From the doorway, Odette smoothed the front of her cashmere dress, calm as a junior executive who had just closed a hostile takeover.

Chapter 3 — A Healthy Baby Girl

“The baby’s here!” the midwife cried, and lifted a small, furious, wailing shape into the light.

“It’s a girl.

A healthy girl.”

They wiped her down and laid her on my chest, and the whole roaring room narrowed to the warm, impossible weight of her against my collarbone, her cry sharp and alive in my ear.

I put my hand over her back.