Chương 10
Emily stood beside it with one hand on Jenna’s shoulder.
The baby looked smaller behind clear plastic.
Emily wanted to open the side panel and take her back.
Instead she reached through the access port and placed one finger against the infant’s palm.
The hand closed around her again.
Emily’s vision blurred.
Maya was watching through the tablet.
“You can tell her something,” Maya said.
Emily looked at the screen.
“What?”
“Anything.”
Emily bent close.
The baby’s eyes opened briefly.
Dark.
Unfocused.
Beautiful in the ordinary, unfinished way newborns were beautiful.
“Your mom is waiting for you,” Emily whispered.
Her voice failed.
She tried again.
“She’s waiting.”
Maya covered her mouth.
Emily removed her finger.
The baby’s hand stayed curled for a second after it was gone.
Marcus escorted the transport team to the ambulance.
Emily watched through the glass as red lights reflected across the flooded tarmac road.
Then the vehicle disappeared.
Her arms felt wrong.
Not empty.
Wrong.
She sat down.
Nobody tried to comfort her.
For several minutes, people simply worked around her.
Jenna replaced supplies.
Marcus returned and began another incident log.
Porter took a call from hospital administration.
Nathan stared out at the storm.
Nina had been removed from duty and was sitting with another security officer in a small interview room down the hall.
Emily folded the cream blanket that had covered the baby.
She folded it once.
Then again.
Then realized she was folding it into a shape too small to be useful.
She opened it and started over.
Nathan watched.
“You can stop looking at me.”
“Sorry.”
She folded the blanket again.
“Are you going to lose your job?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were right.”
“I was also reckless.”
“Those can both be true.”
“Yes.”
Emily smoothed the blanket over her knees.
“My mother used to hate people who said ‘everything happens for a reason.’”
Nathan smiled faintly.
“She sounds sensible.”
“She’d say sometimes things happen because somebody forgot to check the damn label.”
Nathan laughed.
Emily did too.
Then, without warning, she began crying.
Not loudly.
There was no dramatic collapse.
Her face simply stopped cooperating.
She pressed the heel of one hand against her eyes.
Nathan stayed in his chair.
He did not say anything.
That was the kindest thing he had done.
At 6:03 a.m., Daniel arrived.
His flight had made it out of Denver after midnight, diverted once, and landed at the commercial terminal on the opposite side of the airport. He found a cab driver willing to navigate the flooded access roads, then spent fifteen minutes arguing with medical-terminal security because his name was listed under Emily’s old address.
When he finally entered the lounge, his shirt was wet at the shoulders and one shoelace was undone.
Emily stood too quickly.
He crossed the room before anyone could stop her.
For several seconds they held each other without speaking.
Then Daniel pulled back.
“Where is she?”
The question held both babies.
Emily understood.
“Mercy.”
“Both?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
His eyes went to the empty bassinet.
Then Nathan.
“You him?”
Nathan nodded.
Daniel walked toward him.
Marcus quietly straightened.
Emily said, “Daniel.”
Daniel stopped.
Nathan stood.
Daniel looked at his cheek.
“Which side?”
Nathan almost smiled.
“Left.”
Daniel glanced at Emily.
“You hit hard?”
“She was committed.”
Emily closed her eyes.
“Oh my God.”
Daniel looked at Nathan again.
“Thank you.”
Nathan did not seem prepared for that.
“I scared her unnecessarily.”
“You also noticed.”
“I should have handled it differently.”
“Probably.”
Daniel extended his hand.
Nathan looked at it for a second before taking it.
Emily watched them and felt annoyed with both.
Men could apparently compress moral complexity into handshakes if given enough fatigue.
“Can we go see our daughter now?”
Porter entered the room.
“Yes.”
The drive to Mercy took twenty-six minutes.
Emily rode in a medical transport van because Jenna and Porter refused to let her leave in Daniel’s cab.
Daniel sat beside her.
Rain streaked the windows.
For the first ten minutes, neither spoke.
Emily watched stores and parking lots pass in the gray morning.
Ordinary people were beginning ordinary days.
A man in a reflective vest carried coffee across a gas station lot.
Two teenagers stood under a bus shelter looking at the same phone.
A woman walked a small white dog beneath an umbrella.
Emily resented them.
Then she resented herself for resenting them.
Daniel rested his hand on her knee.
“I’m afraid to see her.”
Emily turned.
He looked embarrassed.
“I know that sounds terrible.”
“No.”
“What if she doesn’t look like the baby in the picture?”
“She probably won’t.”
“What if I don’t feel…”
He stopped.
Emily waited.
Daniel looked out the window.
“We spent all night thinking about the other one too.”
Emily nodded.
“I held Maya’s baby longer than I held ours.”
Daniel’s thumb moved once across her knee.
“You kept her safe.”
“Maya asked me to.”
“You would’ve anyway.”
Emily was not sure.
That uncertainty stayed with her.
At Mercy Children’s, they were taken through a side entrance.
No dramatic reunion waited inside.
There were forms.
Hand sanitizer.
A nurse who needed Emily to sit because her blood pressure had risen.
A social worker who introduced herself twice because Emily forgot her name the first time.
Then Maya and Luis arrived in wheelchairs from another floor.
The two couples stopped several feet apart.
Maya looked smaller in person.
Emily did too.
For a few seconds nobody knew whether to hug.
Maya solved it by saying, “This is extremely weird.”
Emily laughed.
“Yes.”
Luis nodded toward Daniel.
“You Daniel?”
“Yeah.”
“Luis.”
They shook hands.
Maya looked at Emily.
“She did okay in the ambulance.”
“I know.”
“They called me three times.”
“Good.”
“She had one little oxygen dip but recovered.”
Emily nodded.
Maya’s eyes filled.
“Thank you for holding her.”
Emily’s throat tightened.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do.”
“No.”
May you like
Maya stepped closer.
“You do not get to tell me what I have to be grateful for.”
