From the Corner of His Eye

the city, but from a netherworld below.
        The inner eye of the artist, which she could never close even when she slept, ceaselessly sought form and design and meaning, as it did in the ceiling above the bed. In the play of light and shadow across the hand-troweled plaster, she saw the solemn faces of babies-deformed, peering beseechingly-and images of death.
        Nineteen hours following Phimie's admission to St. Mary's, while the girl was undergoing the final tests ordered by Dr. Daines, the beetled sky grew sullen in the early twilight, and the city once more arrayed itself in the red gesso and gold leaf that had indirectly illuminated Celestina's apartment ceiling the previous night.
        After a day of work, the pencil portrait of Nella Lombardi was finished. The second piece in the series-an extrapolation of her appearance at age sixty-was begun.
        Although Celestina had not slept in almost thirty-six hours, she was clearheaded with anxiety. At the moment, her hands weren't shaking; lines and shading flowed smoothly from her pencil, as words might stream from the pen of a medium in a trance.
        As she sat in a chair by the window, near Nella's bed, drawing on an angled lapboard, she conducted a quiet, one-sided conversation with the comatose woman. She recounted stories about growing up with Phimie and was amazed by what a trove she had.
        Sometimes Nella seemed to be listening, although her eyes never opened and though she never moved. The silently bouncing green light of the electrocardiograph maintained a steady pattern.
        Shortly before dinner, an orderly and a nurse wheeled Phimie into the room. They carefully transferred her into bed.
        The girl looked better than Celestina expected. Though tired, she was quick to smile, and her huge brown eyes were clear.
        Phimie wanted to see the finished portrait of Nella and the one herself that was half complete. "You'll be famous one day, Celie."
        "No one is famous in the next world, nor glamorous, nor titled, nor proud," she said, smiling as she quoted one of their father's most familiar sermons, "nor powerful-" -nor cruel, nor hateful, nor envious, nor mean," Phimie recited, "for all these are sicknesses of this fallen world-" -and now when the offering plate passes among you-"
        "-give as if you are already an enlightened citizen of the next life-"
        "-and not a hypocritical, pitiful-"
        "-penny-pinching-"
        "-possessive-"
        "-Pecksniff of this sorry world."
        They laughed and held hands. For the first time since Phimie's panicked phone call from Oregon, Celestina felt that everything would eventually be all right again.
        Minutes later, once more in a corridor conference with Dr. Daines, she was forced to temper her new optimism.
        Phimie's stubbornly high blood pressure, the presence of protein in her urine, and other symptoms indicated her preeclampsia wasn't a recent development; she was at increased risk of eclampsia. Her hypertension was gradually coming under control-but only by resort to more aggressive drug therapy than the physician preferred to use.
        "In addition," Daines said, "her pelvis is small, which would present problems of delivery even in an ordinary pregnancy. And the muscle fibers in the central canal of her cervix, which ought to be softening in anticipation of labor, are still tough. I don't believe the cervix will dilate well enough to facilitate birth."
        "The baby?"
        "There's no clear evidence of birth defects, but a couple tests reveal some worrisome anomalies. We'll know when we see the child."
        A stab of horror punctured Celestina as she failed to repress a mental image of a carnival-sideshow monster, half dragon and half insect, coiled in her sister's womb. She hated the rapist's child but was appalled by her hatred, for the baby was blameless.
        "If her blood pressure stabilizes through the night," Dr. Daines continued, "I want her to undergo a cesarean at seven in the morning. The danger of eclampsia passes entirely after birth. I'd like to refer Phimie to Dr. Aaron Kaltenbach. He's a superb obstetrician."
        "Of course."
        In this case, I'll also be present during the procedure."
        I'm grateful for that, Dr. Daines. For all you've done."
        Celestina was hardly more than a child herself, pretending to have the strong shoulders and the breadth of