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against her and squeeze out her own breath, her own life. Without Sadies help, she felt she might not live through this night at all.
    Maybe that's why she'd kept silent.
    Last week she lived through two days without feeling the baby move. Not at all. She'd stayed awake all night, not wanting to miss a single kick. But nothing. She knew it was dead, just knew it. She remembered the sadness in Sadie's face as she talked about her stillborn children, yet she felt a tiny sense of relief at the thought of escaping motherhood. She congratulated herself on the confirmation of her inadequacy.
    But when she woke up that third morning to the insistent stretching of arms and legs within her, she experienced pure joy Silently alone in her bed, she had rejoiced at the child's determination and strength. The baby wanted her, and it wasn't until this night, this moment, this pain that she wanted it, too.
    If the baby could decide to live, so could she. But not alone. She needed help; she needed Sadie. She needed—
    To walk. Maybe she could make it to the door. A breath of fresh air. She was a little unsteady, stooped over. It only took about three steps to go from her bed to her door, and by the time she made it through the third step, she felt as though her body wereengulfed in shards of glass. She fell against the door latch and took a stumbling step outside. Sometime during the seconds that had passed since she left her bed, it had started to snow. Fat, soft, silent flakes. Gloria turned her face up toward the sky and opened her mouth. The snowfall was so new, so irregular, that it was some time before she felt a flake fall onto'her tongue. But she did, then another, and another as the snowfall increased in intensity.
    Then pain.
    She held onto the doorframe even as she fell to her knees. She knew she would never make it across the yard to Jewell's back door, so when the grip of this last contraction eased, she called to the open window.
    “Sadieeeee!”
    The wind wasn't howling or strong enough to whisk her voice away, but the thickness of falling snow seemed to absorb sound.
    “Sadieeeee!” she called again.
    Still no tall silhouette in Jewells doorway. No bustle of broad shoulders and ash-colored hair. No friendly voice, no ready joke. No capable hands to deliver one life and keep another.
    She had to try one more time. Just one more. If Sadie didn't come, she would crawl to her bed and wait to die. She straightened her back as best she could, took a deep breath, and screamed into the growing sheet of snow
    “Sadieeeee!”
    Still nothing. Still on her knees, she allowed her weight to settle on her feet. She felt a chill begin to spread throughout her body Then she felt something else.
    Warmth.
    It was coming from within her. Slowly her feet and ankles were drenched in liquid warmth.
    “Oh, dear God,” she said. “I've killed it. I'm sorry,” she called in the general direction of Jewell's house. “I'm so sorry”
    Gloria let loose of her grip on the threshold, felt her face hit the mud, and sank into blackness.
    Somebody was telling her to wake up. Insisting, really
    “Come now, Gloria,” said the voice at the edge of the fog. “Wake up now We got some work to do.”
    “Mama?”
    “Sure, if that's what it takes. You ready to have this baby?”
    “Mama…mama, I'm sorry”
    “Not as sorry as you're going to be if…”
    The rest of the sentence dissolved in a grunt. Two strong hands grasped her under her arms and suddenly she was being lifted to her feet.
    “Let's get you to the bed.”
    “I killed it,” Gloria said, sobbing. She did her best to shuffle her weight in the direction that the hands were dragging her. “I felt it, just pouring out—”
    “That was just your water breaking.”
    “What water?”
    “Your water. It happens. It is natural and right.”
    Gloria felt the edge of her bed behind her knees and began to sink down upon it.
    “Not just yet. Your gown is soaked and we need to get it