And then, without a word, she went to get the doctor, and that was the moment the real terror set in, because nurses do not go quiet and hurry off for the doctor over nothing.

The physician was young, and he came in with a gentle, professional smile — and the smile went off his face the instant he laid his hand on my mother’s abdomen and pressed, gently, and felt whatever he felt there.

“How long has she been like this?” he asked me.

“Weeks,” I said.

And my mother, looking down at her folded hands, corrected me quietly, one more time.

“Months.”