My Husband Asked For A Hall Pass On My Delivery Date Chapter 06
Hour Forty-Eight
My fingers went stiff on the bench outside the operating room.
The nurse saw the color draining from my face and tried to get me back to my room. I shook my head. My eyes stayed locked on the red light above the door, the only thing I had left to hold onto.
She gave up. Poured a cup of hot water and pressed it into my hands.
The warmth didn’t reach me.
Nothing could.
Time crawled. Each second sliced across my nerves like a blade.
The blood loss and the fever finally won. My vision went black, and I was gone.
…
When I opened my eyes again, the room was dark. Only the faint glow of machines.
I slammed the call button. The nurse who rushed in told me I’d been out for ten hours.
“My baby.” I grabbed her hand. “How is he?”
Her face tightened. She couldn’t look at me. “Still in the operating room.”
My heart dropped through the floor.
Ten hours. They’d been working on him for over ten hours.
The nurse kept talking. The head of neonatal was in there. They were doing everything they could. I should try to stay calm.
Her words hit a wall of glass somewhere between us. None of them reached me.
I was cold.
The kind of cold that seeps out from inside your bones.
My phone screen lit up. Another post notification.
I opened it. Numb.
Sienna had posted a sunrise photo.
Dawn light bleeding across the ocean. Ethan stood behind her, his dark coat draped over her shoulders, their shadows tangled together in the early sun.
The caption read: [Hour forty. The sun came up, and he’s still here.]
I sat on the bed and listened to the clock on the wall tick forward, notch by notch.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Each one a countdown on my baby’s life.
In my hands, I held a pale yellow onesie. A little bear embroidered on the chest in soft cotton thread.
Ethan picked it out himself.
The day he bought it, his eyes were full of the future. He said our baby would look like a little sun in it.
Now that little sun was in the operating room, barely strong enough to keep his own light on.
…
Hour forty-eight.
Sienna’s feed updated one last time. A photo of a train ticket. The destination was our city.
Almost the same time, Ethan sent his location. He said they were coming down from the mountains. A few more hours and he’d be back.
I stared at the message.
Then I laughed.
The sound came out dry and strange, cutting through the silent room like something that didn’t belong.
The nurse beside me thought I was in pain. She rushed over to help.
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
I just thought it was funny.
This forty-eight-hour farce was finally coming to an end.
And that’s when the door to the operating room creaked open.
The doctor walked out slowly. He pulled his mask down. Deep red lines pressed into his face, and written across it was the kind of exhaustion that has already given up.
“I’m sorry. We did everything we could. You child, he…”
A thin sheet of paper was placed on the bedside cabinet.
A notice of death.
It weighed almost nothing.
But it pressed down on me until I couldn’t lift my head, couldn’t breathe.
The nurse brought him out, wrapped in a soft blanket.
He was so small. So small that when I reached for him, I didn’t dare hold too tight. As if even the last trace of warmth left in his body might shatter under my clumsy hands.
I looked down at his face.
His brows and eyes were Ethan’s. The straight nose.
But his lips were mine. Small. The corners naturally curved upward, like a permanent almost-smile.
He was sleeping. Quietly.
He would never wake up and take a look at this world again.
The couple from the next bed came over. Spoke softly. Said they were sorry for my loss.
I couldn’t hear a single word.
My world had shrunk to the small, cold body in my arms.
My phone buzzed on the cabinet. The screen lit up. Ethan calling.
I looked at the name.
For the first time, I didn’t want to answer. Not even one word.
I dressed Andy in the pale yellow onesie.
Not too big. Not too small. A perfect fit.
He really did look like a little sun. One that had gone out.
…
Around nine that night, fireworks exploded outside the window.
Bursts of color bloomed across the dark sky, their reflections dancing on the glass. A celebration that belonged to everyone except me.
The couple next door carried their healthy baby out to watch. Laughing. Pointing at the sky.
The room was empty except for me, alone, holding my son.
Ethan arrived then.
He shoved the door open, still carrying the mountain breeze on his clothes, dried mud on the hem of his pants.
He saw me. Seemed to exhale with relief.
“I’m back,” he said.