Sitting on the couch is her immediate family. They are enamored by the bundle of beauty. The world stills. Sarah tries to make her face joyful and pleasant. But her heart shatters further, into tiny shards of darkness. Sarah's family sits around the new mother, soaking up the Sarah's new niece. Brin, Sarah's sister, is holding her fourth daughter and seventh child. It isn't jealously or envy the courses through Sarah's veins, it is utter failure and intense guilt. Failure for not being a real woman and guilt for letting all her babies die. Sarah cannot bring herself to even want to hold the baby. For that she feels dead inside or maybe worse...numb.
She doesn't have a choice though. Just like everything in her life. The baby is pushed into her trembling hands and arms. The newborn's beautiful eyes just stared at Sarah thoughtfully. That's when Sarah's heart becomes nothing more than a hollow cavity of agony and sorrow.