glass.
“Just a minute,” she answers as she types Erin’s
name in the computer. “They brought her by
ambulance … just a moment. Who are you?”
“I am… I am…” I stutter without finding a
convincing description of my relationship with her,
something that would justify my being here.
“I can only give information to relatives,” she
tells me. “I’m sorry.”
“He’s the father,” a voice behind me says. “He’s
the father of the baby. That’s why I called him.”
Erin’s mother joins us and delicately pulls on
my arm, making a gesture with her head to the
nurse. “Come on Patrick, come and sit with me.”
We sit in the waiting room. I let my head fall
and rub it hard three times to get the blood
circulating.
“She’s still in the operating room. They are
doing an emergency cesarean,” her mum says in a
voice broken with tears. “They don’t know…” She
sighs. “…They’re trying to save both of them.”
Then she continues to talk to me, saying
something positive, something about letting us
know the best, but I can’t hear a word. The only
thing I hear is Rain sobbing and the noise is
blowing out my eardrums.
Save. Both.
The two most important women of my life in
the hands of who knows what.
What an idiot I’ve been.
