we didn’t have a lot of choice. “This is important, so I need you to listen carefully: We need to turn Neva over so I can apply pressure to her abdomen when she starts to push.”

Neva was already turning from all fours into a reclining sitting position. Grace helped her. I said a silent prayer.

“Now, Grace. Let the baby straddle your right hand … Yes, like that. Now, I want you to slide your middle finger into the baby’s mouth and your other fingers over the baby’s shoulders. Perfect. Now, with your other hand, press against the back of the baby’s head. I’ll apply pressure on the outside of her belly at the same time. All right?”

The door clattered shut and Lil appeared beside me with the delivery bag. I opened it and lay out the clamp, the cord, the gloves. I got everything unpacked just in time for the next contraction.

“Okay, Grace—push the head up slightly, rotate, and then pull down. Understand?” I looked at Neva. “Push, dear. Push as hard as you possibly can.”

Neva touched her chin to her chest and squeezed. At the same time, I pressed hard on the outside of her belly. The bones in her neck stood out like kindling.

“It’s coming,” Grace said, her voice barely a whisper. “The head. It’s coming.”

It was only then I realized my cheeks and blouse were sodden with tears. I felt movement under my hand as the baby’s head moved down. Grace lifted the baby’s torso as the head emerged. The baby was out.

Grace placed the baby straight into her mother’s arms. The raven-haired babe let out a soft mew. “Congratulations, dear,” I said to Neva as an overwhelming sense of déjà vu swept over me. “You have a daughter.”

27

Neva

The first thing I recognized when I opened my eyes was the nursing chair in the corner. I was in a maternity suite at St. Mary’s Hospital. The second thing I recognized was the person sleeping in the nursing chair. Patrick.

“Hey.”

My greeting came out as a hoarse whisper, but he sprang to life immediately. He came to my side and pressed the buzzer by my bed. “Hey.” He cleared his throat. “How do you feel?”

I looked past him and scanned the room for a bassinet. “Where’s my baby?”

“She’s in the nursery with your mom and Gran. She’s fine. Your mom hasn’t put her down since she was born. We were much more worried about you. You had a third-degree tear and lost a lot of blood. You were pretty out of it when they brought you in.”

My eyes found Patrick’s. “She’s fine? You’re sure?”

“I examined her myself. She’s six pounds two ounces. Completely healthy.”

Patrick was doing his confident pediatrician thing. I’d seen him do it with hundreds of parents over the years, and it never failed to put them at ease. It was even working on me. A little.

Two nurses I didn’t recognize appeared in my room. “We’ve paged Dr. Hargreaves. How do you feel, Neva?”

“Fine. I want to see my baby.”

“Leila is getting her,” said the nurse, slipping a blood pressure cuff over my hand and dragging it up my arm. “In the meantime, let’s have a look at you.”

The mention of Leila’s name made me look at Patrick. It might have been my imagination, but he looked like he wanted to smile. He took a seat on the side of my bed while the nurse took my temperature and read my blood pressure. When it was time to check my bleeding, the nurse glanced at Patrick, clearly expecting him to excuse himself. He didn’t. I tried not to read too much into it, but my heart sang.

“Six pounds two ounces?” I asked as the nurses did their thing under the sheet.

“Yep,” he said. “She’s a good size.”

I paused. “Full term?”

He nodded slowly and I could see he had already done the math. “Possibly even overdue.” He remained silent while I took that in. “She’s beautiful,” he continued. “Looks like you, except her hair is black and her skin is olive. She looks sort of … Spanish or Greek or something.”

“Italian,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

I stared at the sheet in front of me, so plain and blank, yet suddenly swirling.

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay,” he continued. “I was worried there for a minute. Your mother is a hero, doing a vaginal footing delivery at home. Someone suggested she should be nominated for an award.”

This snapped me out of it. “They did?”

“Mmm hmm. Look, I’m sorry about—”

“Here she is!” In the doorway, Leila stood behind a bassinet. Through the clear plastic I could see a mess of black hair and a pile of pink and white striped blankets.

“Someone has been eager to see her mommy,” she said. She reached into the bassinet and cradled the tiny bundle under her bottom and head. She came around the bed. “Congratulations. She’s a beauty.”

Leila’s voice was like elevator music—I could hear it, but it was irrelevant, barely noticeable. All my attention was concentrated on the person in her arms. My daughter. She was more perfect than I could have imagined. I reached for her. In my arms, she weighed almost nothing, like a cloud of cotton candy or a bunch of daisies. I opened my mouth to tell her something, anything. But there were no words.

I was right, I realized. When I reassured mothers that it didn’t matter how the baby came out, I was right. Right now, I didn’t care if this baby had been beamed down to me from outer space. The special moment had happened. She was mine. And I was hers.

“She’s got your chin,” Patrick said.

“You think?” I puckered my chin. “I’ve never paid much attention to my chin. Is it a good chin?”

He smiled with something resembling fondness. “It’s a very good chin.”

“It’s a perfect chin.”

Grace stood in the doorway, an award-winning grin on her face. She was still dressed in the clothes she’d been wearing last night—the paisley skirt now had a sizable bloodstain on the left side. A fluorescent pink elastic dangled from a few strands of hair. She’d been through hell. Without warning, fat tears began to slide down my cheeks.

Grace crossed the room in three large steps. “Don’t you cry or you’ll make me cry,” she said. In fact, a few tears had already escaped. “It’s a happy day. I’m a nana.”

We beamed at each other through tears, then dropped our eyes to the baby.

“Does she have a name?” Grace asked.

“Not yet. I only had a boy’s name picked out.”

“What was the boy’s name?”

“Robert. Robbie.”

“Your father would have loved that. But ladies are his lot in life, it seems. So no girls’ names, then?”

“Nope.”

In truth, I’d pretty much decided on Florence a few months back. It had occurred to me that Mom might have been offended being overlooked, but at the time I hadn’t cared. Now I did.

“We’ll think of something,” I said, and then I noticed that Patrick had slipped out of the room. “I mean … I’ll think of something.”

“He’s probably just gone to the bathroom, darling.”

I looked back at Grace and saw understanding in her eyes. She nodded encouragingly. But I didn’t share her optimism.

“Neva,” Grace asked. “I want to ask you something. Why didn’t you tell me? About the pregnancy and the father? I understand why you wouldn’t tell Patrick, or people at the hospital. But why not me? You know I wouldn’t have judged you, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do know that.”

“Then … why? You don’t have to answer—”

“No. It’s okay.” I closed my eyes and exhaled. “It might sound strange, but … I felt like if I talked about it, it wouldn’t be mine anymore. I’d barely got my head around it myself, and I knew if I shared it, you’d want to be involved. But this wasn’t something I wanted to share. I thought that if I didn’t keep it close, I’d lose it. Not the baby but … my way. And I wasn’t willing to do that. Not with my baby.”