On a 7-9, it will cost you.

It ends up being a much longer night than you had planned. The cozy midwife-run delivery center that Jeannie had planned on isn't ready to receive her, so it's back to the hospital for all of you. The Birthing Center is short-handed, so you and Julie end up being Jeannie's right- and left-hand women as she goes into labor, making sure that everything will go as she wants. Julie says the word for the role these days is "doula", which you gather is an advocate for the mother, a cross between a go-fer, a comforter, a watchdog and a lawyer.

And so you find yourself being all of these, spooning raspberry gelatin into Jeannie's mouth as you fend off a nurse who doesn't need to do those vital signs or that enema RIGHT now, really, and leaning close as Jeannie has things to say. Fortunately you have Julie to spell you.

Sometime in the darkest hours of the night, the delivery team arrives, the baby pops out, and you and Julie end up crashing together in one of the side rooms intended for new fathers.

Sometime the next day, you wake. You're pressed up against a warm body, your nose in soft, fragrant hair.

Yesterday flashes through your mind, and you sit up.

"Maggie," you say.

"Hmmmnmn?" Julie Paul says.

"Is Maggie Baxter all right?" you say. The last you saw of her, she was being attended to by the cardiac team. You had had your mouth on the Nursing Director's vulva, seeking another orgasm from her, when her heart attack had started.

Julie yawns. "Yes," she says. "I asked last night. Looks like they caught it early enough. Lucky for Maggie it happened where and when it did."

"Oh," you say. "So, do you think I should go work at the Birthing Center or go along with you to the nursing intern program? Or what about the Mobile Outreach Clinic?"

Julie turns around and looks at you. "I think you should choose what's best. But wherever you go, I want to be there too."

You lie back down, meeting Julie eye to eye. She tilts her head toward yours. You accept her kiss.