Chapter 24: Her Own Name

The baby came in August, three weeks after my divorce was final, on a night so hot the windows ran with condensation.

My water broke at the bench in the lab.

I said, "Oh, no," very calmly.

My postdoc dropped a tray of pipette tips.

Nine people stood up at once and forgot every emergency procedure we had ever written.

"Call Eli," I said.

"He's in the corridor," said the young tech. "He's been in the corridor since you said you had a twinge at breakfast."

He had.

He was through the door before the tray had stopped rolling, and he had my bag over his shoulder and the car keys in his teeth.

"Sit down," he said around the keys.

"I'm perfectly able to walk."

"Then walk slowly. Please. Cora."

I laughed, and then a contraction folded me over his arm, and I stopped laughing.

The labor took eleven hours.

I won't tell all of it.

I will tell you that around two in the morning I said a number of unkind things to the man holding my hand, and he took them all.

He told me I was the bravest person he had ever met.

I told him it was his fault.

"It is," he said. "I'll take full responsibility for the next ten minutes."

"The next ten minutes are all mine."

"Yes, ma'am."

At four, the midwife said, "Now."

At four-fourteen a thin, furious cry went up in the room.

"A girl," the midwife said.

They laid her on my chest, hot and slick and loud.

She had a dark fuzz of hair, a crumpled red face, and a fist that went up beside her ear and stayed there.

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