“She’s stable,” they said.
“But unresponsive.”
Daniel sat by her bedside every evening after work. He spoke to her about ordinary things—the weather, the baby’s kicks, the color he planned to paint the nursery. He held her hand, even when it stayed limp in his own.
“I’m still here,” he would whisper. “So are you. I know it.”
But as the months passed, his voice grew quieter. Hope, when stretched too thin, begins to ache.
The baby, however, was strong.
Doctors monitored the heartbeat daily. It was steady. Persistent. Almost stubborn.
“She’s fighting,” one nurse said softly. “Just like her mother.”
Outside the hospital, life moved on—cars honked, people hurried, seasons changed.
And near the hospital entrance, sitting beside a low stone wall, lived a small boy named Noah.
