-Chapter 15-
161 years and 9 months before the Collapse
Jaylen’s groans shattered the quiet of the midnight street as she writhed in the rear-facing seat of a rattling trett. Graham sat next to the driver, screaming at him to go faster as the murky river ran along next to them.
“I’m going as fast as I can!” the driver exclaimed.
“I don’t care! My wife is about to give birth!” Jaylen let out a cry of pain. Graham’s heart raced.
…
Graham’s shoes clicked across the stones of the dusty cathedral hallway as he paced restlessly outside of the delivery room. Blue waylight streamed dimly through the stained glass window at the end of the hall. With every passing second, Graham’s heart rate increased. After he had nearly fainted in the room, the doctors had offered him a seat out in the hall, but he couldn’t sit still. He felt weak in the knees, but he was too worked up to sit down. For hours, Jaylen’s muffled wails had seeped under the door, growing closer and closer together in frequency. They had only just barely made it in time, but that’s what didn’t make sense. Jaylen wasn’t due for another two months. Something was wrong, Graham could feel it.
Graham cursed under his breath. Everything was slipping from his control like sand between the fingers. Everything was about to change, and Graham wasn’t ready.
A graying doctor shuffled out of the delivery room, his robes skimming the floor as he approached. Graham was on top of him before he could get a word in edgewise.
“What’s going on? Is Jaylen okay?”
The doctor corrected his glasses.
“Jaylen is fine,” he said, “but the infant… she’s not healthy.”
“What do you mean?” Graham asked. His thoughts were reeling, and he could barely concentrate.
“When she came out, she wasn’t breathing,” the doctor explained carefully, “we’ve hooked her up to a respirator, and she is stabilized for now.”
“Is this because it’s early?” Graham asked.
“It’s doubtful. We’ve seen plenty of babies come out much healthier at this stage, but we have also seen this once before. We believe it is a rare respiratory disorder. It wasn’t so much that something blocked her from breathing. It was more that her lungs ceased to function when she came out. The last baby that had this survived, but we had him on support for months before he could leave.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Graham asked.
“I should think you would like to see your daughter before we hook her up,” the doctor suggested.
“Of course,” Graham said, suddenly realizing what was about to happen. Inside that room was an infant. He had no idea what it would look like, but it was his daughter. The room felt dark as Graham entered, following in the wake of the reverant doctor. Jaylen sat up in a bed in the center of the room, holding something. Tiny, red, slimy, it hardly looked human. A Respirator mask obscured most of its face. Jaylen looked up at him as he approached, Her whimsical eyes puffy and red from hours of tears.
“Our Kia,” she said, holding the infant out to Graham. He stood paralyzed, staring at the wrinkled little human, so small it could fit in his pocket. That was his daughter.
“Go ahead, hold her,” Jaylen said, smiling.
Graham willed his arms to reach out and accept the girl, but they would not move. He simply stood, fixed in place, as he watched his future spiral into uncertainty. Tears of joy did not grace his cheeks. Instead, sweat beaded his brow. His heart did not overflow with love. It pounded with dread.
At that very moment, he was a father.