Chapter 23: It Didn't Count

The baby was born at the second watch on the night of the twenty-third, a girl, feet first and then turned, and Mother Xiao came out of Auntie Tang's back room with her sleeves rolled to the shoulder and her arms red to the elbow and said, "Done," and sat down on the bench in the tea shed and ate four sesame cakes without stopping. Auntie Tang cried. She cried into her apron and then into Mei's shoulder and then into Fish's new sleeve, which he allowed, standing very straight in the doorway of the tea shed with his hands held out from his sides like a heron drying its wings. Then she wiped her face, and fetched her abacus, and began working out what she owed Mother Xiao and what Mother Xiao owed her for the cakes. "Rain," said Little Plum, from the back room, faintly. "I'm calling her…