THE SWORD FERNS were brown—covered with a layer of dust from the forest floor. I reached down and rubbed a slender frond, revealing the green beneath. The dust coated my sneakers and the dog’s paws. It was unsettling, this rainforest without rain.
Every afternoon, when I was granted a few hours’ leave from the hospital, the dog and I walked those trails. Or, I should say, the dog and I and the two proto-people growing inside my body. I never knew how to count
