Chapter 30: Dutch's Letter

The first thing the delivery nurse said to me was, "Don't push yet, honey, wait for the doctor."

I had been saying that to myself for eleven hours.

The Missoula maternity ward had one window, and I had watched the light on the parking lot go from noon to dusk.

Boone stood on my left side with my fingers crushed in his.

He had cut his hair and shaved his beard for this, he said, so the baby would know his face.

I told him he looked like a stranger.

He told me I could say whatever I wanted, and he meant it, and I did.

I said a lot of it.

At nine twenty at night the doctor came in, and the nurse said it was time, and I stopped being funny.

"Look at me," Boone said. "Lena. Look at me. You walked into a clubhouse alone."

"Don't you dare make me laugh."

"You're the bravest person I've ever met."

"Boone."

"Yeah."

"Shut up."

I pushed.

It took forty minutes and every bit of breath I had.

When the baby came, she screamed before the doctor had even finished lifting her.

It was a furious, healthy, outraged scream, and I heard Boone make a sound beside me that was not a word.

"A girl," the doctor said. "Seven pounds, two ounces."

They laid her on my chest, wet and red and furious, with a crop of dark hair stuck flat to her head.

She had Boone's mouth.

I put my hand on her back, and she stopped screaming and turned her face toward my voice.

"Hi," I whispered. "Hi. It's me."

Boone knelt beside the bed with his hand on her head.

He did not say anything for a long time.

When he finally did, it was in a cracked whisper.