When the woman finally returned, she was carrying a baby, and without asking me whether I was ready, without any ceremony at all, she simply crossed the hallway and placed the child in my arms.

“This is Maya,” she said.

Maya was wearing a yellow sleeper and, I noticed, only one sock.

She was warm, and she was heavier than I had somehow expected, a real and solid weight, and the instant she was in my arms she reached up with one small hand and took hold of the collar of my jacket and gripped it, tight, the way you hold onto something you have decided is yours.

She looked up at me.