I arrived before sunrise.
The apartment door wasn’t fully closed.
The second I stepped inside, cold air hit my face hard enough to make me shiver. The portable AC unit blasted freezing air through the living room while my mother and Brianna slept comfortably on the couch beneath thick blankets. Pizza boxes covered the coffee table. Empty soda bottles rolled across the floor beside chip bags and takeout containers.
There was no soup cooking. No sterilized bottles. No folded baby clothes.
Then I heard crying.
Weak. Dry. Desperate.
The kind of cry a baby makes after screaming too long without comfort.
I ran toward the bedroom.
Valerie lay unconscious on top of the bed sheets wearing the same stained nightgown she had on when I left. Her hair was tangled badly across the pillow. Sebastian lay beside her wrapped in a dirty blanket, his tiny face burning red while he cried without tears.
“Valerie!”
I shook her carefully.
Nothing.
Then I touched my son.
Pure terror tore through me instantly.
He was scorching hot. His lips were cracked from dehydration. His diaper sagged heavily. Heat rash spread across his neck and chest.
I screamed.
My mother rushed into the room pretending confusion.
“What happened?”
I turned toward her in disbelief.
“What happened?” I roared. “That’s what I’m asking you!”
Brianna appeared behind her looking irritated rather than concerned.
“Oh my God, Michael, stop freaking out,” she snapped. “Babies cry. Women sleep. You came home acting insane.”
I stared at their blankets. Their food. Their untouched drinks.
Then I looked at my wife’s cracked lips and my newborn son burning with fever.
Something primal snapped inside me.
I grabbed Valerie as carefully as I could while pressing Sebastian tightly against my chest. Then I screamed for our neighbor downstairs to drive us to the hospital immediately.
The emergency room exploded into movement the second nurses saw Sebastian. One rushed him toward pediatrics while another placed Valerie onto a stretcher. A young doctor examined both of them quickly at first, then more slowly as her expression changed from urgency into alarm.
Finally she lifted Valerie’s wrist gently.
