“Yes, I guess you must go,” said Mary, when Mrs. B appeared with her satchel at the ready, her cape fastened at her neck, rubicund cheeks, like she’d sat too close to a fire. “There’s someone who needs you more than we do, I’m sure. You must go to them, and do what you’ve done for us.”

“I’ve done nothing but let Nature—”

“I know what you’ve done, Mrs. B. I’ve seen it.” Mary was sitting on the edge of her bed, radiant. The baby was laid on a pillow, mewing and stretching her limbs, already filling out her own outline, cheeks right and full. “I am sad to see you go. But I suppose your leaving is a good sign, a return to life, new life, where I will do almost everything for myself and my little bird.”

Mary looked down at her newborn, who seemed to look back, enthralled by her mother’s face.

“I don’t think we’ll need that coffin after all, Mrs. B.”

“I should think not,” she said. “Why, you might even give her a name.”

“A name,” Mary said.

Mrs. B wanted to confess about the baptism. It would sit hard on her conscience if she didn’t. But she wasn’t sure how to say it, and what offense it might give. She didn’t want anything wrong between them for the leaving.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve called her ‘Mary,’ to myself, of course. You’ll call her whatever you like, but I did wish her most fiercely to have a name.”

Mary looked at her little girl, and drew the shape of her face with the light touch of a finger. “Is that who you are, little bird?” Then she turned to the midwife with a quizzing look. “Have you children, Mrs. B?”

“Wasn’t blessed, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Wasn’t God’s plan for me. He gave me a calling to get others into the world.”

“But married?”

Mrs. B shifted her satchel and looked Mary straight in the eye. “Forty years.”

“Forty years! That’s nearly as old as I am.”

“Feels like the blink of an eye, just now.”

“Yes, well, I know not all years can be happy ones, but I hope you’ve had your share.”

“Passing years,” she said, and then hesitated, wanting to speak something for him, now that he was gone. “A good man.”

“I’ve a good man too.”

“Yes. He is.”

“I once believed that happiness was not to be mine,” said Mary. “And that everything denied to me—that I denied myself—would be rewarded in the next life.” She looked back at her new baby. “But here I am, Mrs. Blenkinsop, twice-blessed, and happily married. In this very life.”