Chapter 21: A Girl

We were at Mass General in twenty minutes, and Marin never let go of my hand in the elevator.

The fourth-floor corridor was quiet, with the lights turned down for the evening.

Rex sat on a bench outside the delivery room.

He had a bundle in the crook of his arm, wrapped in a striped hospital blanket.

He held it very stiffly.

He stood up when he saw us, and then didn't know what to do with his feet.

"Her name isn't picked," he said. "I've got three. I keep changing."

"Let me see," Marin said.

He tilted the blanket.

The baby was red and furious, with a damp whorl of black hair and a mouth that opened and shut.

She had her fists up by her face.

"Look at that," Marin said softly. "She's already angry."

"She gets it from her mother," Rex said.

His voice broke on the word, and he laughed to cover it.

"Seven pounds, one ounce," he said. "On the date. The nurse said that never happens."

I knew the date.

I stood there and found I couldn't say anything at all.

"Hold her," Rex said.

"I'm not sure."

"Hold her, man. Your arm's mostly healed."

I took the baby in my two hands.

She weighed almost nothing, and then, as I settled her against my chest, she weighed everything.

She opened her eyes.

They were dark, almost black, and cloudy the way a newborn's are, and she looked at nothing.

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