He stopped, pressing the heel of his hand against his mouth to strangle a sob.
“Where is she?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Where is Clara?”
“She’s in the ICU,” Marcus choked out. “She… she didn’t make it, Sarah. They tried to stabilize her after the emergency C-section, but her heart gave out twenty minutes ago.”
The hallway went completely still. The hum of the vending machine down the corridor sounded unnaturally loud.
“Oh, God,” I breathed, covering my mouth. “Clara… she’s gone?”
Marcus nodded, his shoulders shaking. “Brenda’s gone. Now Clara. There’s no one left on that side, Sarah. No one.”
I pulled him into my arms, hugging him tight against my neck as he wept silently into my shoulder. I thought about the little girl who used to sit on our living room carpet during Thanksgiving, quiet and shy, drawing pictures with our oldest boy when he was just a toddler. Now she was dead at twenty-one, alone in an ICU bed three floors above us.
After a long moment, Marcus pulled back slightly, wiping his face with the sleeve of his coat. He looked toward the glass window of the maternity room behind him.
“The baby…” I whispered, looking at the plastic bassinet. “Is she okay?”
“She’s small,” Marcus said, his voice dropping into a hollow, fragile tone. “Four pounds, eleven ounces. But she’s breathing on her own. She’s strong.”
