Somehow, she hadn’t thought her daughter would be this small. She’d seen baby girls all her life, boys, too. Women birthed them like puppies around here. First one barely walking before the next one came along. But when they belonged to other people, they seemed sturdier, less fragile. This one in her arms, her daughter, looked delicate as glass.
The baby snuffled a little, burrowing against her chest, seeking. She had a sudden urge to pinch her daughter, show her, right from the start, that the world was full of ugly things. That way her daughter wouldn’t be surprised later, wouldn’t be weak, expecting the world to do her any favors. Trying, in the best way she knew how, to teach her daughter something worth learning.
“Sorry, little girl,” she whispered against the baby’s downy cheek. She’d forgotten how sweet newborn babies smelled. “You’re stuck with me.” She’d seen the mothers who coddled, who passed out hugs and kisses like confetti. And that was never going to be her. Didn’t see what good it did, fawning over kids that way, making them think they were special, that life wouldn’t kick their asses the same as everyone else. She didn’t know how to coddle, but she knew how to forge. How to make her daughter strong. She couldn’t give her much, but she could give her that. Because, pinch or no pinch, the world was ugly, especially for girls. There was no escaping it. You either fought back or you surrendered. And no daughter of hers was going to surrender. No daughter of hers was going to lie down and take it. Not if she had anything to say about it.
The midwife from up the road, who’d taken payment in booze and a crumpled twenty, wandered in, hands still streaked with blood. “You settled on a name yet?”
She looked down at her daughter. “Eve,” she said. “Her name is Eve.”