Rosalie puts down her hemming. “You were too little to remember John’s birth. Or Joe’s. But I remember them. Mother had ten babies and no problems. You’ll be exactly the same,” Rosalie says. She bites the thread off, knots it. Her hands are the most graceful thing about her. “I was just now remembering how you used to go flying down the roads on Fanny. Sidesaddle and faster than all the boys. I used to worry you’d break your neck. But nothing scares you.”

The two women look at one another. Then Rosalie stands and crosses the room. She puts her arms around Asia. They don’t often touch and this embrace can’t exactly be accomplished—Asia with her big belly, Rosalie with her Richard III spine, and the chair rocking spasmodically beneath them. It’s a hug made up of sharp elbows and stumbling. And yet, it’s all the nicer for the awkward unfamiliarity of it. She can feel Rosalie loving her, which is not a thing she often feels. The solace of having an older sister.

Rosalie’s cheek is lying on her hair. Rosalie smells of something almost like gin. “You are Asia Sidney Booth Clarke,” Rosalie says. “And nothing scares you.”

—

By the time she goes into labor, Asia’s more than ready to trade in the tiresome little aches and exhaustion for the Big Agony. A false alarm brings the nurse to stay for two days and then go away again. The doctor begins to call daily. Then one morning in late March, she wakes to a stabbing pain in the back of one shoulder. The pain moves down into her lower back, where it feels like a great spiked ball, levering her spine apart. It hurts so much she doesn’t even notice when her water breaks.

Joe goes for the doctor. Mother and Rosalie help her out of her soaking nightgown into a soft old one, move her to Mother’s bed, where the blankets are dry. Sitting is impossible; it even hurts to lie down. She tries one side and then the other, curled in agony around a pillow.

She’d been told that her labor, while painful, would be sporadic—there would be moments to rest between the waves. She’s aghast to find this was a lie—the back pain never lets up. It begins to twist, wringing her spine out like a dishrag.

The nurse comes first, followed shortly by the doctor. Everything is going splendidly, they say. Everything is just as it should be. The nurse forces Asia to get up and walk about the room. Asia is a knot of burning fury.

She lies down again. The doctor puts her on her back, palpitates her stomach. She has a moment of screaming wonder—I’ve never actually been in pain before, she thinks—and then all thoughts leave her mind.