Chương 3
“So I came over.”
The baby swallowed loudly.
Rachel looked at him. “Did Margaret call anyone?”
“I don’t know.”
“She told the paramedics Clara fell asleep.”
“She probably believed that.”
Rachel’s expression remained still.
Ethan had known Rachel for four years. She and Clara had worked together at a small architecture firm before Rachel started her own design practice. She was not dramatic. She disliked long phone calls and restaurant menus with too many adjectives. When she was angry, she became exact.
“What?” Ethan asked.
“When I walked in, Margaret wasn’t beside Clara. She wasn’t checking her breathing. She was eating.”
“I saw.”
“The discharge sheet was open.”
“I saw that too.”
“It wasn’t open when I visited yesterday. It was folded inside the hospital bag.”
He adjusted the bottle, though the baby was drinking well.
“She may have taken it out.”
“Yes.”
“Or Clara did.”
“Clara could barely stand when I left yesterday.”
The baby’s eyes closed. His cheeks continued working.
Ethan watched the milk level drop.
A physician came into the room twenty minutes later. She was younger than Ethan expected, with dark circles under her eyes and a badge clipped crookedly to her scrub top. She introduced herself as Dr. Patel and sat rather than standing over him.
“Your wife is very sick,” she said. “We believe she has a severe postpartum infection. Her blood pressure is dangerously low, and we’re concerned there may be retained placental tissue contributing to the infection and bleeding.”
Ethan heard the words but could not assemble them.
“Is she going to die?”
Dr. Patel paused.
“We are treating her aggressively. She has responded to the first round of fluids, but she needs antibiotics, blood products, and an urgent procedure to remove the tissue. The obstetric team is on the way.”
“Is she awake?”
“Not fully.”
“Can I see her?”
“For a moment, before they take her upstairs.”
The baby shifted against his chest. Ethan looked down, ashamed that for several seconds he had forgotten the child was there.
Dr. Patel explained forms, consent, risk, time. Ethan signed where he was shown. His signature looked like someone else’s.
“Was she having symptoms before today?” the doctor asked.
“She was tired. Pale. She said she was cold. She had pain, but she just had a baby.”
“Fever?”
“I don’t know.”
“Foul-smelling discharge? Increased bleeding? Dizziness?”
“She said she felt dizzy when I left.”
“Did she call her obstetrician or the postpartum line?”
“I don’t know.”
The doctor’s eyes moved to the yellow discharge sheet on the counter.
“These instructions advise calling immediately for several of the symptoms you’re describing.”
Ethan looked at the paper.
“I was getting formula.”
Dr. Patel did not answer the guilt in his voice. “We’ll know more after the procedure.”
Rachel stayed with the baby while Ethan was taken to Clara.
She looked smaller beneath the hospital blankets. Tubes ran from both arms. A monitor displayed numbers he tried to read without understanding. Her hair had been moved away from her face, exposing the blue vein at her temple.
He stood beside her and touched two fingers to her wrist below the tape.
“Clara, it’s me.”
Her eyelids opened a fraction.
“Baby?”
“He’s okay. Rachel has him.”
Her mouth moved again.
“Cold.”
“I know.”
He bent close. “They’re helping you.”
She tried to turn her face away from the oxygen tubing.
A nurse adjusted it.
“Clara,” Ethan said, “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes closed.
He wanted to explain the pharmacy, the formula, the call, his mother, the exact intersection where he had chosen not to turn around. Instead he stood there holding her hand while the nurses prepared to take her away.
When the bed began moving, his fingers slipped from hers.
The hallway doors closed between them.
Margaret called at six fourteen.
Ethan watched her name fill the screen. He let it ring.
She called again.
Rachel was burping the baby over her shoulder. The room smelled faintly of formula and the hospital soap that left his hands dry.
“Answer it,” she said.
“I can’t.”
“You don’t have to be kind.”
“That isn’t why.”
He answered.
Margaret did not ask how Clara was.
“Rachel took my handbag by mistake.”
Ethan looked at the chair beside Rachel. The burgundy handbag sat beneath it.
“I’ll give it back later.”
“My keys are inside.”
“Rachel will bring them.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
There was a silence.
Then Margaret said, “You humiliated me.”
Ethan looked at the wall poster. Wet hands. Apply soap. Rub for twenty seconds.
“Clara is in surgery.”
Margaret inhaled. “Surgery?”
“She has a severe infection.”
“Well, I couldn’t know that.”
“The discharge sheet was open.”
“She opened it.”
“Clara could barely move.”
“You weren’t there.”
The sentence entered him cleanly. It did not need force.
“No,” he said. “I wasn’t.”
Margaret’s voice softened, which was how she had always recovered control. “Ethan, you’re frightened. I understand that. But you cannot blame me for a medical complication.”
“I’m blaming you for sitting at the table while she was unconscious.”
“She was breathing.”
“You said she was asleep.”
“She had been in and out all afternoon.”
“And you didn’t call me?”
“I did not want you driving recklessly with a newborn depending on you.”
“Did you call the hospital?”
A pause.
“I looked at the instructions.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I assessed the situation.”
“Did you call anyone?”
“Do not interrogate me.”
Rachel’s head lifted.
The baby released a small burp against her shoulder.
Ethan stood and moved into the hallway. “Did you call the hospital?”
Margaret said nothing.
His heart began beating harder.
“Mom.”
“I spoke to someone earlier.”
“What did they say?”
“They said postpartum women are often exhausted.”
“Who said that?”
“The nurse.”
“What nurse?”
“The number on the discharge paperwork.”
“What else did she say?”
“She asked a series of standard questions. They always do that to protect themselves.”
“What did she tell you to do?”
Margaret’s breath came through the phone.
May you like
“Mom.”
“She recommended that Clara be evaluated.”
