Emma was taken with a nurse to get juice and crackers because she had cried herself into hiccups and the adults needed a room without her in it to decide what came next.
That night felt longer than the worst winter I have ever lived through.
And I have lived through enough winter to know what that comparison means.
Daniel and Megan stayed beside Noah’s hospital bed for hours, watching the tiny monitor that tracked his breathing as if looking away might tempt fate. The room was dim except for the screen glow and the blue light from the IV pump. Every beep made all three of us flinch.
Megan cried often and quietly, the tears just seeming to appear on her face as if her body had stopped asking permission.
Daniel moved less. That was his version of breaking. When he was a boy and he got hurt badly enough, he never screamed long. He went still and pale and very polite. That stillness was back now, and it frightened me more than Megan’s sobbing.
I sat in the corner chair and held Megan’s hand whenever she reached for mine without looking.
Sometimes we didn’t speak for fifteen minutes at a time.
