I folded forward.

I could not help it.

And I had a daughter in the crook of my left arm.

That is the part that I cannot think about even now.

For perhaps a second and a half, before anybody reached me, my own child was in an arm that had stopped working while I went forward over the top of her.

“All right, all right, stop — stop.” Pilar had hold of my shoulder and my wrist within about a second, taking the baby out of the crook of my arm with one hand as she came, and getting me back down onto the pillows.

“You’ve had major abdominal surgery.