“I told you to go home and rest,” I say.

“I was going to, and I was just about to leave from here, to go home, but then that Bella Morabito woman showed up. She’s in labor, and the other backup midwife hasn’t shown up yet. The Witten woman showed up, but she’s up to her neck in mothers-to-be.”

Shit. Bella Morabito is a forty-three-year-old immigrant from Sicily. She has a fifteen-year-old daughter and a history of three miscarriages. She is also just about the nicest woman on earth—warm, funny, friendly. But I’m not looking forward to this delivery. This one could turn out to be very difficult. Like some of Bella’s previous birthing experiences, it may not turn out at all.

“Stay with Bella, Troy. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Chapter 65

Chapter 65

I WALK INTO BELLA’S birthing room and see so many people that it actually takes me a moment to find Bella on her bed. Her teenage daughter, her husband, her mother, Troy, two trainees in the midwife program, plus three other women, who are presumably Bella’s friends or more relatives.

Bella is groaning significantly, but I recognize it as the healthy groaning of a healthy woman in healthy labor. A small speaker sits on the side table next to a laptop. From the speaker comes a song accompanied only by a guitar. The tune is easily recognizable. The Beatles. “Let It Be,” sung in Italian.

Quando mi trovo in momenti difficili

Madre Maria viene da me

“How are we doing here?” I ask.

Bella grabs both my hands and says, “Signora Lucy, please make it all good.”

“We’ll do our best,” I say.

“No,” she says. “You must do better than that. You must make this happen right.”

Troy gives me an update: all is well, blood pressure normal, temperature normal, baby in good position, fetal monitor is happy-happy, dilation has grown to nine centimeters.

“I think we’re ready,” I say.

“I think we’re very ready,” says Troy.

Then I say, “I didn’t notice, Troy, are there guards and officers on the floor?”

“You sure didn’t notice,” says Troy. “We got one NYPD woman and one rent-a-cop right outside this door.”

Things move quickly, and I advise Bella to steady her breathing. She does. She’s with the plan.

Then I ask that we clear the room of unnecessary personnel. Apparently nobody in the room believes himself or herself to be unnecessary. So nobody leaves. I’m not going to argue. All I can do is tell Bella’s husband, Marco, to move closer to the bed.

Only occasionally does Bella let out an “Ooh” or an “Oof” of pain. It all happens quickly.

“Whoa, mama,” says Troy. “This is happening faster than they do it on TV.”