Tak-Wing helped her into our most comfortable chair, a battered wingback from before the Christmas 1941 invasion.

Ting-Yan stared at Tak-Wing’s red, hectic face. “You need to get it together, Brother.”

Emily huffed and coughed. “The—baby—”

“The baby?”

She choked.

“He’s coming, for better or worse,” Tak-Wing said. “The little demon.”

Emily’s whole body convulsed.

Tak-Wing said, “A lot of water came out of her about an hour ago. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I figured I ought to bring her here.”

“Oh my God—” Where were Doctors Selwyn-Clarke, Lai, or Ho when I really needed them? I’d never delivered a baby before.

She gagged and puffed and gasped.

Ting-Yan and Tak-Wing helped me get her onto the table. Sweat poured from her flushed face and her whole body heaved.

Courchene came back from his rounds then. “What is going on?”

“Baby coming!” I shouted, though shouting was not at all necessary.

“Oh,” he said. “You need help? My ma’s a midwife back in Saint-Boniface. I’ve helped her deliver dozens. What happened to Emily’s eye?” He saw Tak-Wing, who was holding Emily’s hand as she wailed, and glared at him hard enough to kill. Tak-Wing stared back, stony faced, sensing Courchene’s attachment to his wife. Gentle, sensitive Courchene saw that Tak-Wing registered his attachment and stopped breathing for a second.

“You’ve done this before?” I said. “Come on, then, because I don’t have a clue. Help me.”

“Breathe, Emily,” Courchene said, and began to breathe himself. “That’s it, darling, just breathe and let the contractions come.”

“I can’t!” Emily howled.

Courchene took her hand. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Don’t you dare touch my wife,” Tak-Wing said. “You fake Chinese.”

“Otipemisiwak,” said Courchene.

“What?”

“Otipemisiwak. I’m not a fake Chinese. I’m Métis, me.”

“I don’t care what you are. Don’t you dare touch my wife, I’ll kill you dead.”

“Tak-Wing,” I said, “don’t be an idiot. Courchene is the only one it this room with experience delivering a baby.”

“Aren’t you a doctor?” he demanded.

“Technically yes. Professor Ride rushed a handful of us through early because of the invasion. I’ve read about how to deliver a baby.” In my mind’s eye, I saw a drawing of a child hanging upside down in a textbook womb, like a textbook fruit about to drop from a textbook tree. “But I’ve never actually done it.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want that foreign ghost touching my wife,” said Tak-Wing. “If you were a real man, you’d be interned at Sham Shui Po with the other military gweilo.”

“The Canadians came to help us,” I said, popping a shot of morphine into Emily’s arm. If I could have gotten Tak-Wing still, I’d have given him one too.