Caine pushed through the double doors on the McKay Center side with his gym bag over one shoulder. The morning sun came in low behind him and threw his shadow long across the polished concrete of the entryway. He cleared the second set of doors and the weight room opened up in front of him. The overheads were already on. The speakers in the corners had a Kendrick track running at a volume that carried across the floor and let the rest of the room’s sound through underneath.
Caine dropped his bag on the bench against the wall by the entrance. He reached behind his neck and gripped the back of his collar and pulled his shirt up and off. He folded it once and set it on top of the bag. The sleeveless underneath ran loose at the shoulders, USC across the chest in a faded screen print. He pulled his lifting gloves out of the side pocket of the bag and worked his fingers in. He snugged the velcro across the back of each wrist until the leather sat tight against his palms.
Brian was already at the squat rack with two forty-fives on each side of the bar. His hands were wrapped around the knurling and his head was down between his shoulders. Ruel stood behind him spotting, palms hovering an inch off the bar. Bernard sat on the floor with his back against the upright of the next rack over, his elbows on his knees, a water bottle balanced between his ankles. E.J. was on the bench across from them, on his back, working through a dumbbell press, the weights coming up over his chest and pausing at the top of each rep before he lowered them back down.
Caine walked over. Brian finished his set and racked the bar with a controlled drop, the metal catching the J-cups with a sharp double clack. He stepped out from under it and shook his hands at his sides and looked at Caine.
“About time, bro,” Brian said.
“I’m two minutes early.”
“Every coach I done ever had told me that’s late.”
Ruel laughed.
Caine pulled a forty-five off the rack beside Brian’s bar and slid it onto the sleeve of the bar at the empty platform next to him. He pulled another and slid it on the other side. The bar settled. Brian stayed behind his.
“You wanna work in?” Brian asked.
“I’m good. Start where you at. I’ll come up to you.”
Brian nodded and got back under the bar. Caine moved to the empty platform and started loading from the bottom plate up. Two forty-fives a side. He bent and lifted a third plate off the floor stack, the weight settling into the curve of his forearm as he brought it up, his back staying flat through the lift. He slid it onto the sleeve. The bar bowed under the load. He stepped back and looked at it.
“You know we just starting this shit?” Bernard asked.
“I’m warming up.”
Brian snorted under his bar.
“Couldn’t be me trying that hard knowing I got the starting job on lock,” Ruel said.
“Brian would say his coaches would say that’s why I’m the starter.”
Caine stepped under the bar and settled it across the meat of his back. His hands wrapped the knurling at the same width Brian’s had been, his thumbs locking over the bar. He pulled his shoulder blades together. The weight pressed down through his frame and found his spine and his hips and the line down through his quads. He breathed in through his nose and let it out slow. He breathed in again, harder, and unracked.
He took one step back, then another, and his feet found the platform. He planted.
The room ran around him at the edges of his hearing, Kendrick cutting under another track, the chalk bowl thudding against the side of a rack somewhere to his right, a plate clanging against another plate at a bench across the floor. He breathed in. He dropped. His hips broke at the same time his knees did. His back stayed flat. His chest stayed up. The bar tracked straight down over the middle of his foot. He went to depth, his hamstrings tight against his calves, the weight settling at the bottom of the lift in his quads and his glutes and the line of muscle along his lower back.
He drove up. The bar came with him. He locked out at the top and breathed.
He dropped again and came up. He dropped again and came up. On the fifth rep his quads were full and his lungs were working and the sweat had come up along his hairline and down the back of his neck. He racked the bar with a controlled drop. The metal caught the J-cups with a sharp clack. He stepped out from under it.
Brian was looking at him from the next rack over, his hand on the upright.
“Solid set.”
Caine nodded. He walked to the bench against the wall and pulled the water bottle out of the side pocket of his bag. He brought the straw up and drank. His chest was rising hard against the cotton of the tee. Across from him Brian unracked his next set and squatted through it, the bar bending across his shoulders, his face going dark with the load. Caine set the bottle on the bench. He walked back to the platform.
He bent and slid the bar off the J-cups and stepped back and planted. He breathed in and dropped and came up. He dropped and came up. The third rep was harder than the third rep should have been. The fourth one, his speed slowed through the bottom of the lift. The fifth one his back wanted to round and he kept it flat through the meat of his core, the band along his lower abs locking down hard enough that his breath caught through his teeth on the drive up.
He racked the bar. He stood under the upright with his hands on his hips and his head down, his chest pulling air in.
Across from him, Ruel had loaded his bar and was under it for his own work set. E.J. had moved from the bench to a pull-up bar, his hands wrapped at shoulder width, his body coming up in a slow controlled line and dropping back down with the same control. Bernard was on the floor stretching his hips.
Caine walked back to the bench. He drank again. The water went down and his chest settled. He pulled the gloves tighter at the wrists. He picked the chalk up from the bowl beside the platform and worked it into his palms. The dust settled down through the air between his hands and landed on the rubber.
He walked back to the platform and bent and got under the bar. He breathed in. He drove.
~~~
Sara was on her knees on the hardwood, the flat-pack box opened on the floor beside her, the cardboard flaps pressed back against themselves, the protective foam corners pulled out of their plastic and stacked on top of the closed lid. The crib frame stood in front of her with two of its sides already bolted together, the wood pale and untreated, the bolts laid out in a small row across the open page of the instruction sheet at her thigh. An allen key sat beside them, two extras still in their plastic sleeve, the printed diagrams with their numbered steps circled in pen where she had marked her place.
Mireya sat in the rocking chair against the opposite wall. Her bare feet were flat on the floor and her hands were folded over the curve of her belly, one wrist resting against the other, the heel of her palm pressed soft into the swell where it pushed against the cotton of her shirt. The chair moved an inch forward and an inch back under the press of her toes against the floor. The flattened box that had held the chair leaned against the baseboard at her side, the staples that had held its panels together pulled and stacked in a small pile on top of it. The window across from her was open six inches. The curtain moved once on the breeze that came through it and settled back against the sill.
Sara slid the dowels of the third side into the holes on the frame. She lined them up, her thumb pressing the edge of each dowel into its socket before she pushed the panel home. The wood gave a soft tap as the joints seated. She picked up the allen key from where it had been resting on the instruction sheet and worked the short end into the corner bolt. The metal caught. She turned it. Her wrist made a small movement against the resistance and then the bolt found its thread and the corner pulled tight.
“Sage,” Sara said.
Mireya rocked. Her toes pressed against the floor and the chair came forward an inch and she let it come back.
“Sage. Like the herb?” she said.
“Like the walls in that one boutique on Magazine.”
Mireya hummed in her throat, low and short, the sound coming out around a small breath. “Oh, I always liked that color.”
“Sage.”
Sara turned the bolt the last quarter inch and her thumb came off the head of the key. She let it settle against the wood and reached over and picked up the second bolt from the row on the instruction sheet. She slid it into the next corner of the frame. The dowel underneath aligned and the bolt dropped into its starter thread and she fit the key to the head and started turning. Mireya watched her work.
“I couldn’t paint last time,” Mireya said. “I don’t think I did any of that nesting shit.”
Sara kept her eyes on the corner. “I didn’t either. It doesn’t matter as long as your baby is safe and happy. We can’t all have HGTV throw up in a room.”
“I know.”
“You made up for it anyway..”
The key turned and the bolt caught and the corner pulled tight. Sara sat back on her heels. She rolled her wrist out and her hand made a slow circle in the air at her side and then she shook the fingers loose and brought the key back up. She started on the third corner. The hardwood was warm where the morning had come in through the window and the boards near her knees held a thin square of light from the sash.
“I want a mobile with little wooden birds,” Sara said. “Not the plastic ones. I hate the plastic ones.”
“It can’t be eagles. Camila will try to steal it.”
“Her and those damn eagles. I swear she would’ve begged Caine to stay in Statesboro if we let her.”
A laugh came out of Mireya’s nose, short, the sound moving once through her chest. “She definitely doesn’t like USC’s mascot. Says he’s just a gringo.”
“I mean, she’s not wrong. He is just a gringo. Just a gringo from 2,000 years ago and might not even be real.”
Sara turned the bolt. Her shoulder moved with it, the muscle along her forearm working under the thin cotton of her sleeve where she’d pushed it back past her elbow.
“We’ll make sure that this one is into dolphins or something so they’re not fighting every day for the next 10 years,” she said.
Mireya nodded. The chair moved an inch. Her hand moved on her belly, the heel of her palm passing once across the swell and settling back where it had been. She watched Sara’s hand on the key.
“Sara,” Mireya said.
Sara kept her eyes on the corner. “Dime.”
“Soy una buena madre?”
Sara’s hand paused on the key and she kept her face on the corner. The pause held for the length of a breath and then she set the key down against the wood.
“Mireya.”
“I’m asking.”
“You know the answer, mija.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Sara picked the key back up. She fit it into the head of the bolt and turned it. The bolt caught.
“Sí,” she said.
Mireya rocked. Sara turned the bolt the rest of its travel and the corner pulled tight and the chair moved an inch forward and an inch back under the press of Mireya’s toes.
“A veces, creo que ser una puta me hace bajar unos cuantos puntos en esa escala,” Mireya said.
Sara’s hand stopped on the key. She turned her head and looked at Mireya. The line of her jaw was set and her mouth had pressed flat in the corner where it pulled when she was working not to speak.
“Don’t,” Sara said.
Mireya’s chin moved a fraction.
“No traigas eso a esta habitación.”
Mireya’s hand pressed into her belly. Her eyes left Sara’s face and went past her to the wall behind her, to the spot above the baseboard. She held them there. “Lo siento.”
Sara turned back to the corner. The key found the bolt. She turned it. The corner pulled tight. She moved her hand off the key and rolled her wrist once and then her hand came back to the row of bolts on the instruction sheet.
“Hand me the side,” she said.
Mireya pushed herself up from the rocking chair, setting both hands on the armrests and pressed. Her thighs took the lift, her lower back caught the angle and her hand came off one armrest and pressed against the small of her back as she straightened. She crossed the room, the boards cool against the soles of her feet and picked up the fourth side of the crib where it leaned against the wall. She brought it back across the room and lowered it to the floor where Sara’s hand was already reaching for it. Sara took it and slid the dowels onto the frame and the panel seated. Mireya stayed standing, her hand on her belly.
“Voy a buscar agua,” Sara said. “After this side. ¿Tú quieres algo?”
“I’ll go.”
Mireya turned toward the door. She took one step. The chair behind her rocked once on its own where her hip had brushed it on the turn. She took a second step. She took a third.
Her body locked.
Her knees bent. Her hand came off her belly and slapped flat against the door frame, the heel of her palm catching the wood, her fingers spreading against the molding. The sound that came out of her chest was short and high.
Sara was already moving before Mireya’s other hand had reached the frame, the allen key dropping out of her hand and hitting the hardwood with a small flat sound and rolling once before it stopped against the leg of the crib.
“Mireya,” she said. ¿Qué pasa, mija?”
Mireya’s teeth were pressed together. Her forehead had dropped against the wood of the frame and her shoulders were drawn up around her ears. Sara reached her and her hand went to Mireya’s back between the shoulder blades and the other to Mireya’s elbow.
Mireya’s body locked again.
The sound that came out of her this time was longer and louder, a scream of anguish. It broke against the wood of the frame and pulled out of her in a wave that didn’t have an end where Sara could hear one. Her nails dragged once against the molding. Her other hand came up off the frame and went to her belly and pressed there.
“Mírame,” Sara said.
Mireya’s knees folded further. Sara caught her under the arm. She braced Mireya’s weight against her own hip and her free hand came around to Mireya’s other side and held her there against the frame. Sara’s eyes went down.
The gray sweats had a wet stain spreading from the inside of Mireya’s thigh down toward her knee. The stain was dark. Dark and red. The fabric had gone heavy where it was soaked and the blood was working outward in a slow expansion that had started at the seam and was crossing the cotton in a flat dark wave. The pool of it had begun on the hardwood at Mireya’s feet. A small round spot first and then a larger one and then a thin line where it had run between two boards and pooled again in the gap.
“Ay, Dios,” Sara said.
Mireya’s breath pulled in through her teeth and pushed back out and pulled in again. Her chest worked in fast shallow movements against the cotton of her shirt. The forehead pressed against the door frame and the hair at her temple had gone damp where the sweat had come up in a thin line at the hairline.
“Vámonos,” Sara said. “Right now.”
Mireya’s hand gripped the door frame. Her teeth were still clenched and the cords in her neck stood out where they ran down into the collar of her shirt.
“Camila,” Mireya said, her voice strained.
“I’ll call Ada. Camina conmigo, mija. Camina.”
Sara slid her arm fully under Mireya’s, the inside of her forearm fitting beneath Mireya’s armpit, her hand catching the far side of Mireya’s ribs. She pulled. Mireya took one step. Her weight came forward and her body locked again and she cried out in pain. Sara held her. Mireya’s nails dug into the wood, leaving crescents in the wood.
“Sara,” Mireya said.
“Te tengo. Camina.”
Mireya took another step. The blood smeared on the inside of her thigh as the sweats shifted with the motion. The wet had reached her knee. The hardwood behind them held the print of her bare foot in a smudge where she had stepped through the pool.
“Mami.”
“Dime, mija.”
Mireya’s voice came out through her teeth. “Llama a Caine.”
~~~
Caine came out of the shower with a towel hanging off his hip and another folded across the back of his neck, the water still running off the cut of his shoulders. He crossed the carpeted floor of the locker room to his stall. The wood frame stood open with his bag set on the chair in front of it, his clothes folded on top of the bag in the order he would need them, his phone face down on the shelf above the hangers. He pulled the towel off his neck and ran it through his hair and dropped it into the bin nearby. The other towel came off his hip a beat later and went in after it. He reached for the folded boxer briefs on the top of his bag and pulled them on.
He was working his joggers up when the door to the locker room opened.
Alonzo came through first with his gym bag over his shoulder. Angel walked in behind him with his hood pulled up and his earbuds dangling out of the front pocket of his hoodie. Rachaad brought up the back with a Gatorade bottle in his hand and a towel slung around his neck. They turned into the row toward their own stalls and Angel’s head tipped back the second he caught sight of Caine.
“Looking at this lame ass nigga,” Angel said. “Already done.”
Caine reached for the t-shirt on top of his bag. “Perks of the fucking job, brudda.”
“Yeah because the regular niggas got to come in at the regular time, homie. The star quarterback get the eight a.m. slot.” Angel kept rolling. “Sun ain’t even up yet, the staff just standing around waiting for your ass to come bless the building.”
Alonzo dropped his bag on his chair and turned. “The rest of us niggas getting up at six to fight for a squat rack and this nigga been showered and lotioned.”
“All I’m hearing is a bunch of fucking hating from y’all,” Caine said.
Rachaad sucked his teeth. “Ain’t no hating. We just want to be able to be done by lunch, too.”
Caine laughed. He pulled the joggers up over his hips and tied the drawstring. He picked up the t-shirt and pulled it on and dragged the hem down past the waistband.
“Yeah, let me be clear. I ain’t hating at all,” Angel said. “I’m just saying. They could at least rotate the shit. Nigga been playing football since I was a lil’ nigga and it’s always quarterbacks first.”
“And people say the receivers the most pampered niggas on the team,” Alonzo said.
“Y’all gonna keep going or y’all gonna let me get dressed in peace?” Caine said.
Rachaad grinned. “We just got here, my nigga. We gonna keep going.”
Caine reached up to the shelf and picked up his phone. He thumbed the screen on.
The lock screen was solid with notifications. He blinked at it. The notifications were stacked deep enough that the screen could only show six or seven of them, every one of them stacked under a single sender or another. Sara. Mireya. Sara. Sara. Sara. Mireya. Sara. Sara.
He thumbed the lock open.
The phone went to the call log. Sara at the top. Missed call. Four minutes ago. Above the entry the line read thirty-one missed. He scrolled. Sara. Sara. Sara. Sara. Sara. Sara. Sara. Mireya. Sara. Sara. Sara. The voicemail icon at the top of the screen had a red dot with a number on it.
He thumbed the voicemail. The preview of the most recent one filled the top of the screen with the auto-transcription in light gray text.
Mijo, ve a Nueva Orleans ahora mismo. Algo le pasa a Mireya y al bebé. Te amo, mijo.
Caine’s chest went still.
Angel was still talking from his stall, his voice running on under what Caine was reading. “What this nigga need to do is finance a team building trip before we get into the season. You know, show us all how much of a leader he is.”
Caine hit the call button on Sara’s contact.
The phone rang once. Rang twice. The line dropped. He pulled the phone an inch from his ear and looked at the screen. Call failed.
He hit the call button again. The line rang once. The line dropped. Call failed.
Alonzo’s voice cut off mid-sentence. “Caine. You good?”
Caine’s eyes stayed on the screen. He hit the call button again. The phone rang. The line dropped. Call failed. He hit it again. The ring cut off in the middle of itself. Call failed. He hit it again. The line dropped before it rang. Call failed. He hit it again and got the same flat screen back, the failure notice stamped across the top, the contact still glowing under it.
He sat down on the bench in front of his stall. He pulled his sneakers out of his bag, set one on the floor, jammed his foot into it, and started pulling the laces tight. His hands fumbled with the laces. He threw them down for a moment, ran a hand through his dreads then picked them up again. The other shoe came out of the bag and went on the floor and he jammed his foot into it, pulled the laces and tied them in two quick passes.
Rachaad was at the end of the bench now, the Gatorade still in his hand, the towel pulled off his neck and bunched in his other hand.
“Caine,” Rachaad said. “Bruh. What’s going on?”
Caine stood. “I gotta get to New Orleans.”
He picked the phone up off the bench. He scrolled to Tatum’s contact and hit call. The line rang once before Tatum picked up.
“Hey, kid,” Tatum said. “What can I do for you on this fine morning?”
“Get me a fucking charter to New Orleans,” Caine said. “Right now.”
Tatum’s voice dropped register. The chatter went out of it.
“Where are you?”
“McKay. I’m leaving in two minutes.”
“LAX or Van Nuys?”
“Whichever one is faster.”
“LAX. I got a guy at Signature. Give me ten minutes. I’ll text you the tail number and the gate.”
“Alright.”
“Kid. Is everybody okay?”
“Just get me on that fucking plane, man.”
“I’m calling now.”
The line cut.
Caine pulled the phone away from his ear. The three of them were standing where they had been, all three watching him. Alonzo’s mouth was open a fraction. Angel’s hood was still up. Rachaad’s hand had tightened on the Gatorade bottle, the plastic compressed under his fingers.
“Caine,” Rachaad said.
Caine bent and grabbed his bag off the bench and slung it over his shoulder. He turned and ran toward the door.
“Caine,” Angel said. “My nigga. Caine.”
Caine pushed through the door, shoving between two interns who were walking down the hall.
~~~
Mireya was on her back in the delivery bed with her knees drawn up and apart. The stirrups were down and her bare feet were planted on the rubber pads of the rests, her toes flexed back, the soles of her feet white where the weight of her legs pressed against the pads. The sheet under her had gone dark and wet to the edge of the mattress. The blood was still spreading. A slow band of it crossed the cotton toward the rail where the IV pole stood. Underneath, between the bed and the floor, a plastic catch basin had been set on a rolling tray and the basin held a pool that moved when the wheels of the tray shifted under the weight of the doctor’s elbow against the foot of the bed.
Her hospital gown had bunched up around her ribs. The fabric had gone translucent where the sweat had soaked through it and her skin showed pale through the cotton along the line of her sternum and the curve of her side where the gown bunched up against her arm. The fluorescent panel overhead threw a flat white down across her face. Her face had gone red along the cheekbones and pale at the temples and a thin line ran across her face where the red gave over to the pale.
The fetal monitor on the cart beside the bed ran a heartbeat trace across its screen. The trace caught and dropped. It caught again. A second screen on the same cart ran Mireya’s own heart rate in a line above the fetal one and the line on top of it was running fast, the peaks crowded against each other, the numbers in the upper corner of the screen turning over too quickly for the eye to settle on any one of them.
The doctor sat at the foot of the bed in a gown and gloves. Her gown had blood across the front of it in a wet spread that had soaked through to the scrubs underneath at her belly. One of her hands was inside Mireya. Her other hand rested on the dome of Mireya’s belly, the fingers spread, the heel of the palm pressed flat against the skin where it stretched. Her face stayed level. Her eyes moved between Mireya’s face and the bottom of the bed and the monitor and back to Mireya’s face in a small repeating circuit that her head barely moved to follow.
Two nurses worked at the side of the bed. The first stood at the monitor with her eyes on the numbers, her chin tipped a fraction down so she could read the columns, her hand resting on the top of the cart where her thumb pressed against the edge of the casing. The second held an IV bag at chest height with one hand and worked the roller clamp with the other, the line running fast into the cannula taped to Mireya’s wrist. The tape across her wrist had loosened at one corner and the nurse smoothed it back down with her thumb while her eyes stayed on the clamp.
Sara stood at the head of the bed with her hip pressed against the rail. Her left hand had Mireya’s right hand inside it. Mireya’s grip had closed around hers tight enough that the bones of Sara’s fingers had shifted against each other. The knuckles of her index and her middle finger had folded over each other and the ring finger had pushed underneath both.
Sara hadn’t moved her hand. Sara wouldn’t move her hand.
Her other hand was in Mireya’s hair. Her palm was flat against the side of Mireya’s head and her fingers were stroking back through the damp strands at the temple. The pattern of it was small and steady, three fingers at a time, the hand returning to the same start each pass. Her eyes held on Mireya’s face.
Mireya’s body locked under another contraction.
Her chin pulled in. Her shoulders came up off the pillow. The cords in her neck stood out where they ran down into the collar of her gown and the muscle along her jaw worked hard enough that the line of her mandible showed under the skin. Her eyes went somewhere past the ceiling.
“Push, Mireya,” the doctor said. “Push now. Hard as you can. One. Two. Three.”
Mireya’s chest came up off the mattress and she pushed. Her teeth bared. The sound that came out of her throat started low and climbed and held at the top of itself for the length of the count. Sara’s hand ground against itself inside Mireya’s grip. The pain of it ran up into Sara’s forearm and stopped in the meat of her shoulder. Sara let it stop there and kept her hand where it was, her eyes stayed on Mireya’s face.
The doctor’s hand moved on Mireya’s belly. Her shoulder shifted with the movement of the hand inside. The blood on the front of her gown spread an inch farther down toward her waist.
Mireya dropped back against the pillow. Her chest heaved against the cotton of the gown. The skin at her temples had gone slick and a single bead of sweat tracked down from her hairline along her cheekbone and stopped at the corner of her jaw.
“Ay, Dios,” Mireya said. The word came out thin, the breath behind it spent. “Ay, Dios mio.”
“Good,” the doctor said. “Good push. Breathe with me. In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”
Mireya pulled a breath in. She let it out. The sound came out ragged. Her chest hitched at the end and she pulled the next one in over the hitch.
The nurse at the monitor read off the screen with her eyes still on the numbers.
“BP eighty-eight over forty-two. Heart rate one thirty-six.”
“We’re losing more pressure,” the doctor said. “Get another unit up.”
The second nurse moved to the IV pole. She lifted a fresh bag off the stand, worked the spike into the port and the tubing filled in a fast clear line. The empty bag came down off the pole and went onto the rolling tray. The full bag went up. The roller clamp opened fully. The new line ran down into the cannula at Mireya’s wrist and the cold of the saline came up into Mireya’s arm and Mireya shivered once against the pillow.
Mireya turned her face toward Sara. Her cheek pressed into the pillow. The damp hair at her temple stuck against her cheek where she’d turned. Her eyes found Sara’s eyes
“Mami,” Mireya said, her voice strained and frayed at the edges, a whimper running through the words. “Hazlo parar. Por favor. Por favor, mami.”
Sara’s thumb kept moving on her temple. She kept her face level. Her chin had stopped lifting toward the doctor a minute ago when she had decided not to look down the bed anymore.
“I know, mija,” Sara said. “I know, mi amor. I’m right here.”
“Hazlo parar. Hazlo parar.”
“Estoy aquí. No me voy a ir a ningún lado. Respira conmigo, mi amor.”
Mireya pulled a breath in. Sara pulled it with her, her chest rising against the rail, her own hair lifting a fraction where it had fallen forward over her shoulder. They let it out together. The breath came out shorter on Mireya’s end. Sara matched the shortness.
“Here we go,” the doctor said. “Big one coming. Push, Mireya.”
Mireya’s body curled forward against the pillow. Her hand crushed Sara’s. Sara felt the grind of her own bones against each other and the small wet click somewhere inside the joint at the base of her ring finger but she kept her face passive. Mireya’s face went red and then darker. The cords in her neck stood out farther than they had on the last push.
“One,” the doctor said. “Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.”
Mireya dropped back. A sob came out of her chest as her shoulders hit the pillow. The sob caught in her throat and pulled in on itself before it could finish and turned into a long thin sound that ran out behind her teeth.
“Pressure’s dropping,” the nurse said. “Eighty-two over thirty-eight.”
“Suction. Now,” the doctor said. Her voice had not changed register but the gap between her words had closed. “I have the head. Mireya, one more like that. One more.”
Mireya shook her head against the pillow. The hair stuck to her temple pulled with the motion and came loose and stuck again.
“No puedo,” Mireya said, the words clipped. “No puedo.”
Sara’s hand stayed in her hair. She bent her head closer to Mireya’s so that her mouth was a few inches from Mireya’s ear.
“Sí puedes, mija,” Sara said. “Una más. Mírame.”
Mireya’s eyes had been closed. They opened slowly and found Sara’s.
“Una más,” Sara said. “Para mi.”
Mireya pulled a breath in. Sara pulled it with her. The two of them held it together for a beat at the top.
“Now,” the doctor said. “Push.”
Mireya pushed.
Sara’s hand ground inside the grip. Her shoulders pulled forward over the rail. The bone in her ring finger gave a small further movement against itself and settled in a new alignment. Sara took the new alignment as her hand’s shape, pressed her palm harder against Mireya’s hair and stroked the strands at the temple.
“She’s out,” the doctor said. “She’s out. Get her on the table.”
A nurse moved past the foot of the bed with something cradled against her chest in a blue cloth. She moved fast. Her shoulders dipped at the corner of the bed and came back up as she crossed the room toward a warming table that had been set against the far wall. Two more nurses were already there with their gloves up. They were already reaching before the first nurse had crossed the room and when she arrived they took the bundle from her chest and laid it on the padded surface and bent over it in the same motion.
Mireya dropped back against the pillow. Her grip on Sara’s hand loosened by a fraction and tightened again. Her chest pulled air in and pushed it out and pulled it in again. The motion of her breathing was shallower than it had been before the push and the gaps between the breaths had stretched. Her eyes went up to the ceiling. Her eyes moved off it, went to the doctor and went past the doctor to the warming table and went back to Sara.
“¿Está viva?” Mireya asked, eyes gone unfocused. “¿Está viva, mami?”
“They’re working on her, mi amor,” Sara said. “They’re working on her.”
Mireya tried to push up onto her elbows. The cotton of the gown stuck to her back where the sweat had soaked through and the gown pulled as she lifted. The doctor’s hand came off her belly and pressed against her hip.
“Stay down for me, Mireya,” the doctor said. “We’re not done yet. Stay down.”
Mireya’s elbows shook under her weight. They held for a second and then she dropped back. Her head turned toward the warming table.
“¡Mi bebé!” Mireya shrieked. “Quiero verla. Bring her to me. ¡Tráela! ¡Ahora!”
Sara’s hand stayed in her hair. “Mija, déjalos trabajar. Let them help her.”
Mireya’s eyes went past Sara to the warming table across the room. Two nurses were bent over the small body. One had a bulb syringe at the baby’s nose. The pinch of her fingers worked the rubber bulb in slow controlled compressions. The other was holding a tiny mask against the face, one hand on the seal and the other on a small bag that she pressed in a steady rhythm. The doctor at the table was calling out across the room about heart rate. The numbers came across in fragments through the space between the bed and the wall. Sixty. Seventy. Steady. A pause that ran longer than the gap between the numbers had been, and then another number that came through too soft for Sara to hold onto over the sound of Mireya breathing.
“Mami, conseguirla,” Mireya cried, tears streaming down her face. “Tráela. Por favor, mami, recoger a mi bebé.”
Sara’s eyes stayed on Mireya’s face. “I can’t go over there, mija. I have to stay with you. Estoy aquí. Estoy aquí contigo.”
Mireya’s voice climbed into another scream. “¡Mi bebé! ¡Mi bebé! Bring her to me! Now!”
The scream broke against the back of her throat, came apart and she pulled the next breath in over the pieces of it.
The cry came from across the room then.
Faint. Smaller than the cry of an animal. A single thin sound. Then a second, weaker.
Sara heard it before Mireya did. It moved through her chest and stopped. The place where it stopped went warm and then cool and the warmth and the cool ran out of her at the same time. Mireya was still screaming. Sara watched her face for the moment the cry would reach her. Mireya’s eyes opened a fraction wider. Her teeth came apart. The breath she had been pulling in caught at the top of her chest.
The two nurses at the warming table lifted the bundle. A third nurse pushed a clear isolette through the door, tubes and lines already running from a stand on its side to the inside of the box. They moved the baby into it. The nurses adjusted the lines and one of them pressed a small sensor onto the baby’s chest with the side of her thumb. The isolette rolled past the foot of Mireya’s bed at the same pace it had crossed the room. The wheels gave a soft sound on the linoleum where the rubber met the seam between two tiles.
Mireya’s head turned on the pillow and her eyes tracked it across her field of vision.
“¡Esperen!” Mireya said. “¡Esperen! Let me see her! Just let me see her!”
The isolette passed through the doorway. The door swung closed behind it. The hydraulic arm on the top of the door hissed once as the door came back against the frame and settled into its latch.
Mireya’s body bucked against the bed. Her hips came up against the doctor’s hand. Her shoulders came up off the pillow. The fresh IV line at her wrist pulled where her arm jerked and the tape lifted at the corner.
“Mireya, I need you to stay still,” the doctor said. “We’re not finished here.”
Mireya screamed. The sound came out of her with everything behind it, the wet of her breath catching in the back of her throat, the cords standing out in her neck. The scream ran into another scream over a thin inhale that ran too short to count as a breath and Mireya screamed again over it.
The catch basin under the bed had moved an inch on its tray with Mireya’s bucking and the pool inside it had sloshed against the lip and a small spill ran down the outside of the basin and onto the wheel of the tray.
The nurse at the monitor turned to Sara.
“Ma’am, I need you to help us calm her down,” the nurse said, only loud enough for Sara to hear. “She’s hemorrhaging and we can’t get the bleeding under control with her moving like this.”
The word hemorrhaging landed inside Sara at the place where the cry had landed and was still waiting to be heard on the other side of the bed.
Sara’s eyes came down from the doorway. She brought her other hand up out of Mireya’s hair and put it on the side of Mireya’s head, her palm framing her face, her thumbs pressing into the skin in front of her ears.
“Mírame, mija,” Sara said. “Mírame.”
Mireya’s eyes found hers.
“Tienes que quedarte quieta,” Sara said. “La están cuidando. Ya están con ella. Tienes que dejar que el doctor te ayude a ti ahora. Por favor, mi amor.”
Mireya’s chest pulled a sob in.
“Mami, mi bebé,” Mireya said, the words halting.
“Sí, mija. Sí. Pero ahora tienes que descansar. Quédate quieta. Estoy aquí.”
Mireya’s body settled back against the mattress in stages. Her shoulders came down first. Her hips followed. Her head let go of the muscle at the back of her neck and laid flat against the pillow. Her right hand reached for Sara’s left and Sara gave it to her and Mireya’s grip closed around it again. The grip was weaker than it had been.
The sob that came out of her chest came out weaker than the last one.
“Mami,” Mireya said.
“Estoy aquí.”
“Mi bebé.”
“Lo sé, mija. Lo sé.”
Mireya’s breath came out long. The next one came out longer. Her grip on Sara’s hand loosened by a fraction. Her eyes closed.
“Pressure’s still dropping,” the nurse at the monitor said.
“How much have we lost?” the doctor said.
“Too much. She’s at sixty-five over thirty.”
Mireya’s hand went slack inside Sara’s.
Sara’s thumb kept moving on Mireya’s cheek. The pad of it tracked along the bone in a small back-and-forth that Sara had been holding since the first contraction. Her hand kept doing what her hand had been doing.
“Mireya,” Sara said. “Mija. Abre los ojos, mi amor. Para mi, mija.”
Mireya’s eyes stayed closed. The skin at her cheek had gone cool under Sara’s thumb. The flush along her cheekbones had drained back and the pale at the temples had reached the rest of her face. Her lips had gone blue.
The monitor changed pitch. The trace on the screen flattened. The tone held.
The tone went on and on and on.
“She’s coding,” the doctor said. “Push the crash cart in. Now.”
The nurse at the monitor turned to Sara.
“Ma’am, you need to step outside.”
Sara’s hand stayed in Mireya’s. The other one stayed on her cheek. Sara had heard the words but her body wouldn’t cooperate.
“What is happening?” Sara asked.
The words came out of her flat.
“Ma’am. Now. Please.”
The nurse stepped between Sara and the bed and put her hand on Sara’s elbow. Her grip was firm. Her face had set into the same lines the other faces in the room had held since they had walked in.
Sara’s eyes stayed on Mireya. “What is happening to my daughter?”
The nurse pulled her elbow. Sara’s hand came out of Mireya’s hair. Her left hand stayed in Mireya’s grip. Mireya’s grip had nothing in it anymore and Sara’s hand pulled out of Mireya’s fingers with no resistance, her fingers falling open onto the sheet beside Mireya’s hip. Sara felt the absence of the grip in the joint at the base of her ring finger before she felt it anywhere else.
The nurse walked Sara backward toward the door. One hand was on Sara’s elbow. The other was on the small of her back. The pressure of the nurse’s palm at her spine was a small constant push and Sara let her feet move where the pressure asked them to go.
The door pushed open at Sara’s back. The hallway air hit her face cold. The fluorescent overhead in the hallway was a different white than the one in the room and the difference of it struck her at the eyes for a half second before her face adjusted.
Three figures in scrubs were already running down the hallway toward them. One was pushing a red cart on wheels. The cart’s drawers rattled against each other as it came. The plastic of the cart caught the light along its edges. Their eyes stayed on the door of the delivery room. They cut past Sara and pushed through it. The door swung wide as they passed.
Sara saw the bed.
Sara saw Mireya’s body, her arms loose at her sides, one hanging off the side of the bed, her head turned a fraction toward the door, her eyes closed. The sheet under her had gone darker. The blood had reached the edge of the mattress.
A doctor climbed onto the bed with one knee against the mattress and started compressions on Mireya’s chest. His arms were locked at the elbow. His weight drove down through his shoulders. The mattress gave under him with each compression. Mireya’s body moved under the pressure of the hands. Between the compressions her body lay where it had fallen. Her head rolled a fraction with the rhythm of the compressions and rolled back. Her arm swayed limply like a doll’s.
The nurse turned back to Sara.
“Wait right here, ma’am. Don’t move. I’ll come find you.”
She stepped back through the door. The door swung closed behind her. The hydraulic arm hissed at the top.
Her left hand was still curled in the shape it had been in around Mireya’s fingers.
