Chapter 4 - Flatline
The world dissolved into a smear of sterile white and emergency red.
"Rosie!" Ben roared, lunging toward the swinging doors.
Two burly hospital security guards instantly intercepted him, throwing their weight against his chest. "Sir, you cannot go in there! Stand back!"
"That is my wife!" Ben shouted, his face contorting into an agonizing mask of fury and grief. He fought against them with the strength of a drowning man, veins bulging along his neck. "Rosie! Don't you leave me! Rosie!"
I rushed forward, grabbing Ben’s arm, not to stop him, but to keep him from collapsing as the guards shoved him backward. "Ben! Ben, look at me! Let them work! If you break in there, they can't save her!"
Through the small, wire-reinforced glass window of Operating Room 3, I caught a fleeting, horrific glimpse of the battlefield inside.
There were at least a dozen people in green and blue scrubs crowded around the center table. The rhythmic, mechanical beeping of the cardiac monitor had fused into a single, unending, flatline tone that screamed through the open doorway like a banshee.
*"Clear!"* a voice barked inside.
I saw the sudden, violent jerk of Rosie’s body against the table as the defibrillator paddles fired. Her small, pale frame bounced against the mattress.
*"Still in V-fib! Charge to 200! Give another milligram of Epi!"*
Beside the main operating table, an isolette incubator was bathed in the harsh, yellow glow of warming lamps. A pediatrician was furiously bagging a tiny, glistening, purplish infant no larger than a kitten.
*One baby was out.*
"Baby A is delivering!" a respiratory therapist called out from inside. "Heart rate is 60! Starting compressions!"
Ben stopped fighting the guards. His knees buckled completely. He crashed to the linoleum floor, his hands gripping his hair, weeping with a sound so guttural, so ripped from the marrow of his soul, that the security guards themselves looked away, their stern faces softening with pity.
"Please God," Ben prayed against the floor tiles, his forehead pressed to the cold ground. "Take me. Take my blood. Take my life. Don't take her. Don't punish her for having an angel's heart."
I knelt beside him, wrapping my arms around his shaking shoulders, but I felt like a hollow shell. Every memory I possessed of my family was fracturing like cheap glass.
I remembered my father teaching me to ride a bike, holding the seat steady, praising my intellect. *A facade.*
I remembered him sitting at the head of the Thanksgiving table, carving the turkey, reciting scripture about charity and protecting the weak. *A performance.*
I remembered the way he had gently kissed Rosie’s forehead when she was brought in an ambulance tonight, weeping into his silk handkerchief, saying, *‘My poor sweet baby, Daddy is praying for you.’*
*He wasn't praying for her.*
*He was waiting for her to die.*
The emergency doors swung open again. A young surgical resident emerged, his brow dripping with sweat, his paper mask pulled down to his chin. He looked between Ben on the floor and me kneeling beside him.
"Mr. Miller?" the resident asked breathlessly.
Ben scrambled to his feet in a second, stumbling forward. "How is she? Are the babies alive?!"
"We delivered both infants by emergency cesarean," the doctor said, speaking rapidly. "A boy and a girl. They are severely premature and their systems are compromised by the anti-coagulants in the mother’s blood, but they have heartbeats. They are being transferred to the Level IV Neonatal ICU right now."
"And Rosie?" I demanded, my fingernails biting into my palms until I drew blood. "What about my sister?!"
The resident hesitated, a look of profound, helpless sorrow crossing his features.
"We got a pulse back, but she suffered massive blood loss. Her brain was deprived of oxygen for nearly seven minutes before we achieved return of spontaneous circulation. She has developed disseminated intravascular coagulation. Her body has used up all its clotting factors."
He placed a gloved hand on Ben’s shoulder.
"She is in a deep coma, Mr. Miller. We are moving her to the Surgical ICU on maximum life support. But you need to prepare yourself. Her neurological prognosis is catastrophic. The next four hours will determine everything."
Before Ben could reply, the heavy doors at the far end of the public waiting corridor swung open with a resounding thud.
The sound of expensive leather oxfords echoed on the floorboards.
We turned.
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Walking toward us, clad in a tailored charcoal cashmere overcoat, his silver hair impeccably combed, his face a portrait of stately, aristocratic grief, was Judge David Vance.
***
