Waiting

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My contribution to the 750 Word Project 2023.

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He stares at his son-in-law's text, turning over the words in his mind:

"She's not progressing. They're going to do a C-section. Will keep you posted."

His wife, seated beside him in the hospital waiting room, peers over his shoulder. He angles the phone so she can read the screen. She takes his hand and squeezes. He squeezes back.

He speaks the words they both are thinking: it's an excellent hospital; their daughter is strong and healthy; serious complications are rare.

The words are true, grounded in statistics. But they aren't talking about statistics. They are talking about their little girl. They are talking about Emma.

He glances at the window. Raindrops dot the glass, evoking memories of a spring day long ago: bright pink boots crashing into puddles, water exploding skyward, crisp peals of laughter swallowed by the wind.

His wife laces her fingers through his. Her skin is warm.

He pictures Emma's tiny fingers grasping his thumb that first night home from the hospital. Remembers his wife leaning down and bringing her lips to their daughter's ear. Remembers the words she whispered:

"Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands."

The words were from an E. E. Cummings poem, one of her favorites. They were the first of many his wife shared with their daughter, sparking her love of literature. Soon Emma could speak her own words. Read them. Write them. She gathered words like flowers, each one delicate and precious, and soon she'd collected so many that she arranged them into a novel, a copy of which sat on their bookshelf.

He stands and paces the room. A red fabric rocking chair sits still and empty in the corner. The rocking chair they had at home is gone, but he remembers holding Emma against his chest and rocking her in it while she slept, her wispy hair matted with perspiration, her skin like fire against his own. A virus, the doctor had said. Nothing to do but wait for the fever to break. Each time he peeled Emma from his chest to move her to her crib, she bawled in protest, so he'd spent the night in that chair, rocking and waiting.

"Sit down," his wife says. "Please. You're making me anxious."

"Sorry."

He returns to his seat.

She leans her head against his shoulder. "Tell me it's going to be okay."

"It's going to be okay."

A clock hangs above the door on the opposite wall. He watches the second hand sweep silently around its face, just as he'd done the night of the concert. Emma was two hours late getting home. No call. No text. It wasn't like her. He waited up, watching the clock, his dread growing with each sweep of the second hand, its silent movement a reminder of her absence, of unspeakable possibilities. When she finally walked through the door, apologizing that her phone had died, he wrapped her in a hug, then grounded her for two weeks.

He hears movement in the hallway. Their son-in-law, Daniel, enters the waiting room. Daniel's cheeks are streaked with tears. Panic spreads like ice water through his veins.

"They're okay," Daniel says. "They're both fine."

He blinks back tears, the relief so overwhelming that he almost misses Daniel's next words.

"It's a girl!"

His wife stands and pulls their son-in-law into a tight embrace, the kind of hug Daniel will share with his own parents when they arrive from California.

He smiles. Emma is a mother. How could this be? Just yesterday they stood watching a yellow bus disappear over the crest of the hill, carrying Emma to her first day of school.

Time moves differently for parents. Emma and Daniel will learn this.

One moment, the days spill like grains of rice through your fingers. Try to stem the flow and it only races faster. You struggle to pluck grains from the stream, hoping to preserve them in memory before they are buried forever.

The next moment, seconds feel like hours. You sit in a rocking chair, stare at a clock, pace the hospital, worried and helpless, desperate to trade anything to protect your child, but aware you must do something even more difficult: wait.

In this moment, time moves slowly. He captures a grain of rice and holds it tight. He is eager to see Emma's face. He is excited to meet his granddaughter, to learn her name, to cradle her, and to touch her tiny hands, smaller even than the rain's.