"Contractions are two minutes apart," the nurse said, looking at the clock.

The doctor glanced between Sheila's legs. "Dilated eight centimeters. We're very close."

Martin took her hand, the way they were taught in prenatal class. The classes felt somewhat cultish during the first session, but they had quickly gotten used to the eccentricities of the practitioner and the other new parents. They'd even made friends with a newly divorced couple from Yonkers who felt as out of place with all the hippy-dippy New Age weirdness as the two of them did.

They focused on their breathing.

Sheila groaned in pain as another contraction hit and her fingers clamped around his. He was prepared for the grip but not for its strength. For a moment he thought of his mother, handing down generations of memories and history from her ancient hand to his, nearly drowning him in the sins of the past.

"She's crowning," the doctor said.

Relief washed over Sheila's features, tears of joy replacing tears of pain. In the months leading up to today, she'd worried the baby would breech. That they would have to do a cesarean. Or worse, that she would die in the womb.

Martin had never told her any of his own suspicions.

"Push, mama," the nurse said.

"Push," Martin echoed.

Sheila pushed with all her might, cords standing out on her neck, the vein in her forehead that looked like the Missouri emptying into the Mississippi when she got angry bulging. The bones in his hand felt like they might break. Sweat dripped into her eyes and he wiped it away.

After what felt like an eternity, the doctor rose with a squirming little purple creature in her hands. A girl, just like Ruby had promised them. Immediately she began to cry, surprisingly loud, consistent wails that could probably be heard all the way down the hall.

The doctor handed their newborn baby girl to Sheila, who took her as the nurse and doctor began wiping the vernix caseosa from her soft flesh with fresh, damp towels.

Sheila opened her gown and laid the baby against her breast, skin to skin like the birth instructor suggested. She smiled up at Martin, tears shimmering in her eyes, and he realized his cheeks were also wet from tears.

They stood like that for several minutes, the baby finally calming, the delivery team busying themselves while Martin and Sheila held hands and looked into their daughter's squinty little eyes.

Finally, the nurse turned to him with a pair of scissors. "Does Daddy want to cut the cord?"

He blinked at the scissors. At the umbilical cord.

Flashing on two-and-a-half centuries of ritual killings. Bloodlettings. Feasts. Terror, grief and pain.

"Martin?"

He turned to Sheila. To his newborn child. Reality returned to him and he took the scissors. He positioned the blades around the umbilical cord and brought them together swiftly—

Snick!

He'd never heard such a beautiful sound in his life.