Stinger

couch, watching a show on television, their eyes darting to Maria every few minutes. I looked over at Grace and motioned my head toward them. They were obviously scared.

All the women in the room were Venezuelan–the only ones we hadn't been able to get back home before Christmas, due to some problems getting their paperwork. But everything was in order now for them to fly out on the twenty-seventh. Looked like there would be one extra passenger.

Josh laid the First Aid kit he had brought on the bed, went straight to the bathroom to, I assumed, wash his hands, and I asked Yoselin how Maria was doing. Yoselin was the only one in the room who spoke English so she would need to translate.

"I've seen babies born, Mr. Carson. I think she's close."

I nodded. "Okay. Josh is going to check in just a second."

I looked up at Maria, eyes squeezed shut tight, moaning in pain. "Maria, we're here to help you deliver your baby. Everything's going to be fine." I felt like a jackass saying that. How the hell did I know everything was going to be fine? I didn't know a damn thing about delivering babies.

I turned to Grace, but she was already sitting on the couch with Deisy and Vanessa and they were smiling up at her as she doled out sticks of gum from her purse. Apparently there was no language barrier when it came to kids and gum.

Josh came out of the bathroom and got to work examining Maria. I moved to the side, ready to assist Josh if necessary, but not wanting to get in the way.

"She's ten," Josh said after a minute. "Baby is head down. Looks good. Let's do this! You with me Maria?" he asked.

She nodded her head, still grimacing.

Yoselin and Gisella both grabbed one of Maria's legs and she started to push. I went to the bathroom and got another cool cloth and a bunch of towels.

I returned to the room where Maria was now screaming during every push, the women counting in Spanish. I turned to Grace and she was leaning back on the couch, a girl in each arm, their faces pressed into her chest. I smiled at her and she gave me a weak smile in return.

Twenty minutes later, with one final scream, the sound of a baby's cry filled the room, and Maria collapsed back on the pillow.

"It's a boy!" Josh announced, tying off the umbilical cord with a piece of thread and cutting it with the small scissors. The baby cried out a few more lusty yells and then was quiet, opening his eyes and looking around. "Welcome to this crazy world, little man," Josh said quietly.

I looked over at Grace and she was watching Josh, her brow furrowed slightly, looking as if she was working out a puzzle. She was probably trying to figure him out–he was a smartass and a ladies man most of the time, but he had a different side to him too, the side who put himself in harm's way for the women we rescued, and the side that had just delivered Maria's baby with skill and sensitivity. He would confuse the hell out of some woman someday. I almost chuckled out loud.

I caught Grace's eye and she smiled gently at me, pulling the two girls closer to her and whispering something in their ears, one at a time. They smiled up at her.

Gisella and I started cleaning up the blood and the mess while Josh finished attending to Maria, and Yoselin held the baby, wrapped in a hotel blanket. He was quiet now.

Grace, Deisy and Vanessa came over to look at the baby, all smiling. Yoselin offered him to Grace and she took him in her arms, a dreamy look on her face as she peered down at him. She ran her fingers through his full head of thick, black hair.

"He's beautiful, Maria," she whispered.

We all looked at Maria and she was looking out the window, a small frown on her face.

"Do you want to hold your son?" Grace asked.

Maria shook her head, still not looking in his direction.

Grace, Josh and I all exchanged looks.

"Yoselin, will you ask her what's wrong?" I said quietly.

Yoselin went and sat next to Maria's head and talked to her quietly for a minute, and then looked up at all of us sadly.

"She says he is the devil's spawn and she doesn't want to touch him," she said.

Grace's eyes widened and she pulled the baby closer to her chest. "The devil's spawn…" she whispered. "Why would she say that?"

Yoselin looked at her. "Maria is only seventeen. Her family sold her to a man who came to her village in Venezuela and told them that she would be doing housework for rich families and could send some of the money back to them. Instead, he raped her and used her as he pleased. And then he brought her here to Vegas to sell her to other men. That is when she was rescued with the rest of us," she said, waving her hand around the room to indicate the other women and girls there.

Grace's eyes were wide with sadness as she blinked away tears. I had heard it all and worse, but it never ceased to make my guts squeeze with the sickness and depravity of it all. I'd never become de-sensitized to the horror of their stories. And as far as I was concerned, that was a good thing.

Maria started talking and Yoselin listened, her eyes growing sadder.

"She says that her mama always told her that us women are the gatekeepers of the world. Only we get to decide whose genes are passed on, which men become fathers. And we must choose wisely. She say that the boy is the spawn of an evil man."

I glanced at Grace and something fierce lit her expression.

She moved to the side of the bed and sat down next to Maria. She looked at Yoselin. "Will you translate for me?" she asked gently, and Yoselin nodded yes.

"Maria," she said, and Maria jerked slightly but continued to stare out the window. "I agree with your mama. But I also think that in our broken world, sometimes things happen that we don't control, or maybe don't plan. I agree that us women should be the gatekeepers, but I also believe that this world needs strong, good men, men who are raised by mamas who have seen what weak men do. You overcome by making your son everything his father was not."

Yoselin finished speaking quietly, and Maria's eyes darted quickly to Grace and then to the baby in her arms and then away.

My chest felt tight and I knew it wasn't only because I loved the woman speaking with such tenderness and conviction to a woman she didn't even know. It was also because my story began in a similar way to the unwanted boy lying in Grace's arms. And I knew Grace realized that too by the way her eyes landed on me repeatedly as she spoke, her voice soft, and filled with love.

Sometimes therapy takes years and years, and sometimes it can happen in one miraculous instant, a lifetime of doubt and self-hatred healed in a moment of astounding love.

Maria spoke, but she sounded a little unsure now. "He is half of him," Yoselin translated.

"He is half of you," Grace countered and Yoselin repeated.

Maria looked fully at Grace's face now, studying it.

"He's so precious, so beautiful," Grace said softly, her eyes falling on me, "Beauty from pain, a gift. Do you want to hold him?" she asked.

When Yoselin repeated, Maria shook her head no and spoke softly.

Yoselin said, "She wants to see him though."

Grace held the sleeping baby toward Maria so that she could peer down into his face. She looked at him for a minute and her face softened as she spoke. "She says he looks like her papa," Yoselin translated, smiling.

Grace smiled and held the baby toward her. After a minute, she reached out her arms and took him. She looked at him for long minutes as we watched her and then she snuggled him to her chest, a tear falling down her cheek. Yoselin and Gisella sat down on the bed next to her, snuggling both of them from either side, and the little girls climbed up on the bed and sat at Maria's feet, watching the women and the baby.

After a minute, Yoselin started to show Maria how to nurse him.

Josh moved toward the door, and I looked at Grace and smiled as she stood up and took my hand.

"Wrap a towel around his bottom for now," Josh said. "Someone will be back shortly with some diapers and