Chapter 4 - The Diagnosis of the Screen
The emergency room at Mercy Hospital smelled of floor bleach and the old grease from the exhaust vents of the ambulance bay. It was 11:40 PM when they finally rolled Emily into a curtained cubicle in Sector B, the overhead lights hummed with that same blue, institutional glare that made everyone look like they’d been dug out of a clay pit.
A woman with a silver stethoscope and an identification badge that read Dr. V. Patel, Obstetrics was kneeling by the side of the gurney. Her fingers were short, clean, and efficient as they pressed into the upper curve of Emily’s belly, her eyes fixed on the small green screen of the fetal monitor that was ticking out a rapid, irregular rhythm: click-click-click-click.
"The baby’s rate is high, Mr. Davis," Dr. Patel said, not looking back at me where I stood against the lead-lined wall with my backpack still on my shoulders. "One hundred and seventy-eight beats. He’s reacting to the maternal cortisol levels. How long has she been having these spikes?"
"She says two months," I said. My jaw felt like it had been wired together by an amateur mechanic. "They... she’s been under some stress at home."
"It’s not just stress," the doctor said, her voice dropping into that flat, clinical register that carries no mercy because it has no time for it. "She’s severely dehydrated. Her hematocrit is thirty-nine, and her urine sample shows significant ketones. She hasn't been eating regularly, and she’s been on her feet for more than eight hours today. Her cervix is thick, but we’re seeing three centimeters of effacement from the continuous muscular tension."
Emily was lying flat now, an IV line pinned into the back of her left hand with a piece of clear plastic tape. The fluid—a bag of standard saline with a potassium supplement—was dripping into her vein through a small plastic chamber: drop. drop. drop.
Her phone, which I had pulled from her purse before they took her clothes for the laundry bag, sat on the small stainless-steel tray by the headrest.
It wasn't a new model like Brittany’s; it was an old iPhone 11 with a cracked corner that she’d refused to replace because she said the baby would need the upgrade money for shoes.
The screen lit up.
A small grey banner appeared at the top of the glass. The contact name was Teresa (Ma).
You had better not blame us for this, the text read. Ethan already has enough pressure without you causing more trouble at the clinic. Tell the doctor it was the stairs.
I reached out my hand, my fingers still grey around the nails from the warehouse zinc, and I swiped the banner down. The log went back for pages. The messages were all from the last six weeks, sent between the hours of nine in the morning and three in the afternoon while I was on the platform at the distribution center.
July 3rd, 10:14 AM (Teresa): The kitchen floor has those black marks from Ethan's work boots again. If you can't get down on your knees to scrub them, tell me now so I can tell Ethan he’s wasting his money on the groceries.
July 12th, 1:45 PM (Brittany): Why did you tell Ethan I took the hair dryer? It was in the common closet. If you’re going to start counting the towels like a landlord, let us know so we can find a place where people don't look at us like thieves. He works for us, not you.
Yesterday, 2:30 PM (Kayla): Ma wants the chicken salad for dinner but she says your hands look dirty when you mix the mayonnaise. Use the fork this time. And don't call Ethan while he’s on the dock. He’s got enough to do without hearing about your back.
I read through twenty more before my thumb stopped moving. My right eye was twitching now, a small, rhythmic jump in the muscle below the lid that matched the tick of the fetal monitor: click-click-click.
Emily was watching me from the pillow. Her left eye was fully open now, the swelling around the lid having gone down after the nurse applied the cold saline compress.
"Ethan," she whispered, her voice sounding like dry grass being dragged over concrete. "Don't look at them. Delete the folder. I was going to change the number after the delivery anyway."
"Why didn't you tell me, Em?" I sat down on the small plastic stool by her shoulder, the nylon of my work trousers making a dry, whispering sound against the metal leg. "I was home every night at ten. I sat right across the table from you."
"You were so tired," she said, her fingers reaching out from the sheets to touch the calloused side of my wrist. "You’d come in with your shoulders down to your ribs, Ethan. You’d eat the chicken and you’d look at the floor for twenty minutes before you could even get your boots off. If I told you Ma was being mean about the kitchen, what were you going to do? Quit the job? Fight your sisters in the street? You already gave them your father’s watch to pay for the funeral note."
I looked down at the small blue screen in my palm. The text from my mother was still there, sitting at the bottom of the log like an old bill that had stayed unpaid until the interest was higher than the principle.
May you like
"I didn't give them the watch, Emily," I said, my voice very quiet, very level. "Ma took it out of the drawer while I was at the cemetery. She said it was for the insurance administration. I just didn't ask for it back because I didn't want to hear her cry."
"She knows how to do it," Emily murmured, her eyes closing as the saline began to cool the fever in her skin. "She knows exactly where the seam is."
