When I awoke the next morning, Mama’s hand lay upon my shoulder, the fingers curled peacefully over the curve of my arm. She breathed deeply in a good sleep behind me, and for a little while I lay there upon my side and listened to her breathe and stared at that protective hand. Long and beautiful, the shapely fingers were ringed by Papa’s many demonstrations of devotion; the deep green of an emerald flanked by diamonds rested upon the snowy field of her smooth skin. My mother prided herself on her hands, and the happy similarity between her own long hands and mine had often been remarked. I raised my own up above the coverlet and held it for a moment next to hers. But for the rings, we seemed to share the same hand: a pale skin covering the slender curvature of bone. Gently, I laid my own over hers.

“When you were born,” she said softly behind me, leaving her hand where it lay, “you came before your time, a tiny seven-month child.” She paused. “Dr. Skillings took you away, fearing for your little life, and when I regained consciousness after some while, the room was empty. It was as if you’d never been born.” I sat up and looked down into her face. But she lay upon my pillow, staring up into the hangings, not seeking my eyes nor turning to me, as if the memory were imprinted there.

“Then followed a terrible time, for it was my life that nearly flickered out, not yours, and few believed I had many days remaining. I remember a long, long while spent upon my pillows when all the world seemed gray and worth a feather. Night after night I called and called for you, begging the nurses for a glimpse of your little face.”

“Why would they not bring me?” I wondered for my poor young mother.

“They dreaded that you might catch my fever,” she replied quietly, and then closed her eyes. “Papa went to Boston to fetch a specialist, and I vowed I would not die until he returned. Day passed by night into day and I lay with my head turned always toward the door so that if he were to arrive even as I died, his figure should be the last image my eyes should hold of the world.”

Still immobile upon the pillows, the tears had begun to slide sideways down her cheeks, but she let them fall, and I did not wish to disturb her.

“And then one day he did! He did come through that door carrying you in his arms, so pink and healthy—such a brave, dear thing.” She covered her face with her hands and wept, her tears flowing between her fingers, and I laid my head down upon her breast and wept with her. “For a long, shy moment, he stood there in the doorway bearing you, with such a strange smile upon his lips.”