Chapter 12: A Cry in the Bright Room
The delivery room was brighter than the hallway, and colder. Nurses moved around me with quick, practiced hands while a monitor counted out the baby’s heartbeat. I tried to follow every instruction, but my attention kept snagging on the empty space where Megan’s hand had been.
A doctor leaned into my field of vision.
“We’re watching you and the baby closely, Claire. We’ll tell you what’s happening as we go.”
I nodded. My mouth felt too dry to answer.
The next pain swallowed the room. I gripped the bed rails and held on while the doctor spoke and the nurses moved. The lights blurred. Somewhere close by, someone told me to breathe, and I tried.
Then the pressure eased, and the room changed around me. The quick movements stopped. A nurse looked toward the doctor. No one said anything for a moment.
I listened for the heartbeat. I listened for a cry.
A soft, startled sound rose above the machines.
My whole body went still.
The baby cried again—thin, but unmistakable.
I started sobbing before I could stop myself. The doctor’s face came into focus, calm and intent.
“Your baby is breathing,” she said. “We’re taking them to the next room for monitoring. They need some extra attention, but they’re being cared for.”
“Can I see them?”
“Soon. We’ll keep you updated.”
Soon was too far away to hold. But breathing was something. I clung to that word as the nurses worked around me, and the small cry faded behind the open doorway.
When they finished, they moved me to another bed. The wheels rattled over a seam in the floor, and a nurse told me where we were going, though I couldn’t make the words stay in my head. I kept turning toward the doorway.
Megan was there when they brought me into the recovery room. She stood as the bed rolled in, then sat beside me without trying to fill the silence. In her palm lay my hospital bracelet from the earlier room, the paper bent where her fingers had curled around it.
I stared at it.
“You kept it?”
Megan lowered her eyes to the bracelet.
“I didn’t know what else to hold.”
Her voice was rough. She didn’t ask me to forgive her, or say she’d been fooled, or offer another reason she should have known better. She just stayed beside me, her open hand resting between us.
I wanted to reach for it. I wanted to turn away. I was too tired to choose either, so I let my fingers lie on the blanket.
A nurse checked the monitor and adjusted the cuff on my arm. The room smelled of antiseptic and warm cotton. Every so often, I heard a muffled sound from beyond the wall, and each time my heart lurched before I could tell if it was a cry.
“Is the baby still breathing?” I asked.
“Yes,” the nurse said. “They’re being watched closely. We’ll bring you an update as soon as we have one.”
She didn’t promise more than she knew. I was grateful for that, even as I hated the waiting.
Megan glanced at the phone on the bedside table. It wasn’t mine; mine was still with Eric, along with my purse and keys. The hospital phone had been returned after the call with Dad, but I hadn’t asked for it again. I couldn’t bear to hear another voice stop in the middle of a sentence.
Then the phone rang.
Megan picked it up and looked at me.
“Dad,” she said.
I held out my hand.
“Claire?” His voice came through thin and crackling. “I’m safe.”
The words hit me so hard I closed my eyes. The tightness I’d been carrying since the call from the porch loosened, but it didn’t disappear.
“Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m all right.”
I pressed the phone closer to my ear. “What happened?”
“Ruiz came. I gave her the papers. She has them now.”
I looked at Megan. She was watching my face, still holding the bracelet.
“And Eric?” I asked.
“He’s not here anymore. The officers took him away from the porch.”
The room seemed to draw a quiet breath with me. I didn’t ask where he was going. I didn’t ask what would happen next. Those questions could wait; my baby couldn’t.
“Thank you for staying inside,” I said.
“I said I would.” He paused. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you.”
“You were where you needed to be.”
His breath caught faintly over the line. For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“Is the baby—” he began.
“They’re alive,” I said. The word trembled. “They’re in the next room, being monitored.”
“I’m glad.” His voice broke around the last word. “I’m so glad.”
Megan reached for the phone, then stopped, leaving the choice to me. I nodded, and she brought it close enough that Dad could hear both of us.
“We’re here,” Megan said.
“I know,” Dad answered. “You both stay with Claire.”
The familiar words might once have sounded like an instruction. Now, weakened by the phone and the long night, they sounded like an offer he couldn’t make in person.
“I’m staying,” Megan said.
When the call ended, she set the phone down carefully. The bracelet was still in her palm, its little plastic clasp catching the light.
“I told Ruiz everything,” she said. “What I signed. What I didn’t see. The message he sent.”
I looked at her. The old hurt between us was still there, but it wasn’t the only thing in the room. Her hand was open. She had stayed.
“I know,” I whispered.
She nodded, as if that was all she was allowed to take from me.
Beyond the wall, a cry rose—clearer this time, and louder. My breath caught. I turned toward the sound, every part of me reaching before I could move.
“That’s the baby,” the nurse said, stepping back into the room.
May you like
I pushed against the mattress, trying to sit up.
“I want to see them.”
