PART 2
By the time the cab pulled beneath the bright red letters of the emergency entrance, Maya was barely conscious.
The driver jumped out before I could ask for help. He opened the rear door, took one look at Maya’s gray face and the bundle tucked against my chest, then shouted toward the hospital doors.
“Somebody get a wheelchair!”
A nurse came running with an orderly behind her. The next few minutes dissolved into fragments—questions, fluorescent light, the squeak of rubber wheels, Liam’s thin cry, Maya’s fingers slipping from mine.
“She had a C-section eleven days ago,” I said as they lifted her onto a bed. “She’s bleeding. She has a fever. She hasn’t been eating.”
“How long has the bleeding been going on?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer tasted like failure.
I had spoken to Maya every day while I was in Germany. Sometimes twice a day. She had told me she was tired but fine. She had smiled at the camera while holding Liam against her shoulder. My mother had appeared behind her with a tray of tea and said, “Don’t worry about a thing, David. We have everything under control.”
And I had believed her.
A pediatric nurse gently took Liam from me. I resisted without meaning to.
