Chapter 6: The Monitors Behind Him
The monitors kept time without caring what I decided.
Their lights blinked above the hospital bed, reflected in the dark glass of the screen and then broken apart by the metal rail. I stood beside them with the infant against my chest, one hand supporting the back of his head and the other spread beneath his small body. He was calm, his light-colored clothing warm beneath my fingers. Every few seconds, the equipment gave a soft electronic sound. It was not loud, but in the quiet room it felt impossible to ignore.
Behind me, the hospital bed waited beneath its raised rail. Beside it, the monitors continued their steady work. I had spent enough time in that room to understand that the sounds were evidence of attention, not answers. They told me that someone was watching the infant. They did not tell me what would happen if I walked away.
The paper with the woman's warning was folded in my shirt pocket. I touched it through the fabric, then took my hand away. My daughter had been drawing me for three years. She had never seen my face. Somewhere beyond that room, she remained absent from every decision being made around her. The thought had become harder to carry since I had taken the infant into my arms. A child could not ask to be found. A child could not correct the story adults told in her place.
I moved toward the small table where my phone lay. The infant shifted when I bent, and I straightened immediately, waiting until his breathing settled again. The screen showed the notes I had made while the woman's warning was still fresh: the drawings, the hidden identity, the question of where my daughter was. None of it gave me a reliable path. I had only fragments, and fragments could turn a search into another form of abandonment.
I tried to call the number connected to the warning. The call rang without being answered. I held the phone to my ear while the monitor continued behind me. The infant's fingers tightened against my shirt, catching in the fabric near the second button. I ended the call before the ringing could draw me farther from the room.
For a moment, I hated the restraint of that choice. I wanted to leave the hospital, find the woman, and force the missing information into the open. Instead, I looked down at the infant's hand and understood that wanting an answer did not make departure responsible. The child in my arms was not a reason to preserve the secret. He was a reason to stop making reckless choices around it.
I placed the phone beside the folded paper and reached for the only dependable action available to me. I wrote down the warning exactly as I remembered it, then added the fact about the drawings and the length of time they had existed. I marked the questions that remained unanswered: where my daughter was, who had kept me from her, and why the woman believed concealment was necessary. I did not try to fill the empty spaces with guesses.
The infant began to fuss softly. I turned away from the monitor and adjusted him against my shoulder, securing his head and supporting his back. His face remained peaceful as I held him. Behind me, the bed and equipment stayed in view, a fixed boundary I could not pretend away. I could search, but not by abandoning the immediate obligation in front of me.
I opened a message and prepared to send only what could be trusted: that I needed my daughter's current situation, that I could not accept another vague warning, and that I would remain at the hospital with the infant while waiting for a reliable answer. My thumb hovered over the screen. Sending it would not locate her. It would not make the secret safe. It would make my position clear.
I pressed send.
May you like
The message disappeared, leaving the phone's blank screen reflected in the infant's small sleeve. No reply came. The monitors continued behind me, steady and indifferent. I drew the chair close to the bed and sat without loosening my hold on the child. My search had not ended. It had narrowed to the only path I could defend: obtain information without leaving the infant unattended, and refuse to let silence become an excuse.
A movement sounded beyond the closed hospital door. I lifted my eyes toward it, keeping the infant secure as the handle began to turn.
