Her whole family comes. It is not just Saul. Sofia is flushed with relief. She does not want to be alone. “I can give you ten minutes,” the nurse says. “This really isn’t the policy.” Rosa and Frankie push past the nurse and drop to the bed, and then Sofia is in their arms and they are in hers, and Julia is lifted up and passed around in the cacophony of her family. And then Saul and Antonia and Paolo are there, and Antonia asks, “How was it?” and Sofia has to say, “I don’t know,” because all she can remember is waves crashing, the tide of herself, darkness, and she has no words for that, but she knows it is not what happened, really; she knows there is a part of Julia’s arrival that she was not present for. And Saul asks, “Are you okay?” and Sofia says, “Yes,” and she means it, she thinks she means it. Joey tucks a strand of Sofia’s hair behind her ear. He presses the back of his hand to her forehead, like he did when Sofia was feverish as a child. He will tell Sofia later that Julia has his mother’s nose. Sofia looks at the faces of her family and believes that she can do this.

It is a fleeting feeling, but it will sustain her. In the weeks ahead Sofia will have the presence of mind to surround herself with the people who make her feel most like herself. She will learn to swaddle Julia, to change her, to rock her. She will smell Julia’s head and count her toes and stare at her in pure awe. Sofia will let herself be carried along by the changing current. She will feel fully. Motherhood can be the adventure, she will tell herself. It can be something you love.

Chapter 18

Some mornings Antonia still wakes up with her fists clenched, remembering Robbie racing through her body like a train.

After he is born, she spends three weeks in bed on doctor’s orders, trying not to think of the ways she has been turned inside out. She holds her mouth closed; holds her legs together. The doctor comes; a man with kindly small eyeglasses who stitches her where she has been ripped apart and tells her she will be fine, fine. Antonia nods when he says this, but she is sure as soon as she stands up she will split in half; her organs will come rushing down and land on the floor; her hair will fall out.

The days are long. Antonia is never alone.