Chapter 12: The Last Page

Su Ye's water broke in the middle of the Chairman's fourteenth point about the nursery.

"Point fourteen," said the Chairman, from the head of the table. "The rocking chair should face east."

"Dad," said Su Ye, looking at the floor.

"East, because of the morning light."

"Dad, I'm leaking."

The Chairman looked down.

He took off his glasses, put them in his breast pocket, and said, in a voice no one at the table had heard before, "Car."

The hospital smelled of disinfectant and fear.

It was the first week of September, and Su Ye was twenty-four, and he had carried a baby for nine months without complaint.

Now he lay on a bed under hard white lights and complained about all of it.

Lu Chen had spent every night since April over a stranger's thesis, hunting for the thirteen missing footnotes.

Su Ye had asked once how it was going, and been told, "Close."

"I have never carried anything," he said, to the ceiling. "I want that on the record. I carried this one."

"You did," said Lu Chen.

He stood at the head of the bed in a paper gown, holding Su Ye's hand with both of his.

He had not let go for six hours.

"I'm never carrying again. Nothing. Not a bag, not a mug. When I get out of here I'm going to be carried to the car."

"I'll carry you."

"You'll be too tired."

"I won't be."

"You're crying again."

"I am not."

The doctor said, "Push."

The next hour was loud.

Su Ye said things about the Chairman's rocking chair that would have ended a lesser company.

Lu Chen said, "You are doing so well, you are so good, you are the best, I'm here."

He repeated it without stopping, his voice cracking a little more each time.

Just before midnight, the baby cried.

It was a thin, furious sound that filled the room.

The nurse put the boy on Su Ye's chest, wet and red, with a full head of black hair.

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