Nothing.
My mind emptied and flooded at the same time. I pressed my ear against her chest. I couldn’t hear a heartbeat. I started CPR the way they had taught us in the newborn class Ryan insisted we attend. Two fingers, gentle compressions. Breathe. Again. Again. Again.
“Stop being dramatic,” Linda said from the doorway, her voice sharp. “I told you, she moves too much. I secured her. That’s what you do. My mother did it.”
I wanted to strike her. I wanted to throw her out of my house. Instead, I grabbed my phone with trembling hands and dialed 911.
The operator’s calm voice felt surreal against the panic filling my living room. “Is she breathing?”
“No,” I gasped. “My baby isn’t breathing.”
When the paramedics arrived, Linda tried to explain herself—talking quickly, defending her actions like she was the victim of my supposed “overreaction.” They ignored her. They took Sophie from my arms, placed a tiny oxygen mask over her face, and I followed them out barefoot, my heart pounding painfully.
Inside the ambulance, I stared at Sophie’s limp little hand and one awful thought kept repeating in my mind:
If I had been five minutes later, she’d be gone.
At Mercy General, everything unfolded in harsh, bright fragments—automatic doors sliding open, nurses shouting numbers, gurney wheels squeaking, the sharp scent of antiseptic filling the air. I ran alongside Sophie’s stretcher until someone gently but firmly stopped me.
