The nurse gives Asia a tincture of opium. It has a curious effect—Asia splits in two. One of the Asias lifts up out of her body to watch the whole debacle from the ceiling, her body spread out and pawed over like a carcass at an autopsy. The other Asia is left behind to feel everything just as before.

Hours pass in hellish torment. The doctor leaves—the room, the house, the city? Asia doesn’t know. The floating Asia goes with him and sends no message back.

Night falls and the baby is no closer to being born than it was twelve hours ago. The doctor must have come back, because he’s leaning over Asia, explaining things to her. There are bread crumbs in his beard.

The baby has lodged its head against Asia’s pelvic bone. “All we need,” the doctor says, “is for Baby to tuck its chin.”

Baby does nothing of the sort. Asia is given more opium. She’s rigid with pain and exhaustion, and also hungry. Her throat is raw.

Finally, the doctor grows tired of waiting. He reaches one horrid, enormous hand inside her, rummaging about, while the other bears down onto her stomach. Mother sobs quietly beside the bed. Asia feels the baby being shoved back inside and thinks they’ve decided not to have it, after all. This seems a good decision and perhaps the only way she’ll survive this.

But then, finally, the baby slides downward, and, with a great deal more effort and pain, in a tidal wave of gore and shit, Asia Dorothy Clarke (they’ll call her Dolly) enters the world. Everyone—Mother, Rosalie, Asia, and the baby—is crying. The nurse washes little Dolly and passes her over, wrapped in flannel, squinting and howling. She’s wrinkled and red and hideous. Asia’s first thought is that she’s embarrassed to show her to Sleeper. After all that work! Her second thought is that she would die before she let anything hurt this tiny person. Dolly stares into Asia’s eyes. So this is what love feels like, Asia thinks. That’s her third thought. Dolly nuzzles about her breast, but before she latches, Asia is already asleep.

xvii

Dolly’s an active baby, prone to runny noses and sleepless nights. Asia spends hours holding her in the rocking chair, the only light filtered in from the street outside. She’s mesmerized by the kaleidoscope of Dolly’s expressions—fear, worry, joy—a full rehearsal for the day when they’ll be attached to actual emotions. After her unpromising debut, she’s turned so pretty. Asia doesn’t suppose there ever was a prettier child.