Marietta’s fingers are perfectly tubular, less like hands than a child’s drawing of hands. Her eyes are large and dark as a guinea pig’s.

Jasmine’s two hundred twelve days pregnant and the only one here who knows CPR, dammit. Don’t they make you learn when you buy a pool? There should be a law. Jasmine had to pee a minute ago. She counts compressions, blows angry hair out of her face.

Marietta isn’t her kid. Marietta deserves better parents. Her mother’s bubbling to 911 while Jasmine pinches Marietta’s nostrils, although you’re not really supposed to, anymore. She realizes she’s wet herself.