Something I would not understand until hours later.
“You have no idea what that woman is trying to take from us.”
I wanted to demand an explanation, but the paramedic shouted that they were leaving.
I pointed toward the door.
“Be gone before I come back.”
Then I ran after my wife.
At St. Catherine’s Hospital, fluorescent lights turned every face pale.
Nurses rushed Emily through double doors while I stood in the hallway with grease still beneath my fingernails and dried dishwater on the front of my shirt.
A nurse asked me to complete forms.
I could barely remember our address.
After forty minutes, an obstetrician named Dr. Patel brought me into a monitoring room. Emily lay beneath a thin blanket with two elastic bands around her stomach. One measured the baby’s heartbeat. The other tracked contractions.
The rapid rhythm filling the room was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
