Chapter 4

Sophie's POV

When I came to, the hospital room was empty.

I opened my eyes and saw the IV stand first, then my own bare wrist. The mark from five years of wearing the bracelet was still pressed into my skin. The bracelet was gone.

The nurse stood at the bedside with a clipboard, keeping her voice low.

"Ms. Gray, don't try to move yet."

My throat was dry enough to crack.

"Where's the baby?"

She didn't answer right away.

That pause landed harder than anything she could have said.

I looked up at her. The veins in the back of my IV hand went taut.

"I'm asking you. Where is my baby?"

I wanted so badly for what I'd heard before losing consciousness to be wrong.

The nurse's eyes filled. She gripped her clipboard.

"When they brought him in, he wasn't breathing on his own. They worked on him for a long time." She stopped. "He didn't make it."

I didn't cry.

I stared at the ceiling. My lips were cracked. Under the bandages and tubes, my chest rose and fell in small, slow movements.

Yesterday he had been pressed against me.

His tiny fingers curled around the edge of his wrappings.

When he went still, I told myself he was just tired.

Now the words came down again, and everything in the room fell away.

The doctor arrived shortly after, two nurses behind him. He set the charts at the foot of the bed and kept his voice as level as he could.

"The infection from your delivery wound is severe. Combined with extended exposure in cold floodwater, your condition deteriorated past the critical threshold. We performed emergency surgery, but..." He paused. "We weren't able to save your uterus."

I turned my head and looked at him.

He held the pause a moment longer.

"We'll continue monitoring the infection. The fact that you're alive at all is not a small thing."

My fingers moved.

"It's gone?"

He nodded.

I looked back at the ceiling.

Something inside me went hollow in that moment.

Not pain, exactly.

Pain has a location. This had none.

A nurse brought over a clear sealed bag. Inside was the swaddling cloth, washed clean. The mud was gone, but the fabric was old and worn, and there was a small stain at one corner, a faint yellow patch that hadn't come out no matter how many times it was washed.

"This came in with the baby. We cleaned it."

I pushed myself upright against the bed frame.

The nurse moved to help. I shifted away.

I took the bag and ran my thumb over the cloth through the plastic. He had lain in this. Last night I'd tied it against my chest so all the wind and water hit my back first. I thought that was enough to protect him.

I opened the seal.

Took the cloth out.

Laid it flat.

Folded one corner to the opposite. Then again.

Slowly. The IV pulled at the back of my hand with every movement. I didn't stop.

When it was folded, I slipped it back into the bag and pressed the seal closed. I set it on the pillow beside me.

That bag was all that was left of him in the world.

That afternoon, the door to the room wasn't fully shut.

The TV at the nurses' station down the hall was running disaster coverage, the anchor's voice rising and falling. I wasn't paying attention, until I heard a name I knew.

"Mandy."

I turned my head.

Through the gap in the door, the screen had just cut to a replay. Mandy was propped up in a hospital bed, face pale but hair neatly brushed, a small cake on the tray beside her. A candle burned on top. She smiled for the camera, eyes faintly red.

A caption rolled across the bottom.

So glad you're still here.

The camera shifted and caught a jacket draped over the chair beside the bed.

Ethan's rescue team patch was visible on the sleeve.

The comments scrolled past.

He stayed with her on the night of the flood to celebrate her birthday? That's the sweetest thing.

Your boyfriend is everything.

That's real security right there.

I stared at the jacket.

That same night, my son had been cooling against my chest while I called Ethan's name over and over, begging him to come, to bring formula, to get the baby out.

During that same stretch of hours, Ethan had draped his jacket over Mandy's shoulders.

The candle on the cake was still lit.

I reached over and pulled the sealed bag into my arms.

The plastic was cold and stiff against my hospital gown.

On the screen, Mandy bit into the cake and smiled. "Ethan said as long as I'm alive, that's all that matters."

My arms tightened slowly.

The seal made a faint sound under my hands.

I didn't get up. I didn't call for the nurse to turn it off.

I sat there, looking through that gap in the door, and watched Mandy finish every last bite.