“Of course,” murmured Hannah, who would sooner publish photos of her vagina on Facebook than refer to it as a “beav.” She swung the light away from Georgia so it provided some ambient illumination without fixing her perineum in a blazing spotlight, trying to avoid what she assumed might be a smirk on Jonah’s face. She didn’t know what she’d expected from Jonah’s presence. No one in her practice had ever brought in a gay man as a birth partner before. But here he was, and he’d been marvelous.

“Still think it’s a girl?” she asked Georgia, but it was Jonah who answered.

“Don’t even bother with that question or you risk getting swatted.” He patted his hip. “I know from bitter experience.”

He moved by the bedside, holding Georgia’s hand and speaking to her in a low murmur Hannah couldn’t quite make out. She fussed with the drape and the implements on the Mayo stand, leaning forward to try to distinguish Jonah’s words. He’d linked up the tablets, one about ten feet away, capturing a view of Georgia’s face and torso for the medical school friends to watch. The closer, more intimate video livestreamed to Georgia’s fiancé, Mark.

Hannah’d ferreted out what information she could about Mark. He didn’t have a Wikipedia page but was mentioned on the page of the famous man for whom he worked, which declared him to be instrumental in the finances of their complicated-sounding biotech venture capital firm. From this, Hannah had painted a portrait of a man who sounded like the last person on earth she’d have picked for her free-spirited friend. Georgia with some corporate suit in finance? From the tone of various other articles in which Mark had been mentioned, he must be loaded; another thing that didn’t square with Georgia’s lifestyle. She made good money as a urologist—even here in California, where the high cost of living and puny remuneration drove a lot of physicians elsewhere—but she lived like she was still in college, insisting on a minuscule house decorated with a plaid thrift-store futon and a lot of framed concert posters. But that was Georgia for you: things that bothered other people barely registered to her.