Uncertain at first, then steadier, then real. Dr. Adeyemi, who had not stopped moving for 36 minutes, felt something loosen in her chest that she hadn’t known was clenched.
She stood at the bedside and looked at the monitor. Then she looked at Maya.
27 years old. Dark hair on the pillow. Oxygen mask. Fragile vitals. Alive. Then the secondary screen updated.
Dr. Adeyemi looked at it for 30 seconds without speaking. Then she called Tasha in.
Tasha looked at the screen. Then at Dr. Adeyemi. Then at the screen again. Does the family know?
Tasha asked. No, Dr. Adeyemi said. Not yet. The way she said not yet carried a weight that neither of them commented on.
At 4:31, Dr. Adeyemi stepped back into the hallway. Dex looked up. She’s alive, Dr.
Adeyemi said. Two seconds of silence. Two seconds where three faces moved from whatever they actually were to whatever they decided to show.
Dex said, Thank God. Correct words. Correct volume. Correct expression. One second too slow. Renata said, When can we see her?
She’s unconscious and needs to remain that way for now, Dr. Adeyemi said. The situation is still delicate.
She paused. There is something else I need to speak with you about. All three of you.
She gestured toward the small consultation room at the end of the corridor. The one with the round table and the box of tissues and nothing on the walls.
The room where news gets delivered sitting down. Tasha did not follow them in. She wasn’t invited.
But the consultation room had a window onto the hallway. And she had charting that needed to be done at the station directly across from it.
She could see their faces. She couldn’t hear the words. She watched Dex receive the information.
She watched Farah’s grip tighten on her purse strap. She watched Renata’s hand go to the gold chain at her throat and stay there.
Whatever Dr. Adeyemi was telling them, it was not what they had expected. What Dr.
Adeyemi told them was this. Maya Briggs had not been carrying one baby. She had been carrying two.
