They placed the baby on Elara’s bare chest. She was the color of a stormy sky, her face scrunched in protest, her tiny fists opening and closing like sea anemones. Elara looked down at the dark, wet hair, the cord still pulsing between them, and felt a love so fierce and so simple it erased every other thought.

The hospital room was dim, by her request. She wanted to see the sunrise. The midwife, a calm woman named Priya with silver-streaked hair, checked her progress. “Seven centimeters. You’re doing the work, mama.”

By 5:00 AM, the waves had become surges. She’d drawn a bath, and the warm water cradled her as she knelt on the tiles, her forehead resting on the cool porcelain edge of the tub. Leo found her there, hair plastered to her cheeks, making a low, guttural sound she didn’t recognize as her own.