Chapter 30: Godmother

Sandro got the anchor up in the dark in four minutes, barefoot, in his jeans and nothing else.

I held the flashlight.

He ran the old boat back through the islands faster than I'd ever seen it go, with the bow slapping the swells and the stove pipe rattling.

The woman from the bar had her truck running at the top of the float.

Gia was in the passenger seat, gripping the dashboard, swearing in Italian our grandmother would have slapped her for.

"Where were you?" she yelled at me through the window.

"Getting engaged."

She stared at me.

Then a contraction hit her, and she grabbed my hand through the window so hard the pawn-shop ring cut into my finger.

"Congratulations," she said through her teeth. "Get in the truck."

The hospital in Blue Hill was the same one where they'd stitched Sandro's eyebrow in December.

The same nurse was at the desk.

She looked at Sandro, and at the ring on my hand, and at my sister doubled over in a bar owner's raincoat.

"Busy year," she said, and got a wheelchair.

They let me in the room.

Gia didn't ask. She just didn't let go of my hand, and nobody was brave enough to make her.

Sandro sat in the hallway with the woman from the bar and a box of doughnuts somebody had brought.

By nine half the harbor was in the waiting room.

The old man brought the dog, and they made him leave her in the truck.

The labor went on all morning.

Gia cursed Renato. She cursed the doctor. She cursed me, twice, for being calm.

"How are you so calm?"

"I'm not. I'm counting."

"Counting what?"

"Your contractions. They're four minutes apart. It's like a ledger."

She laughed and screamed at the same time, and the nurse said she'd never heard anybody do both.

At eleven the doctor said it was time.

Gia grabbed the front of my sweater.

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