Chapter 5 - The Waiting Room of Glass
At six months old, Lily entered the pediatric surgical wing of St. Jude’s Children's Pavilion.
The white walls felt endless. The faint smell of iodine and floor wax made my mouth taste like copper. Because of the trauma of the placental abruption and her low birth weight, her heart defect had worsened faster than anticipated. Today, a team of pediatric thoracic surgeons would crack open her tiny sternum to close the hole between her ventricles.
I sat in the pre-op alcove, holding Lily against my chest. She was wearing an infant gown printed with yellow ducks, completely oblivious to what was coming. She smiled at me, a toothless, bright smile, and reached up with her left hand to touch my cheek. Her little fingers grasped my nose, pulling a quiet laugh from my dry throat.
"She has your courage," Ethan whispered, sitting beside me, his arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders. He reached out and stroked the smooth skin of her right arm, the little limb that Kayla had tried to make an object of shame. "She’s going to sail through this."
When the anesthesiologist and the surgical nurse arrived to take her, my arms felt paralyzed. Giving her up felt like handing her back over to the jaws of death that had hunted her since the baby shower.
"Mom, you can carry her to the double doors," the kind-faced nurse said gently.
I carried Lily down the long hallway, Ethan walking stride for stride beside us. At the double doors labeled *RESTRICTED SURGICAL SUITE*, I pressed my lips against Lily’s warm forehead. "Fight, my sweet girl," I whispered. "Mommy and Daddy are right here. We aren't going anywhere."
The doors hissed shut. The waiting began.
One hour turned into two. Two turned into four. Every time a surgeon in scrubs entered the waiting area, my heart stopped, only to restart when they called another family’s name.
Around the fifth hour, Ethan stepped out to get two cups of water from the dispenser in the main lobby. Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen.
Unease prickled at the back of my neck. I stood up, smoothing down my sweater, and walked down the glass-lined corridor toward the atrium.
Near the hospital’s revolving doors, I saw Ethan. He was standing in front of two security guards, his back rigid. In front of them, flanked by a burly man wearing an ill-fitting leather jacket, was Kayla’s former fiancé, Marcus—a man who had broken off his engagement with Kayla the week she was arrested, but who now looked disheveled and agitated.
"I just need to deliver this message from her!" Marcus was arguing loudly with the guards. "Kayla has rights! She’s appealing the conviction and we need Ethan to review the amended discovery documents!"
"She has an active restraining order against direct and third-party contact," Ethan said, his voice vibrating with rage. "You approaching us at our daughter’s hospital is a felony violation."
"She’s in prison, man! She’s rotting in a concrete box while you two live your perfect life!" Marcus yelled, drawing stares from patients and nurses. "Her mother lost her house! You guys destroyed three lives because of one petty fight!"
"Petty fight?" Ethan took a step forward, towering over Marcus with cold ferocity. "She kicked a nine-month pregnant woman in the stomach. She tried to murder our baby. Get out of here before these officers break your arm and throw you in the precinct beside her."
The hospital security guards moved in, grabbing Marcus’s shoulders and shoving him firmly out into the rain.
Just then, my phone chimed in my pocket. It was the surgical desk.
I gasped, turning back toward the elevators, sprinting through the halls until I reached the waiting room. Dr. Vance, the lead pediatric surgeon, was standing there, his surgical cap in his hand.
"Aria? Ethan?" he called out as Ethan rushed in behind me.
I gripped Ethan's coat, terrified to breathe. "Doctor?"
A warm, weary smile broke across the surgeon's face. "The repair was completely successful. Her vitals are rock-solid. You have a very stubborn little girl. She’s in the pediatric ICU right now, and you can go see her."
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Tears, warm and torrential, spilled down my cheeks as Ethan and I collapsed into each other's arms, the dark shadows outside momentarily eclipsed by our daughter's light.
***
