I have given birth to twelve babies. I am overwhelmed. My teenage daughter suggests gaily that we take them to the foot bridge and toss them over, and so with what she takes as subtle inference of my approval she loads them all into a sack and we walk, and when we reach the bow of the bridge she in the most casual way unloads them, dumps the bag over the edge and shakes it out, making sure all twelve babies, who resemble dolls to me now, are falling toward the water.

I watch them hit, splash, some one by one, others in tandem as if holding onto one another, little white frothy dots, their shining, bobbing heads floating fast downstream. At some point I change my mind, and shout frantically to my husband who is fishing on the banks below to save some of the babies. He reaches out and pulls two out of the water, wrings them out and places them carefully on the sand. He is in no hurry, and he makes no effort to save the others.

I, still high up on the bridge, seem satisfied with this as well, as the other ten babies disappear around the corners of the river.