Kids die first and hard these days. It's difficult enough to get through a full term pregnancy, to get through a birth with minimal complications, but winters are hard, food is scarce, and walkers are everywhere. Of all the women she's seen start to swell, of all the babies she's seen born, she's seen maybe two handfuls make it to learning to walk, barely more than half of those making it to double digits. It used to just be depressing, mostly, to hear someone has lost their child; but now something seizes in her that feels more like fear.

She barely manages not to look down, and to delay moving her good arm across her own stomach protectively until she's already answered, until it's on a delay.

"I'm sorry," she says, not pity, but sincere. And, a subtle edge that might be anger on his behalf: "However they make choices for this program, they're certainly not doing you any favors."