A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [641]
STOLEN: Goods amounting to twenty-six Pounds, ten Shillings and Fourpence in Total, abstracted from the Warehouse of Mr. Neil Forbes on Water Street. Thieves broke a Hole in the Back of the Warehouse during the Night of May twelfth, and carried the Goods away by means of a Wagon. Two Men, one White, one Black, were seen driving a Wagon away with a Team of bay Mules. Any Word pertaining to this atrocious Crime will be generously Rewarded. Apply to W. Jones, in care of the Gull and Oyster on the Market Square.
BORN, to Captain Roger MacKenzie of Fraser’s Ridge and his lady, a girl, on the twenty-first of April. Child and Mother are reported in good Health, the Child’s name given as Amanda Claire Hope MacKenzie.
Roger had never felt so terrified as he did when his newborn daughter was placed in his arms for the first time. Minutes old, skin tender and perfect as an orchid’s, she was so delicate he feared he would leave fingerprints on her—but so alluring that he had to touch her, drawing the back of his knuckle gently, so gently, down the perfect curve of her fat little cheek, stroking the black cobweb silk of her hair with an unbelieving forefinger.
“She looks like you.” Brianna, sweaty, disheveled, deflated—and so beautiful he could scarcely bear to look at her—lay back against the pillows with a grin that came and went like the Cheshire Cat’s—never entirely absent, even though it faded now and then from tiredness.
“Does she?” He studied the tiny face with complete absorption. Not for any sign of himself—only because he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
He had come to know her intimately, through the months of being roused suddenly by pokes and kicks, of watching the liquid heave of Brianna’s belly, of feeling the little one swell and retreat under his hands as he lay behind his wife, cupping her stomach and making jokes.
But he’d known her as Little Otto, the private name they’d used for the unborn child. Otto had had a distinct personality—and for a moment, he felt a ridiculous pang of loss, realizing that Otto was gone. This tiny, exquisite being was someone entirely new.
“Is she Marjorie, do you think?” Bree was lifting her head, peering at the blanket-wrapped bundle. They’d discussed names for months, making lists, arguing, making fun of each other’s choices, choosing ridiculous things like Montgomery or Agatha. At last, tentatively, they’d decided that if it was a boy, the name might be Michael; if a girl, Marjorie, after Roger’s mother.
His daughter opened her eyes quite suddenly and looked at him. Her eyes were slanted; he wondered if they would stay that way, like her mother’s. A sort of soft, middle blue, like the sky in mid-morning—nothing remarkable, at a glance, but when you looked straight into it . . . vast, illimitable.
“No,” he said softly, staring into those eyes. Could she see him yet? he wondered.
“No,” he said again. “Her name’s Amanda.”
I HADN’T SAID anything to begin with. It was a common thing in newborns—especially babies born a bit early, as Amanda had been—nothing to worry about.
The ductus arteriosus is a small blood vessel that in the fetus joins the aorta to the pulmonary artery. Babies have lungs, of course, but prior to birth don’t use them; all their oxygen comes from the placenta, via the umbilical cord. Ergo, no need for blood to be circulated to the lungs, save to nourish the developing tissue—and so the ductus arteriosus bypasses the pulmonary circulation.
At birth, though, the baby takes its first breath, and oxygen sensors in this small vessel cause it to contract—and close permanently. With the ductus arteriosus closed, blood heads out from the heart to the lungs, picks up oxygen, and comes back to be pumped out to the rest of the body. A neat and elegant system—save that it doesn’t always work properly.
The ductus arteriosus doesn’t always close. If it doesn