“Here, sweetheart.” I rose, knees stiff from an hour of kneeling on the hard floor, and put the naked baby into her arms. “Be careful, he’s still a little slippery.” He had the faintly waxy look of a newborn, still coated with the protective vernix that had sheltered him in the waters he’d just traversed. It took a moment for my back to unkink sufficiently for me to stand fully upright, and I stretched my arms up, groaning.

“I’m not seeing it yet,” Fanny said. She was still kneeling, peering intently between Brianna’s splayed legs.

“See if he’ll suckle, will you, darling?” I said to Bree. “That will help your uterus contract.”

“That’s just what I need,” she muttered, but nothing touched the beatific smile that flickered on and off through the exhaustion that veiled her face. She tugged down the neck of her sweat- and bloodstained shift and carefully guided Junior’s squalling face to her breast. Everyone watched, riveted, as he rubbed his face to and fro on the breast, still squawking. Bree squinted down her nose, trying to move her nipple with one hand while holding the baby with the other. The nipples each showed a tiny drop of clear liquid.

“See?” I said to Fanny, nodding at them. “That’s colostrum. It comes before the real milk. It’s full of antibodies and useful things like that.” She turned her head to me, squiggle-eyed. “It means the baby will be protected from any illness—well, most illnesses—that his mother has had,” I explained.

The baby squirmed, and Bree nearly dropped him.

“Whoa!” said nearly everyone. She scowled at Roger, who was closest.

“I have him,” she said. Junior threw his head back and then flung it forward, found the nipple, and latched on with a sigh of exasperation that said, “Well, at last!” so eloquently that everybody laughed and the room relaxed.

A light tap on the doorjamb announced the advent of Patience and Prudence Hardman, their faces alight with curiosity.

“We heard the baby cry,” Prudence said. “What is it, pray?”

“And is thee well, Friend Bree?” Patience asked, smiling tentatively at Brianna, whose hair was beginning to dry and fluff, and who looked like a lion that had gone three rounds with a rhinoceros and wasn’t yet sure who’d won. She was still smiling, though, and stroked the baby’s head, looking down at him.

“He’s a little boy,” she said, her voice rough from screaming, but soft.

“Ooh!” Patience and Prudence said together, then looked at each other and laughed. Patience recovered, though, and asked whether Bree would like something to eat.

“Mummy’s made some soda bread with jam, in case thee should be famished, and there’s sweet milk aplenty,” Prudence added. “What is thy son’s name?”

“I’m starving,” Bree said. “As for … urgh.” She broke off, her eyes closing in a grimace. “Mmph.”