The sharp wail of a newborn cuts through the room. A nurse places a slick and wriggling childon the mother’s chest. She cries, too. Only hers is a much different sound as the nurse gently cleans the baby’s skin and covers him with a warm blanket.
The father is there, too. Right by the woman’s side, sliding a small cap over a crown of dark, downy hair as the baby’s cries subside into adorable grunts and whimpers. Huddled together, beholding their child with wonder and awe, the man’s eyes fill with tears. He kisses the mother’s sweaty brow.
“I love you,” he says, like he’s never said it before. She looks up at him like she’s never heard it before, her eyes dewy, too. They come together in a kiss as the baby coos between them.
All is right and happy and perfect.
Until it isn’t.
Without any warning at all, the woman goes limp.
Alarmed, the man taps her cheek. “Rebecca? Rebecca, wake up.”
Her head lolls.
The man shouts for help.
The nurse rushes back into the room, noticing what the man has not. Blood. So much, it soaks the pad and the bedding beneath her. She hurries to the emergency call button and says, “Rapid Response in Labor and Delivery, Room 204. Heavy postpartum bleeding.”
The man continues to call for his wife, like she simply needs to wake up.
Wake up, Rebecca. Wake up.
The nurse scoops up the baby and places him inside a plastic basinet as a medical team rushes inside with a crash cart.
The man begins to panic.
“Sir, we need space to help her,” another nurse says. “You will need to wait outside.”
“But my wife, what’s happening to my wife?”
He’s ushered out of the room without an answer.
The baby is, too.
The door swings closed but it doesn’t shut out the sound. Horrible, urgent sound. A tornado of noise and voices, shouts and commands, and then, the worst sound of all.
A flat, monotone beep.
No more movement.
No more commands.
Just a hollow voice that says, “Time of death, 4:24 p.m.”
The baby lay alone in the basinet, cooing obliviously. Unaware of the man who has collapsed onto his knees. Somehow, I’m there in the hallway, looking at the child, swaddled in a blanket, wearing that tiny cap—not hospital issued, but hand knit with love and care. Stitched with a name.
Jude.
I lurch awake with a loud gasp.
It’s dark.
The middle of the night.
I’m not in the hospital.
I’m in my bed.
