NOON on a Saturday in early October. The party has been in full swing for hours now. The far end of the kitchen is crowded. A mass of wriggling round bodies and small heads covered with a smattering of blond and red peach fuzz. Their mothers sit in a loose circle around them, perching wherever there is space, on old wooden chairs, on the futon couch, on the corner of the kitchen table.
All eyes stare intently at the small woman in the rocking chair at the top of the circle.
She scoops the babies up one by one as they pass her feet, her face softening as she looks at them, her eyes growing bright. These are her babies, all of them.