Page 160 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby

Elisa digs in, gathers herself, and the room folds to a point.

I see a spill of dark hair and it kills me and makes me new.

Dr. Conte says, “Do you want to cut?” and hands me scissors that look like they’ve seen better days and worse nights.

“These your good scissors?” I ask, because humor is my last defense.

“They work,” she says. “Unlike some men.”

Rizzo snorts. “I like you both better when you’re terrified.”

The baby arrives on a breath and a bell ring.

A choir outside finds the note they were missing.

The world shrinks to something the size of my palm and larger than anything I’ll ever lift.

There’s a sound—hers—that slices me open and sews me up in the same instant.

They put her on Elisa—small, furious, perfect—and I watch my girl become someone’s mother in a single, terrible, beautiful heartbeat.

Elisa laughs and cries and says, “Hey, you,” in a voice I have never heard and have been waiting for my entire life.

“Skin to skin,” Dr. Conte says, but she doesn’t have to.

Elisa already has the baby tucked, hands sure, tears making their own weather.

Rizzo pretends she doesn’t wipe her eyes with the heel of her hand.

She fails at pretending.

“Hi,” I say to a person who could fit in my forearm and looks like she could break a city. “Hi, Luce.” The word leaves my mouth without permission. Light. I don’t take it back.

Elisa looks at me over our daughter’s head.

We don’t say yes.

We don’t say no.

We let the word sit in the room and glow.

“APGAR’s pretty,” Rizzo announces, bossy again to cover the softness, and drapes the warmed blanket over both my girls like it’s a blessing. “Merry Christmas, you saps.”

Outside, bells unspool from a church that can’t keep secrets.

The snow decides to make it official. V

olunteers wander by the doorway with paper candles and a pitch that’s better when you’re crying.

Someone in the hall laughs the way people laugh when their family made it in time and you remember why these buildings were invented.

I wash my hands because I’m me, then I sit on the edge of the bed and touch one finger to a brand-new foot.

The foot is unimpressed.

The foot curls around my knuckle like it owns me.

Fine.