A tiny laryngoscope disappears into the baby’s mouth.
Everyone watches the monitor screen.
For a breathless second, there is only pink tissue and shadow. Then the surgeon adjusts. A nurse tilts the infant’s head. The image sharpens. And there it is, like a ghost made solid by attention: a curved, transparent flap wedged deep in the throat, folded against the tissue so perfectly it had masqueraded as absence.
“Oh my God,” one of the doctors whispers.
No one laughs at Leo now.