Mrs. B changed Mary’s linen, settled her into a chair, pulled her shawl around her shoulders, and went to gather the little one into her arms. The poor babe was light as a twig in her swaddling cloth. The midwife couldn’t help but return to the notion that newborn children were like young trees scarce raised out of the soil, with nothing but their cries to tell their sufferings. Her pulse was feeble and slow, as if as her mother gained strength, the child’s drained away.

Mary coaxed the babe to her nipple. She rubbed the top of her head, stroked her cheek, but still she wouldn’t latch. Mrs. B worried that she’d soon lose the will to nurse at any breast.

“I could make up a thin gruel boiled in beer with a little honey,” she said. “I’ve brought my own pewter bubby pot. Lots of babes have suckled from its nipple.”

“I’m afraid if she did, she wouldn’t want mine.” Mary looked up at Mrs. B with crinkled eyes. “My own mother didn’t nurse me. She did my oldest brother but thought it too much trouble for the rest of us. I was sent away to a wet nurse my first year of life. I’ve no memory of her, and I doubt she has any of me. But I’ve always thought it’s why my mother and I were strangers to each other. I’ve seen the way a sucking newborn sees herself in her mother’s eyes, nourished by a love that can be found nowhere else.” She ran a finger across her daughter’s forehead, as if to soothe her scowls and frowns. “That’s why I made you promise, Mrs. B. I mean for her to have no nipple but mine.”

Mrs. B was used to making promises to women in the throes and never knowing why, but this one, well, she’d seen it herself: Breast milk started a child right in the world, helped it along with a robust and healthy constitution, and prevented ailments of all kinds. She’d never considered that love might pass between mother and child through milk, though she’d seen that look between them, lots of times. She felt a sting of regret that she’d never known it herself.

A knock announced shy little Fanny, who, Marguerite explained through the door, missed her mother terribly, and insisted on seeing her with her own eyes, in fact, refused to eat or drink until she did. When Mrs. B let them in, Fanny clung tight to Marguerite’s skirts, almost frightened of the bundle in her mother’s arms.

“Do you want to meet your sister?”

Fanny nodded and tiptoed to her mother, wedging herself lightly between her welcoming knees. Mary pulled the cotton cloth lightly away. The baby’s fists were tight up against her furrowed face. Fanny gasped, with both hands to her mouth.