“Sarah,” Kat says. So quietly, but she says it.

“You like the name Sarah?” I ask her, and she nods.

I turn to Belinda. “How about Sarah for now, hmm? You need to call her something, Belinda. She’s a beautiful child and she deserves a name.” I lean in close. “None of what happened the last few hours is her fault, you know.”

Belinda blinks languidly.

“Sarah means ‘princess,’” the woman who looks like Mam says.

“There you go. It’s a lovely name, isn’t it, Belinda?”

Belinda nods slightly.

As if she had been listening, the child opens her perfect mouth and a mewl comes out.

“I think our little princess is hungry,” I say.

“I don’t know what to do,” Belinda says, emotionless.

“I do,” says the woman who birthed six boys. She climbs over to Belinda’s mattress and we all watch in awe as, with this woman’s help, the babe takes to Belinda’s breast. For the next few minutes, as injured and dead are brought in and shouts rise for morphine and water, we watch. Belinda seems to soften as she looks down on her nursing infant. They are attached again, mother and child. The look of despair starts to slough off, and in its place is raw wonder. It is not joy yet, but neither is it anguish.

When the child is sated and sleeping, Belinda turns to Kat. “Do you want to hold her?”

Kat nods and I help her sit down on the mattress next to Belinda and position the sleeping infant in her arms.

Belinda is drifting off to sleep as I watch Kat hold her sister. She begins to softly sing to the baby the Gaelic lullaby my grandmother sang to me. The one I sing to her.

The moment is as beautifully perfect as a moment can be. I want it to last forever. And for five or ten blessed minutes it seems like it just might.

But then a shout rings out across the sea of mattresses, across the masses of dead and living.

The roof of the pavilion is on fire.

16

Ladies, we’re evacuating.”

The nurse who helped Belinda earlier has returned, and with her are a policeman and three Sisters of Charity in starched black habits streaked with dust. The nurse is speaking to us in a falsely calm voice. I can see that she is concerned with the enormous task of transporting so many people out of harm’s way. There must be four or five hundred injured in the pavilion now. I help Belinda to her feet while the nurse and the others assist the other women in our little group of mattresses. Belinda seems unable to comprehend what is happening. Her face is void of expression, but her eyes tell me she can’t believe that again we are fleeing danger. She is also weak from childbearing and not having eaten enough, and she begins to collapse seconds after she stands. One of the sisters reaches for Belinda’s baby in Kat’s arms and Belinda shouts for me to take her. The sister obliges and hands me the child. A policeman sweeps Belinda up into his arms and begins to head to the exit. With the sleeping baby and Kat to attend to, I make the quick decision to abandon my travel case. After giving Kat the baby to hold for a moment longer, I shove the strongbox, the papers, and Da’s word book into Kat’s case. I hoist it in one hand and cradle the baby in the crook of my other arm.