Part 3
Nora tried to push herself upright. Pain caught her halfway, but she kept reaching past the rail.
Caleb moved toward her, then stopped when Dr. Cho entered with Kline close behind.
Ruth had Owen unwrapped to his diaper. “A movement under the blanket. Possible breath. I’m not getting a reliable pulse.”
Dr. Cho took out her stethoscope.
“Dog against the wall, please.”
This time Jasper came when Caleb pulled. He stood between Caleb’s legs while the doctor listened, repositioned the chest piece, and listened again.
Kline hovered at her shoulder.
“Bring a warmer,” Dr. Cho told him. “Call the neonatal team and respiratory.”
The resident was gone before she finished.
“Tell me,” Nora said. “Somebody tell me.”
Dr. Cho lifted her eyes briefly.
“I can hear a heartbeat.”
Caleb’s fingers opened. He caught the leash before it fell.
“It’s extremely slow,” she continued. “We need to help him breathe.”
Ruth was at the doorway calling for equipment. A nurse came in, saw the bassinet, and turned sharply back into the hall. Within moments, the room filled with the squeak of wheels and clipped requests.
Nora tried to stand.
“Don’t,” Caleb said, more sharply than he intended.
Her face turned toward him. “Then move the bed where I can see.”
He couldn’t move the bed. He shifted the cabinet that blocked her view, knocking the tissue basket onto the floor.
No one picked it up.
Owen was lifted onto the warmer. Dr. Cho held a small mask over his face while another pair of hands worked beside hers. Ruth spoke to Nora, but Caleb couldn’t separate her words from the other voices.
He watched the doctor’s thumb. It steadied the mask with a precision he could scarcely comprehend. A few minutes earlier, she had been a person he wanted to send away. Now he couldn’t look anywhere else.
Jasper sat on Caleb’s shoe.
The dog followed the team’s movements without making another sound. When someone stepped between him and the warmer, he leaned sideways to see around a trouser leg.
Nora inhaled suddenly.
Caleb looked at her. She was staring past him, her mouth open.
He heard it then: a small rough breath, interrupted before it had properly begun.
Dr. Cho bent closer. “That’s it. Again.”
A nurse adjusted something Caleb couldn’t see.
Owen’s chest moved.
Nora said his name as if speaking too loudly might hurt him.
“Owen.”
The next sound had an edge to it. Thin, strained, unmistakably a cry.
Caleb flattened his hand against the wall. Jasper stood and swept his tail once across Caleb’s ankle.
The doctor was talking about his heart rate now, about transport and intensive care. Someone brought a mobile cot to the door.
“Let me see him,” Nora said.
“We have to move him.” Dr. Cho’s voice caught slightly before she steadied it. “They’re ready for him in the NICU.”
“You told us he was dead.”
The doctor looked straight at her.
“Yes.”
“You don’t get to take him away without letting me—” Nora reached toward the warmer. “I haven’t even held him.”
Ruth put her face close to Nora’s.
“Listen to that sound. We need to keep it coming.”
Nora shook her head.
“I’ll stay beside him until they make me stop,” Ruth said. “You won’t have to wonder if he went alone.”
Nora’s fingers slowly released the rail.
They wheeled Owen toward the door. Caleb took a step, and a nurse put out her arm.
“Dad, give us room to turn.”
He backed up at once.
Dad.
Jasper strained after the cot, his nails clicking. Caleb held him until the team passed through the doors at the end of the corridor.
When he turned back, Nora was looking at the empty warmer space. The fallen tissues lay between them.
Kline lingered near the doorway. He glanced at Jasper, then down at his own hands.
“I’m going to get an update,” he said.
Ruth returned a few minutes later, as promised, and began gathering the equipment left behind. Caleb bent to pick up the tissues, giving himself a reason not to look at Nora.
“You went home,” she said.
He straightened.
“I know.”
“And brought Jasper.”
“I brought what you asked for.”
Nora looked toward the dog. “He brought what I asked for.”
Jasper lowered his head at her tone. Nora covered her face.
Caleb wanted to tell her he hadn’t known how to remain in that room. He wanted her to understand that he had been trying to complete one task, any task, because he could not sit beside their baby and do nothing.
He set the tissue basket on the cabinet.
“I’m sorry I left you.”
Ruth removed the yellow cap from the bassinet. It had been pushed into a corner when Owen was unwrapped. She folded the damp edge inward and gave it to Caleb.
“Put it somewhere safe.”
He tucked it into his coat pocket.
Nora dropped her hands. “What did you see?”
Ruth sat on the edge of the visitor’s chair rather than answering from across the room.
“A very small movement. I wasn’t certain until I got closer.”
“Before he barked?”
“Almost at the same time. Jasper drew me in. I checked.”
Nora looked at the bassinet.
“If we hadn’t brought him?”
Ruth’s fingers stilled on the chair arm.
A nurse from intensive care arrived before anyone tried to answer. Owen had a heartbeat. He was receiving breathing support. The specialists were assessing the injury from the loss of oxygen and beginning controlled cooling treatment.
“They’ll watch him very closely over the next few days,” she said. “Right now, we can tell you what he’s doing. We can’t tell you yet what this will mean for him.”
Caleb nodded, though he would have agreed to almost anything to hear her repeat that first sentence.
Nora asked to go to him.
“We can arrange that,” the nurse said. Her glance moved toward Jasper. “But not with the dog. He can’t enter the unit.”
Caleb crouched, bringing himself level with Jasper’s wet face. The fur beneath the collar was still cold.
“You got us here, boy.”
Jasper pushed his head beneath Caleb’s chin. His tail swept the floor twice.
Ruth waited until Caleb stood.
“Dr. Cho is looking at the record from the delivery,” she said. “Before she speaks with you, she wants to be certain about an entry.”
Nora’s hands tightened on the sheet. “What entry?”
“A faint signal on the monitor. It was recorded as interference.”
Caleb looked toward the doors.
“They saw a heartbeat?”
Ruth held his gaze.
“They saw a trace they couldn’t account for…”
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