They gather the women in a warm room, and not one of them fears the birthing. That is the first strange thing.
A woman heavy with child sits in the seat of honor, and she is laughing. Where I come from, when a woman's time draws near, we do not laugh. We say our farewells quiet, in case the good Lord takes her, as He took my sister and the babe both, in a night of screaming I still hear. Here they bring her small soft things, garments no bigger than my two hands, and blankets soft as lamb's wool but woven by no hands I can see. Enough cloth for one child to keep a whole village warm. And they give it all before the child breathes. Before they know it lives.
That is folly. You do not name the calf before it stands. You do not sew the swaddling before the cry. To ready so much, so sure, is to tempt Him who gives and takes.
But look. They are so certain the child will live. They are certain the woman will rise from her bed and walk. They have made a feast of a thing that in my day was a prayer whispered through clenched teeth.
I do not understand this place. But I will say this, and mean no sin by it. If the good Lord has made a corner of the earth where a mother may laugh before her labor, and want for nothing, and fear nothing, then I have been born too soon, and buried too many, and I hope He kept a seat for the likes of us.