I started rowing back to the cabin. Eighteen years old and I could feel hot tears rising. Why couldn’t Tom let me be? Why did I have to be so sensitive?

“Paul?” I heard Mary calling, and I hated to leave her out there without me, but I couldn’t take Tom. I couldn’t take the sound of his voice or the way he questioned my future, my motivation, my ambition. I paddled harder.

Twenty minutes later I was in bed, and all the lights in the cabin were out. The windows were open, the summer air leaking in at the perfect temperature. A slight breeze kicked up, and I could hear the trees hushing each other. Then I heard the kayaks bumping against each other, and I felt bad for a split second that Tom would have to pull all three of the boats up onto the dock, but that feeling passed quickly. I heard the girls whispering to each other, silence, and then Tom walking up the dock, his footsteps heavier, distinctive. The back door closed, and I heard the dead bolt.

Mary came into the room, nearly silent. I heard her clothes drop to the floor, felt the bed sway as she leaned in. She arranged her pillows the way she wanted and nestled up against me, as close as she could with her round stomach in between us.

“Paul?” she whispered.

I didn’t answer, but I turned my head so she knew I was listening.

“You’ll figure it out.”

“I know,” I whispered back.

Enough time passed that I thought she was asleep.

“Paul?” she whispered again, and her voice sounded almost drunk with sleepiness.

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t ever leave me out on the water. I don’t like being out there without you.”

“I’m sorry.”

The moment came when Mary had such terror in her eyes that the terror left her and filled me, until I felt like I was drowning in it.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I can’t do it.”

She squeezed my hand as the next contraction came, and the endless moan that left her turned into a suppressed scream at the end. That sound, that moan turned scream, was like a slap across my face.

I leaned in close, and I could smell the sweat and the blood and the fear. “You can do this, Mary,” I whispered fiercely. “You can.”

When Mary pushed your father out, it was one of the most miraculous things I’ve ever seen. That a baby could appear all covered in that fine shimmering white—it took my breath away.

“Mary,” I said into her ear, “you did it.”

She nodded, her face wrinkling into a full-on cry.

“You did it.”

She nodded again.

“It’s a boy, Mary. A boy.”

She took in a quick breath, and it caught in a sob on the way out.

“It’s a boy,” I repeated.

Her crying turned into a laugh, a joyous sound, a crying, sweating, sobbing laugh.