Chapter 32: Her Table

The baby was born at ten past four in the morning, two days after the courthouse steps.

I was awake for all of it, in a room with warm lights, with a brisk woman in reading glasses at the foot of the bed and Sam at my shoulder.

He had cried in the hallway for an hour before the pushing began.

He told me this later, and he told me never to tell anyone.

"One more," the colleague said. "You're doing it, Tillie, that's the head."

"Sam."

"I'm here."

"Tell me it's all right."

"It's all right," he said into my hair. "I've got a clear view of everything, and it's all right. Push."

I pushed.

There was a long burning stretch, and a sound came out of me that I did not recognize.

Then there was a cry, thin and furious and alive, and the room filled with it.

"A boy," the colleague said. "A big, loud, healthy boy."

They laid him on my chest, slippery and hot and shouting.

He had a fist against his mouth and a crumpled, indignant face.

Four times I had been told a baby was gone, and one of those times I had been lied to about a living girl.

This one wrapped his hand around my finger and would not let go.

I laughed, and I sobbed, and I could not tell the two apart.

"Tillie," Sam said. His voice broke in the middle of my name. "Look at him."

"I'm looking."

"He's perfect."

"He's got your forehead."

"He's got your temper."

"Eight pounds, one ounce," said the colleague, peering at the scale. "Whoever scheduled him for the spring knew what they were doing."

I looked up at Sam, and I saw him wiping his face on his shoulder.

"I love you," I said.

It was the first time I had said it out loud to him.

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