1 “Pili, check the equipment, fast! Is she breathing?” “No.” “Let’s start positive-pressure ventilation.” I repeat the baby’s vitals in a whisper, like a litany. I know, little one. This is no way to greet you on your arrival into this world, but we have to get you breathing, you hear me? “Thirty seconds.” One, two, three… there’s a woman lying over there, your mum, and she needs you, you see her? Come on, you can do it, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen… come on, breathe, you got this, I promise that if you can do this, things’ll change, this world is a good place to be. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Living is worth the effort, you know? Twenty-three, twenty-four… sometimes it’s hard, I won’t lie, twenty-six, twenty-seven, come on, sweetie, don’t do this to me. I promise it’s worth it. Thirty. Silence. The baby girl doesn’t move. “Pili, heart rate?” My eyes meet the nurse’s vigilant gaze. This is the second time this has happened recently and I know that warning look. She’s right, I shouldn’t raise my voice so much, I shouldn’t raise it at all, in fact. I’m not comfortable. I’m hot and my right clog is rubbing against a little blister I got from my sandals in the last few days of my summer holiday. In these crucial moments, right after birth, the blister and this heat are the last thing I need. Our absolute priority for the baby is to keep her from losing body warmth. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to travel at the crack of dawn and go straight to work without stopping by the house to unpack and shake off the strange sensation of having spent almost two weeks away, far from work, from my babies’ medical records, from the blood work, from the lab, far from everything that makes me tick. New decision. With short, quick movements, I stimulate the soles of the baby’s feet and, as always happens when I do that, I curb my desire to press harder, with more urgency. You can’t do this to me, little one, I can’t start September off like this, come on, breathe, pretty girl. Reassessment. I try to concentrate on the information on the monitor and on the girl, but I need to close my eyes for a second since I can’t cover my ears, and the questions launched at me by her mother, which sound like a disconsolate moan in the delivery room, throw me off worse than ever. Other people’s suffering now feels like an overloaded plate after I’ve eaten my fill. I can’t take in any more and it sends me running in the opposite direction. Every pained cry and whimper becomes Mauro’s mother’s sobbing on the day of his burial. It ripped at the soul. Breathe, pretty girl, come on, for the love of God, breathe! I furrow my brow and shake my head to remind myself that I shouldn’t stir up all that. Not here. Here you shouldn’t make waves. Here you shouldn’t remember. Not here, Paula. Focus. Reality hits me like a pitcher of cold water and instantly puts me in my place: I have a body weighing only eight hundred and fifty grams that hasn’t taken a breath, laid out here on the resuscitation table, and its life is in my hands. My sixth sense kicks in, guiding me more and more. That sense somehow maintains a balance between the most extreme objectivity, where I retain protocols and reasoning, and my shrewd ability to harness my intuition, without which, I’m convinced, I couldn’t aid these tiny creatures with their arrival into the world. Listen, little girl, one of the things worth living for is the sea. “Pili, I’m turning off the ventilation. I’m going to try tactile stimulation of her back.” I take a deep breath and let it out like someone preparing to leap into the void. My mask acts as a wall and holds in my exhalation, a mix of the fluoride toothpaste I found this morning in my father’s bathroom and the quick, bitter coffee I drank in a motorway service station. I miss my things, my normal life. I miss my coffee and my coffeemaker. The smell of home, my rhythm, not owing anyone any explanations, just being able to do my own thing. I rub the baby’s tiny back as gently as I can. The sea has a rhythm, you feel it? Like this: it comes and it goes, it comes and it goes. You feel my hands? The waves come and go, like this. Come on, beauty, the sea is worth living for, there are other things too, but for now focus on the sea, like this, gentle, you feel it? “She’s breathing.” The first cry was like a miaow, but we received it with the joyful relief that greets a summer storm. “Welcome…” I’m not sure if I’m saying it to the baby or to myself, but I have to struggle to hold back my emotion. I wash her with quick movements I’ve made hundreds of times before. It calms me to see her colour improving, that transparent skin taking on a reassuring pink tone. “Heart rate?” “One hundred and fifty.” “Pili, let’s put on a CPAP and put her in the incubator, please.” I look over my mask into her eyes to make her understand that I’m sorry about my earlier tone. It’s best to keep Pili happy, otherwise she acts all offended and pays me back by making me wait for the blood work. At least she gets cross with me, which is something in and of itself. For the last few months everyone’s been incredibly forgiving when I lose my patience and their indulgence actually makes me more angry and irritable. As I wait for the incubator, I rub the baby’s tiny back sweetly, this time to thank her for making that immense effort to cling to life. But I can’t help thinking that, deep down, I’m touching her for some other, more elusive reason too, something to do with the fact that she’s still here when Mauro isn’t. Because he’s not here, Paula. He’s gone and, yet he comes to me even here as I’m handling these few grams of gelatinous life. “Here you go, Mama. Give your daughter a kiss.” I bring the baby over to her mother for just a few seconds so they can meet. “She had some trouble breathing but now she’s fine. We’re going to bring her up to the ICU like we talked about, OK? I’ll be back in a little while to explain everything in detail. Don’t worry, everything’ll be fine.” But I don’t promise her anything. Even though the mother’s eyes are begging me to give them hope, after Mauro I don’t make any promises.