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September she got her first job, working at Collins Magazine, a highly respectable women's magazine. Jeffrey didn't think it made much sense to go to work since she was pregnant, but at last he agreed, and he had to admit that it did her a great deal of good. She took a leave of absence from the magazine after Christmas, and settled in for the remaining two months to wait for the baby. She was more excited every day, and finally he saw the grief of the previous summer leave her eyes. She insisted that if it was a boy she wanted to call him Jeffrey, but he wanted a little girl that looked like her. And late at night in their bed, he would touch her belly and feel the baby kick, with love and wonder in his eyes.
    "Doesn't it hurt?" He worried about her a great deal, but at twenty-one she was the picture of health, and she laughed at his concern.
    "No. It feels funny sometimes, but it doesn't hurt." She looked at him happily as she lay on her side, and he felt almost guilty as he reached out to touch her breasts. He always wanted her, even now, and they made love almost every night. "Don't you mind, Jeff?"
    "No. Of course not. You're beautiful, Daff. Even more beautiful than you were before." There was something so soft and luminous about her face as her golden hair fell around her shoulders like a shaft of wheat, and her eyes lit up with a kind of inner light he'd read about and never seen. She seemed filled with promise and a kind of magical joy.
    She called him at the office after the first few pains, and she sounded exuberant and almost high, and he rushed home to be with her, forgetting the client in his office, his coat behind the door, and carrying with him a law book he had had in his hand when she called, feeling more than a little frantic and more afraid than he would admit. But when he saw her waiting for him, sitting quietly in a chair, he knew that everything would be all right, as he had always known, and he caught her excitement and poured them each a glass of champagne.
    "To our daughter."
    "To your son!" Her eyes teased and laughed and then became suddenly glazed with the pain. He flinched for her for a moment, reaching quickly for her hand, forgetting the champagne, and then remembering all that they'd learned in the class they'd taken for two months, helping her through each pain, timing them with the stopwatch he'd bought, until four o'clock when he sensed before she did that it was time to go. The doctor met them at the hospital, and Daphne smiled, looking almost regal, her head held high, so excited and so proud, and then just as quickly vulnerable as she leaned against him, panting softly as he coached, but her eyes still dancing at what they shared, almost impervious to the increasing pain.
    "You're incredible, darling. And oh, God, how I love you." He had helped her to the labor room, stood by and held her hand and breathed, donned a mask and gown and sped into the delivery room with her at nine o'clock that night, and -at ten nineteen, with Daphne pushing with all her might, and tears streaming from Jeffrey's eyes as he looked on with astonishment and awe, their baby girl was born. Aimee Camilla Fields poked her head into the world with a giant howl as her mother gave a shout of victory and glee. The doctor held her aloft and she was quickly put into Daphne's arms as Jeffrey looked down at both of them, laughing and crying, stroking Daphne's damp hair with one hand and holding the baby's tiny fingers with another.
    "Isn't she beautiful, Jeff?" Daphne was crying now, and smiling at the same time, looking up at him with all he felt as he bent to kiss her gently on the lips.
    "You've never looked more beautiful to me, Daff."
    "I love you." The nurses had stepped back, feeling, as they always did, never quite hardened to the miracles they saw each day, and the threesome stayed alone for as long as they could. And at last Daphne was brought back to her room, and when she slept, Jeffrey went home at midnight,