And yet, something vanished like snow: Ted came to the hospital, parting the crowds of stubby nurses, cradling more paper in his enormous hands. Carrying offerings priceless as new life!—her wished-for yearly contract from The New Yorker, the newsprint cone of nodding tulips, thick steak sandwiches on crisp, unsullied butcher’s wrap tied with twine. He’d come; it was all forgotten. She could see now, in the camera obscura of her mind, the scene played in mirror image: her own face as he approached her hospital bed, his hands full. Impossible, but she knew it as she knew the cries of her babies: her face peeled back to innocence, her eyes wet, the tears shimmering, incandescent, prismatic, rolling down her face. Ecstasy, her face. All joy, her life. They were reunited. Her marriage had not been damaged. She had never been so glad to see him.

Nick is roaring in his crib. The cot rattling begins. If Frieda isn’t up already, she will be in moments. Just a cry, the squeak of a spring in a cot, and her children are reborn, vivid to her. She’s Pavlovian; she always has been. Sylvia raises the spring clamp of the binder, slipping the start of her manuscript in: two slim pages. “Morning Song” is first under a title page she has yet to settle; back to that later. For now, the process is begun. She closes the black cover and centers the binder on her desk. Retying the slackened belt on her robe, she unplugs the little heater—its hot red coil dies to ash—takes it in both hands, and walks barefoot out of her bedroom, the cord trailing on the hardwood, and down the hall to her children.

*   *   *