“Scared. Confused. Like me.” She sighed. “I’ll just have to get through this next month. I guess I should remake the nursery into a guest room or office or something.”

“Are you going to stop trying?” I imagined her pacing, holding the cordless phone to her ear and walking past the couch and the dining table, making a loop around the kitchen, and doing it again. It’s what she does when she’s upset. She moves.

“I don’t know if I can go through this again.”

“Plenty of time to decide that.”

“I don’t know if I can even do this. Live for a month with a dead deformed baby inside me.”

“Deformed?”

“That’s what they said when they did the ultrasound. There’s something wrong with the baby. Probably why I’ve had those miscarriages.”

“I don’t get that. Why would something wrong with this baby account for former miscarriages?”

“It might be genetic. Troy and I may have a genetic problem.”

I hunted for magic to console her. “They’ll find out what went wrong now. Maybe they can help you. Both.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“You want to come home?”

“No. I want to pretend everything is okay and do my life. What I have of it.”

I couldn’t argue with her bitterness.

She called as soon as labor started. I flew out to her and arrived as she was entering transition. I held her hand. Troy paced. I wiped her brow. She clenched her eyes and panted. Grunted. She gripped my hand tight. Screamed. She endured all the agony of birth without the happy end. The pain didn’t vanish with the baby’s first cry. She squeezed out tears as she squeezed out the dead infant. Blue. We saw the deformities the sonogram had hinted at. He had very short arms, a smashed-together face. Our glimpse was quick before they bundled the baby away for genetic testing and evaluation.

“At least that’s over.” She sank as though to fall through the operating table and disappear. “I didn’t think I could do it.”

“You did. And you came through like a champ.” I squeezed her hand and kissed her forehead.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” Her eyes were wide with shock, as though I had betrayed her, purposely kept important knowledge from her.

“Because you forget the pain as soon as you hold your baby.”

She sniffed. “I guess I won’t forget, then.”

Troy kissed her. “I love you so much.” Tears fell down his cheeks. “Our poor baby. You’re so brave.”

She sucked out a cry.

“Yes. Brave. Both of you.” I held up water for her to drink. The doctor stitched her episiotomy. They gave her a shot to dry up her milk.

We didn’t know what else to say. We simply cried under the blazing surgical lights, the doctor still sewing between her legs.