REMI'S POV
The second week of April arrived the way significant things arrived in this story — not with announcement, but as a fact.
Thirty-seven weeks. Okafor had been seeing us weekly since thirty-five, the standard protocol for the final approach, and each appointment had the same reassuring quality of consistent precision: position favorable, measurements on track, marker stable, Isolde demonstrating the specific vitality of someone who has decided she is entirely ready for whatever comes next.
Okafor had said at thirty-six weeks: "Any day now. Could be this week. Could be two weeks. Your body will know."
She had said the same thing at thirty-seven weeks.
The Tuesday of the second week of April I woke at three in the morning and lay still and took inventory and understood, with th
