I’m going to be here,” she told the baby, her palm pressed flat against the side of her stomach, every night before she slept. “Whatever happens. I’m going to be here.”The labor lasted twelve hours.

The contractions came in waves that built and broke and rebuilt without the mercy of a real interval between them, and Clara held the bed rail with both hands and breathed the way the nurse instructed and fixed her eyes on a water stain on the ceiling tile that she had already memorized and told herself every twenty minutes that she was still doing it. Which she was. Which was the only thing that mattered.

The nurses were competent and kind. One of them, a woman named Patricia who possessed the manner of someone’s favorite aunt deployed in a professional context, pressed a cool cloth to Clara’s forehead during the worst of it and said “you’re doing beautifully” in a tone that Clara chose to believe because she needed to believe something and the ceiling tile was not offering much.