There could have been someone else. A husband. A boyfriend. A man who had vanished when life became hard. There were a dozen reasonable explanations, and yet my mind rejected all of them with terrifying speed.
I looked back toward the NICU.
A girl.
A boy.
Thirty-two weeks.
But pregnancy was counted from the last menstrual cycle. The timing alone meant nothing. Five years had passed. It was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
I closed my eyes, forcing myself through the math, through the years, through the night I had left her standing in the rain. There had been no twins then. No children. No phone call. No letter. No attempt to reach me that I had known of.
But Hannah had written, I tried so many times.
My stomach turned.
“What is it?” Carla asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
It was the only honest answer I had.
Hannah did not wake that night.
I stayed at the hospital long after my shift ended. I told myself it was because her case was complex. Because the twins were fragile. Because no family had appeared to advocate for her.
All of that was true.
None of it was the whole truth.
Around midnight, while Chicago rain tapped against the dark windows, I sat in my office and opened Hannah’s chart again. There was little to find. She had received inconsistent prenatal care at a free clinic on the South Side. She had missed her last two appointments. Notes mentioned anemia, stress, poor nutrition, and a recommendation for reduced work hours that had clearly gone unheeded.
Employment: warehouse associate.
Address: a small apartment in Cicero.
Marital status: single.
Emergency contact: none.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling.
Hannah Parker had once wanted to become a teacher.
She had loved books so much that she carried paperbacks in her bag even when the covers were falling off. She used to mark favorite passages on napkins when she forgot a notebook. She had talked about opening a literacy program for children who needed somewhere safe to go after school.
