“I examined the respiratory circuit myself,” the doctor said, pointing the narrow beam of his light at the thin blue tube running into Rosalie’s tiny nose.

“The secondary connection valve was turned sixty degrees counterclockwise.”

Kevin leaned over the plastic wall, his eyes fixed on the small yellow plastic fitting near the base of the monitor.

“What does that valve do?”

“It bleeds off the circuit pressure,” the doctor said flatly.

“If that valve stays open, the machine keeps humming normally, but the amount of oxygen reaching the lungs drops by more than half within ninety seconds.”

My incision gave a sharp, hot pull across my lower abdomen, but I kept my hands folded tightly over the front of my cardigan.