“The emergency docs can deliver a baby,” Huck says. “Go now.” It’s almost seven thirty and there’s an island-wide curfew that starts at eight. “Wait, where’s Maia?”

“She’s still at the school,” Irene says. “I was about to go pick her up.”

“I’ll get Maia,” Huck says. Goddamn it, he doesn’t have time for this! He still has all the kitchen windows to shutter. “Why don’t you take Cash’s truck and get Maia, and Baker can take Ayers in his Jeep. Or Phil and Sunny can take her in their Jeep, it’s bigger. Are Phil and Sunny there?”

“Oh yes, they’re here,” Irene says. “That’s the issue. Sunny doesn’t think Ayers should go to the health center.”

“For crying out loud, why not?”

“I should rephrase that. Ayers claims she’s in too much pain to move, and Phil and Sunny have assured her she doesn’t have to go anywhere. They’re telling her she can just have the baby here in the house.”

“Is anyone there a doctor?” Huck says. “If the answer is no, then get that girl to the health center. Have Baker step in if you need to. That baby is his as well.”

“I’ve told them all that,” Irene says. “What if there are complications? But Ayers said she had a checkup at the beginning of the week, and the baby is in place, apparently. Sunny keeps saying that women all across the globe have babies at home and there’s no reason Ayers can’t as well. She says it might actually be safer.”

Huck can’t believe this. “I can’t believe this,” he says.

“Apparently it’s the low pressure that brings the babies,” Irene says. “I should go get Maia now. Everyone else is with Ayers. Can you please come home?”

And do what? Huck thinks. He’s not a doctor, and although he has sixty-plus years of wide and varied life experience, he has never delivered a baby. Then he gets an idea.

“I’m going to make a call,” he says. “Long shot, but it’s all we’ve got. You bring Maia home safely, please, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Huck hangs up and calls Rupert.

“This best be an emergency,” Rupert says when he answers. “Not sure if you heard, but there’s a storm coming.”

Rupert’s lady friend Sadie lives in Coral Bay on Upper Carolina. She’s waiting at the bottom of her steep driveway, thank God, wearing blue scrubs and a silk scarf over her hair and holding a small duffel. Sadie is a nurse practitioner up at Myrah Keating; her mother, Blythe, was a midwife, the best in the Virgin Islands. When Huck called and told her about Ayers, she said, “If you come get me, I’ll help out. I have my bag of tricks right here ready to go.”

As soon as Sadie climbs in, Huck swings the car around and heads back down the Centerline Road like a bat out of hell.