Another hour passes and Belinda starts to make her way into the last stage of childbearing. Perhaps because she is only eight months along, or perhaps because there was blood in her water, everything seems to be moving along a little faster. I look for a nurse or doctor to help her, but I cannot find one before Belinda is crying out that the baby is coming.

All but one of the women in our little group rise off their mattresses and drape their blankets from shoulder to shoulder to offer Belinda the only privacy available to her. I situate Kat in the one-armed embrace of the lady whose other arm is in a sling on the outside of this curtain of women. I tell Kat that as soon as the baby arrives, I will show her the wee thing and won’t that be a lovely surprise.

I know enough about the birth process to know what Belinda needs to do—keep breathing in and out, and bear down with the urge to push, not against it.

At the robust sound of Belinda bringing the child out of the safe confines of her body and into this complicated world, a nurse comes scurrying over with scissors and towels, and I move aside. With deft hands, the nurse massages the tiny infant’s chest and cleans out the mouth. She turns the baby upside down to clear the lungs and I see that the little fairy child is a girl. Tiny and perfect. The babe looks nothing like Martin.

“Is she all right?” Belinda gasps as we wait to hear the child’s first cry.

And then it comes, sweet and wonderful.

“She’s little, but she’s a fighter,” the nurse says, as she clamps the cord and cuts it. “Not more than five pounds, I’d say. But she’s a beauty. The only pretty thing I’ve seen today.”

The nurse wraps the child in one of the towels and hands her to me so that I can show Belinda. And then while the nurse attends Belinda down below, I place the babe in Belinda’s arms and motion for Kat to come to us, wanting her to look only at the baby and not at what the nurse is doing. I needn’t have worried that Kat’s eyes would be drawn to the afterbirth; she only has eyes for her little sister.

“Isn’t she a sweet, wee thing?” I say to Kat as I pull her to me.

Kat nods and reaches out to touch one of the infant’s tiny, perfect fingers.

The three of us continue to stare at the child as the nurse says she will be back later to check on Belinda. The women who held the blankets move back to their beds and I thank them.

“Is he dead?” Belinda whispers a moment later as she stares down at her child. “Are we going to jail?”

“No and no,” I whisper in return. “Everything is going to be fine. You don’t need to worry. Don’t speak of it now, Belinda.”