I sat in one of the hard plastic chairs with her tucked close against my chest, and I rocked, continuously, the endless small motion that is the only thing you can do, back and forth, back and forth, as if I could rock the fever out of her by sheer will.

I did not stop.

My arms ached and my back ached and I did not stop, because it was the one thing left in my power, and I would have done it until my arms fell off.

There is a thing that happens to a mother in an emergency, a narrowing of the whole world down to the one small body in her arms, and it happened to me completely in that waiting room.

The crowd, the noise, the television, the hours, the discomfort of the hard chair, my own exhaustion, all of it receded to a distant murmur, and my entire consciousness poured itself into Hazel, into the heat of her, the sound of her, the rise and fall of her breath against my chest.