Chapter 22: The Sonogram

We reached the hospital at midnight, still in our gala clothes.

The corridor was dim and smelled of floor wax, and the night nurse looked at my green dress and said nothing at all.

His grandmother was sitting up against three pillows with a lamp on and her lipstick freshly done.

"You're late," she said. "Come here."

Imogen had brought Mallory home, so it was only the two of us.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and Elias took the chair beside it.

"I want to see it," she said.

I took the folded printout from my bag.

I had picked it up on Thursday from the obstetrician's office, in a plain white envelope, and I hadn't opened it again since.

She smoothed it across her blanket.

It was a gray fan of static with a small pale shape in the middle of it.

"There," I said, and pointed. "That's the head. And that flicker is the heart."

She did not say anything for a long time.

Her thin finger rested next to the shape, very lightly.

"I have a recording," I said. "From Thursday."

I held up my phone and pressed play.

The sound filled the quiet room, fast and fluttering, and it went on and on.

The grandmother closed her eyes.

Tears ran down both sides of her face and into the pillow, and she made no move to wipe them.

Elias had put his hand over his mouth.

I heard him breathe in once, raggedly, and I reached across the blanket and took his other hand.

"Play it again," the grandmother said.

I played it again.

When the recording ended, she opened her eyes and looked at her grandson.

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