"I'm great with kids," Lily said by way of an answer, grinning over at Faye. "Which is to say, yes, if you need a break, if you need a hand, if you need anything, you can ask me." It was easy enough to offer, she knew, because she wasn't in the same situation. If she had been, she wouldn't be nearly as optimistic or quite so free with offers of her time, mostly because she'd be petrified herself.

"And, just for the record, I'm willing to bet you'll be better at it than you think," she said. Most people were, as it turned out, even if they didn't know what they were doing. Being a parent was the sort of thing a person had to learn on the go. There was no preparing for it, no classes to take that could ever really make someone ready for what happened when they had a baby. "I don't know if you'll be any less freaked out, but I really do think you'll be a good mother."