"Babies are hard," she said simply. "No one knows everything on instinct. The more hands the better." She rubbed the baby's back more gingerly, afraid of setting off another whining spell. "Has anyone talked to you about what you want to do?" she asked, more quietly.

Miranda looked up at Niabheara, her eyes fearful. "A little," she said quietly. "I...don't think we've ever really gotten anywhere, though. I don't know what to do, really."

Niabheara grimaced, but for once decided that being oblique would not help matters. "What do you mean, you don't know what to do?" she asked. "You don't know what the options are, or you don't know what you should do, or . . . ?"

"I don't--" Miranda started, and then breathed in, wheezing. "I don't--" But instead of finishing her sentence, she burst into tears.

Moments later, so did the baby.

Niabheara grimaced again, trapped by the lack of an extra set of arms. "It's all right, it's all right if you don't know . . . " She went around to rub Mira's back, while simultaneously trying to bounce the baby on her arm. It went about as awkwardly as expected.

Miranda choked back a sob and straightened up. "I don't want the baby," she said miserably. "I feel like a horrible person, but I don't-- I don't want to be a mother. I can't. I'm terrible at it."

"That's all right too," said Niabheara, feeling helpless. Never had she wanted Meg quite so much; she was sure Meg could say this far more tactfully and gracefully than she ever could. "That's . . . that's most of what I wanted to know, really. And you're probably not really terrible. Just not ready. I don't think I'd be ready at your age. I'm not ready now, and I have a new husband and people who keep clearing their throats and pointing out the line of succession. But . . . we can plan for that, too. Mira, most of the reason people have left this to you is because no one wanted to take your baby away."

Miranda gave her a pained look. "Everyone knows I'm miserable at it and has just been waiting for me to say it?" she asked. She twirled a strand of her hair: it was limp and greasy-looking. "Cormac...I'm not sure what he wants. It sounded like he was willing to take me-and-the-baby but not just-the-baby." She looked glum. "And I know it's not that he's unwilling; I know his job takes him away too much."

"This is not Cormac's business," she said, gentle but firm. "He's a good man, but it's your child. You just have to decide what you want to do for her." She patted the baby's bottom and then winced, glancing at her palm. "Ach, poor thing's wet herself through crying." She looked around the room for the napkins.

Miranda hissed and bit her lip. "Sorry," she said, with a troubled expression, as if she were the one who'd wet herself. "I won't do that," she said, a little more firmly. "She's Cormac's, too. He's her father, he gets a say before anyone else does."