Chapter 8: Two Incubators

Security walked Otto out at eleven.

The NICU nurse made the call herself, calmly.

Her eyes stayed on the form with my initials on it.

He left the white roses on the desk.

I did not look at them.

I looked at my daughter, asleep in her clear box with one hand curled by her ear.

At one in the morning the nurse came to find me in the family lounge.

"Your sister's blood pressure didn't come down," she said. "They did an emergency delivery."

I sat up.

"Is she all right?"

"She's recovering. The baby is three pounds, one ounce. A girl."

I got up and went to the glass.

There were two incubators now, side by side in the same row.

Mine on the left. Hers on the right.

My daughter and my niece lay eighteen inches apart.

Neither of them knew anything about the grown-ups who had made them.

I stayed at the window until my legs started to shake.

Then the elevator opened at the end of the hall.

An orderly rolled Darla out in a wheelchair with an IV pole beside her.

It was three in the morning.

She wore a hospital gown and a pair of my mother's slippers, and her braid had come undone.

The orderly looked at me, then at her.

"She wouldn't stay in bed," he said. "I'll wait by the elevator."

He left.

Darla rolled the last few feet by herself and stopped beside me at the glass.

For a long time, neither of us spoke.

"She's so small," Darla said.

"She'll gain."

"Does yours have a name?"

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