Adrienne breathed deeply, in and out. “I killed a baby,” she whispered.

“Yes, we have all killed a baby—there is a baby in all of us. That is why people come to me, to be reunited with it.”

“No, I’ve killed a real one.”

Ilke was very quiet and then she said, “You can do the side-lying now. You can put this pillow under your head; this other one between your knees.” Adrienne rolled awkwardly onto her side. Finally Ilke said, “This country, its pope, its church, makes murderers of women. You must not let it do that to you. Move back toward me. That’s it.”

That’s not it, thought Adrienne, in this temporary dissolve, seeing death and birth, seeing the beginning and then the end, how they were the same quiet black, same nothing ever after: everyone’s life appeared in the world like a movie in a room. First dark, then light, then dark again. But it was all staggered so that somewhere there was always light.

That’s not it. That’s not it, she thought. But thank you.