Bethany Stroud was already there.
She had turned away from her husband at the exact moment of the word million, and she did not look back as she pushed through the glass.
The red ribbon, which nobody had cut and nobody would, caught on her shoulder.
It snapped, and fell across the Birkin, and she stopped, and for a moment I thought she would stoop and pick it up.
Then she stepped over it.
Lillian turned to the room.
« Ladies and gentlemen, » she said, « we will postpone the ceremony. Our staff has work to do, and I believe a young woman has been waiting a very long time for somebody to listen. »
She looked at me.
She held out my badge, which I had somehow set on the counter.
« Marsha. »
« Yes, ma’am. »
« Please see to the child. »
I did.
Ginger gave Maisie a warm bath in the staff bathroom and found her a pair of scrubs cut down to size, with tiny cartoon bears on the pocket, from the pediatric closet.
Marlo made cocoa in the break room, in a mug that said World’s Okayest Nurse.
By noon, Maisie was asleep in a recliner in the family waiting room with a blanket up to her chin and a peppermint wrapper folded in her fist.
I sat beside her for four hours.
I did not go back to my desk.
For the first time in twenty-two years, nobody asked me to.
Around two o’clock, the recliner creaked.
« Did I do it right? » she whispered, without opening her eyes.
« Baby, you did everything right. »
« I couldn’t wake her. »
« I know. »
« I tried water. »
« I know you did. »
Her eyes opened, gray and wet and enormous.
« Are the babies okay? »
« They’re warm, » I said. « Their names are on a little card. Do you know what Mommy was going to call them? »
She thought about it.
« Abram. And Etta. After Grandpa and Grandma. »
« Those are very good names. »
« She said Etta would be loud. »
« Is she going to be loud? »
For the first time that day, Maisie Voigt almost smiled.
« I heard her, » she said. « In the wheelbarrow. She’s already loud. »
At four, Virgil Yoder came in.
He was still in his uniform, with the sleeves pushed up and the beard a little damp where he’d splashed water on his face.
He stood in the doorway, not wanting to wake her.
