A six-foot-four combat veteran with severe burn scars and trembling hands walked into our NICU.<\/p>\n
He didn’t look like he belonged. Then the abandoned, drug-withdrawing premature baby in bed seven started to cry \u2014 her mother vanished, leaving her to fight for her life alone.<\/p>\n
The giant stepped toward the incubator. “Is that the little one who needs someone to sit with her?” he asked.<\/p>\n
I hesitated. But when he held her, and I saw the name etched into his dog tag, the whole room went quiet.<\/p>\n
The first time I saw Sarge Ransom step into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Willow Creek Medical Center, a cold knot of panic tightened in my chest.<\/p>\n
I’ve been a charge nurse in this unit for eleven years. I know its rhythm down to my bones \u2014 the synthetic hum of the ventilators, the amber glow over the plastic incubators, the whispered bargains parents make with God at three in the morning.<\/p>\n
This room is a sanctuary of fragility, where everything is measured in millimeters and milligrams.<\/p>\n
Sarge Ransom did not belong here.<\/p>\n
He was a military veteran in his early fifties, six-foot-four, shoulders broad enough to eclipse the doorway.<\/p>\n
He wore a faded olive tactical jacket over a black T-shirt, his posture rigid and hyper-vigilant, as if he expected the sterile walls to ambush him.<\/p>\n
But it wasn’t his size that set off every alarm bell in my professional mind. It was his hands.<\/p>\n
They were massive, mapped with thick, glossy burn scars that crawled up his forearms and vanished beneath his rolled sleeves.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Worse than the scars was the tremor \u2014 a fine, uncontrollable shaking in his fingers, the physical ghost of nerve damage or deep, untreated trauma.<\/p>\n
He was our newest volunteer for the infant comfort program. He’d passed the background checks, cleared the psychiatric evaluations, finished the orientation.<\/p>\n
On paper he was qualified. Under the harsh fluorescent lights of my unit, he looked like a combat casualty waiting for a medevac.<\/p>\n
Then the alarm on bed seven began to scream.<\/p>\n
Her chart read simply Baby Girl Reed.<\/em> A two-pound ghost of a child, born at twenty-six weeks.<\/p>\n She hadn’t just arrived too early and too small \u2014 she’d arrived completely alone, carrying a war she never asked to fight.<\/p>\n Her mother, Tessa, had disappeared into the Omaha winter hours after delivery, leaving no emergency contact, no blanket, and a catastrophic toxicology report.<\/p>\n Baby Girl Reed had severe Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. She was withdrawing from a cocktail of narcotics.<\/p>\n Her cries weren’t normal newborn wails. They were piercing, breathless, frantic \u2014 the sound of a nervous system on fire.<\/p>\n Her tiny limbs thrashed, her skin mottled and tight. We’d tried the morphine weaning protocol, dimmed the lights, swaddled her into a cocoon, but nothing stopped the tremors wracking her fragile spine.<\/p>\n Sarge turned his head toward the sound. The muscle in his jaw feathered.<\/p>\n “Is that the one?” His voice was a low, gravelly rumble that seemed to vibrate in the floor. “The one they said needed a hold?”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stepped between him and the incubator, my protective instincts flaring. “Mr. Ransom, she’s highly unstable today. Her sensory threshold is overloaded. She’s in severe withdrawal.”<\/p>\n I looked down at his trembling, scarred hands, and I couldn’t stop myself. For a second, professional courtesy vanished into sheer terror.<\/p>\n Is it safe for this man \u2014 hands shaking, haunted by ghosts \u2014 to hold a two-pound, glass-fragile infant?<\/em><\/p>\n Sarge saw where my eyes landed. He looked down at his own hands and exhaled a slow, measured breath. He didn’t look offended. He looked resigned.<\/p>\n “Ma’am,” he said, meeting my eyes. “I know what a nervous system looks like when it’s tearing itself apart. Let me try.”<\/p>\n Against every instinct screaming in my head, I stepped aside.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He scrubbed in at the sink, water splashing off his shaking knuckles.<\/p>\n He pulled on the blue disposable gown, which stretched tight across his broad back, and approached the incubator.<\/p>\n The monitors flashed red \u2014 her heart rate climbing to 190. The shrill beep-beep-beep sounded exactly like a countdown.<\/p>\n He slid his massive, trembling hands through the portholes. The moment his skin brushed the linens, the baby shrieked, a sound so sharp the other nurses froze.<\/p>\n Sarge’s pupils dilated. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The alarms blared.<\/p>\n The chaos hit him all at once \u2014 the sirens, the crying, the flashing red. I watched the terrifying realization wash over him. He wasn’t in Omaha anymore. He was back in the dirt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Mr. Ransom, step back,” I said, moving toward the incubator. “She’s too overstimulated. I need to give her a dose of phenobarbital.”<\/p>\n He didn’t move. He was locked in place, his chest heaving under the gown, his eyes fixed on the thrashing infant but seeing something else.<\/p>\n The monitors sounded too much like incoming mortar sirens. The cries sounded too much like casualties.<\/p>\n “Sarge,” I said, sharper, reaching for his arm.<\/p>\n “No,” he rasped, his eyes snapping back to the present. “No, I’ve got her. I’ve got her.”<\/p>\n Slowly, fighting the tremor in his own limbs, he slid one huge hand under her head and the other under her hips, and lifted her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She looked impossibly small against him \u2014 a fragile sparrow in the hands of a stone giant.<\/p>\n Step by careful step he backed up and sank into the vinyl rocking chair beside the machines.<\/p>\n The baby screamed harder, her back arching in a rigid bow.<\/p>\n Sarge closed his eyes. His jaw locked. He was fighting off a massive panic attack \u2014 and then he began a technique I’d later learn was called tactical box breathing, used by Special Forces to steady the nervous system under fire.<\/p>\n Inhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four.<\/em><\/p>\n He did it out loud. A deep rush of air through the nose, a slow powerful release through the mouth, his chest rising and falling in enormous, deliberate swells.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stood there, syringe in hand, stunned.<\/p>\n For the first five minutes the baby fought him, her tiny fists battering his chest, her cries echoing off the walls.<\/p>\n But Sarge didn’t flinch. He didn’t rock her or shush her or bounce her. He just sat like a mountain, his breath pulling in and pushing out in that relentless four-second cadence.<\/p>\n Inhale, hold, exhale, hold.<\/em><\/p>\n Around ten minutes, the room changed. I looked up at the monitor. Baby Girl Reed’s racing heartbeat \u2014 pinging between 180 and 190 \u2014 began to fall. One-seventy-five. One-sixty. One-fifty.<\/p>\n I stepped closer, mesmerized. Pressed flat against his chest, her frantic little nervous system was feeling the deep boom of his heart and the great rhythmic swell of his lungs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She had no mother to soothe her, no drug strong enough to quiet the fire in her blood \u2014 but she had this. A biological anchor.<\/p>\n Her thrashing slowed. Her mottled skin flushed a healthy pink. By twenty minutes her hands uncurled from their fists.<\/p>\n By thirty, her breathing hitched and then synced with the rise and fall of the scarred soldier holding her, and she dropped into a deep, silent sleep.<\/p>\n The silence in the unit was staggering. The alarms had cleared. The red lights had gone back to a steady, peaceful green.<\/p>\n His own tremor had vanished. The sweat was drying on his forehead, his eyes closed, his face bent over the blue swaddle. He’d used his own survival mechanism to drag her back from the edge.<\/p>\n “You can put her back now,” I whispered, not wanting to break the spell. “Your arms must be exhausted. You did incredible work.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He opened his eyes. They were bloodshot, rimmed with a deep, oceanic sadness.<\/p>\n “Negative, ma’am,” he whispered. “She needs the contact. If I put her down, the fire comes back. I’m staying right here.”<\/p>\n I smiled, an ache forming in my throat. “Your shift is only two hours, Sarge.”<\/p>\n “My shift ends when she doesn’t need me anymore,” he said, adjusting his shoulders against the hard plastic.<\/p>\n I let him stay. It broke the volunteer time limits, but it was saving the baby’s life \u2014 and, I suspected, saving his too.<\/p>\n Hours passed. Four. Six. Eight.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By hour nine I brought him a paper cup of water and held it to his lips so he wouldn’t have to move his arms.<\/p>\n His face was gray, his back rigid, his left leg cramping and bouncing on the linoleum, but he refused to shift his weight and risk waking her.<\/p>\n Everything was peaceful. Everything was perfect.<\/p>\n Until the heavy double doors swung open and Mr. Sterling, the hospital’s Director of Risk Management, marched in with a tablet and a scowl, the attending physician behind him.<\/p>\n Sterling’s eyes swept the room, landed on the giant in the corner, and his face hardened into bureaucratic fury.<\/p>\n “Nurse Sarah.” His voice clipped through the quiet, sharp enough to cut glass. He didn’t bother to lower it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I intercepted him before he reached bed seven, my heart hammering. “Mr. Sterling, please keep your voice down. The infants are resting.”<\/p>\n “Explain to me why there’s an unvetted civilian who’s been sitting in that chair for nine and a half hours,” Sterling demanded, pointing a polished finger.<\/p>\n “The volunteer limit is two hours. We have liability protocols, infection-control mandates, and severe risk factors around patient handling. Look at him, Sarah. He’s sweating, he’s exhausted, and I was told he has a visible nerve tremor. This is an unacceptable risk to hospital property and patient safety.”<\/p>\n “She is not property,” I hissed, my composure cracking. “She’s a critically ill infant with severe NAS. No medication stabilized her today. That man’s physiological contact is the only thing keeping her out of a hypertensive crisis.”<\/p>\n Dr. Evans, the attending, looked torn, adjusting his glasses. “Sarah, technically Sterling’s right. The fatigue factor alone makes dropping the infant a statistical probability. We need to transition her back to the incubator. Now.”<\/p>\n They bypassed me. Sterling walked up to Sarge, who watched them come with the flat, dead-eyed stare of a man who’d seen worse monsters than hospital administrators.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Mr. Ransom,” Sterling said coldly. “Your shift ended seven hours ago. You’re in violation of hospital policy. Stand up, hand the infant to the nurse, and leave the floor immediately.”<\/p>\n Sarge didn’t blink. He didn’t raise his voice. He spoke with the quiet, terrifying authority of a man used to giving orders in the dark. “She’s sleeping.”<\/p>\n “I don’t care if she’s sleeping,” Sterling snapped, reaching out as if to take the baby himself. “You’re a liability. Hand her over.”<\/p>\n “Stand down, sir,” Sarge said, the words slicing the air like a blade. “Do not touch this child.”<\/p>\n Dr. Evans sighed and stepped forward. “Mr. Ransom, please. We’re going to take her.”<\/p>\n Evans reached down, slid his gloved hands under the baby, and lifted her an inch off Sarge’s chest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was instantaneous. The moment the contact broke, the baby’s eyes flew open. A soundless gasp hitched in her throat.<\/p>\n The monitor, steady green a moment ago, shrieked.<\/p>\n BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.<\/em><\/p>\n Her heart rate plummeted from 140 to 60 in three seconds. Her oxygen numbers flashed red, diving into the dangerous seventies.<\/p>\n She was turning blue \u2014 apnea of prematurity, triggered by sudden shock to her nervous system.<\/p>\n “Code blue, bed seven!” Evans shouted, panic cracking his voice as he tried to rush her to the incubator.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before he could take a step, Sarge stood.<\/p>\n After nine hours cramped in that chair, he rose in one fluid motion, towering over the doctor and the administrator.<\/p>\n With agonizing gentleness he took the baby back from Evans’s hands, pulled her tight against his chest, and instantly resumed the four-second breathing.<\/p>\n “Oxygen, now!” he barked at me, a commander taking the field. “Get the nasal cannula. Don’t just stand there \u2014 move!”<\/p>\n My training kicked in. I sprinted to the wall, grabbed the tubing, and hooked the tiny prongs beneath her nose while she lay against his chest.<\/p>\n “Stimulate her back,” Sarge ordered Evans, ignoring Sterling, who was sputtering. “Rub her spine. Harder, Doc. Keep her here.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Evans, running on instinct and the sheer force of Sarge’s command, rubbed the baby’s back while she lay against the veteran.<\/p>\n Ten seconds of pure terror. Then the baby coughed \u2014 a huge, sputtering gasp \u2014 and the blue faded from her lips, replaced by an angry red as she began to cry.<\/p>\n The heart monitor climbed back into safe range, the oxygen numbers rising.<\/p>\n Sarge sank back into the chair, the baby clutched to his heart, and pulled her back into the rhythm of his breathing. Within two minutes she was asleep again.<\/p>\n The room was dead silent but for the hum of the machines.<\/p>\n He looked up at Sterling, his face pale, sweat dripping from his chin, his muscles trembling from the adrenaline.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “She is my patient right now,” he whispered, his voice shaking with a ferocious, protective rage. “And I do not abandon my post. Do not try to move her again until I say she’s ready. Do you understand me?”<\/p>\n Sterling opened his mouth, but Evans grabbed his arm and shook his head. The doctor looked at Sarge with a new, profound respect. “Let him stay, Sterling. Just\u2026 let him stay.”<\/p>\n Sterling turned on his heel and stormed out.<\/p>\n I slumped against the counter, my heart pounding. When I looked back at Sarge, he was trembling again, head tipped against the wall, spent.<\/p>\n As he shifted his weight, something slipped from the collar of his shirt and swung on a rusted beaded chain, catching the light \u2014 a single tarnished silver dog tag.<\/p>\n It didn’t carry his name, rank, or blood type. It carried one word, deep-etched into the metal, catching the light like a secret finally exposed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The twelfth hour approached like a weight pressing down on the room.<\/p>\n The NICU had settled into graveyard quiet, the lights dimmed to a soft twilight.<\/p>\n By hour eleven, Sarge was in real physical agony \u2014 the joints of his hands swollen and locked, his breath hitching now and then, the endurance of staying perfectly still taking its toll on a body already battered by hard miles.<\/p>\n I walked over with a warm, damp cloth. I didn’t ask; I just wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and the back of his neck.<\/p>\n He didn’t open his eyes, but he leaned into the touch for a fraction of a second \u2014 a silent thank-you.<\/p>\n As I drew my hand back, my eyes fell on the tarnished dog tag resting on his chest, right above where Baby Girl Reed’s tiny head was tucked.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The name etched into the metal was Nora.<\/em><\/p>\n “A squadmate?” I asked softly, barely a whisper over the hum of the oxygen concentrators.<\/p>\n He kept his eyes closed. For a long time the only sound was his breathing. I thought he’d ignore me.<\/p>\n “No,” he said finally, his voice like gravel crushed under a boot. “Not a soldier.”<\/p>\n He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling tiles.<\/p>\n “It was 2004,” he began, the words spilling out slowly, as if they’d been locked in a vault for decades. “I was deployed. Blackout mission in the mountains. Full radio silence. No mail, no comms, nothing for three weeks.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his thick throat.<\/p>\n “My wife was back in the States. She was only twenty-four weeks along. Something went wrong. Placental abruption. They had to take the baby.”<\/p>\n My breath caught. Twenty-four weeks. The knife-edge of viability.<\/p>\n “They couldn’t reach me,” he continued, a single rogue tear breaking free and tracking down his scarred cheek into his graying beard. “My wife was alone in a room just like this one. The baby \u2014 Nora. She was born fighting. Just like this little bird here.”<\/p>\n He stroked the back of the baby’s head with a stiff, trembling thumb.<\/p>\n “How long?” I whispered.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Twelve hours,” he choked out, his chest heaving, struggling to keep the steady breathing the baby needed. “She lived twelve hours. And I wasn’t there. I was half a world away, clearing a compound, while my daughter fought her whole war without her father to hold her.”<\/p>\n He looked down at the baby on his chest, his eyes swimming.<\/p>\n “When I finally got back \u2014 when they finally told me \u2014 it was too late. I never got to hold her. I never got to tell her she wasn’t alone. I never got to take the pain away.”<\/p>\n He looked up at me, pleading to be understood. “My wife couldn’t look at me after that. The marriage dissolved. The military discharged me a few years later. I’ve spent twenty years with these hands” \u2014 he lifted one heavily scarred hand \u2014 “knowing they could fix engines, break bones, patch a bullet wound, and weren’t there to hold my own daughter.”<\/p>\n The realization hit me like a blow. He hadn’t been fighting for the last few hours. He hadn’t been fighting Sterling or hospital policy. He was fighting time. He was fighting a ghost.<\/p>\n I looked at the clock. Eleven hours and forty-five minutes he’d been in that chair. He was giving this abandoned, drug-withdrawing baby the exact twelve hours of comfort he never got to give his own daughter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “I owe her twelve hours, Sarah,” he whispered, finally using my name, his voice breaking. “I owe her that much. Just let me finish the watch. Please.”<\/p>\n “You’ll finish it, Sarge,” I said fiercely, wiping my own tears with the back of my glove. “I’ll stand between you and anyone who tries to stop you. You finish your watch.”<\/p>\n We sat in silence as the clock crept toward the mark.<\/p>\n The baby slept so deeply, her breathing so healthy and even, it felt like a miracle \u2014 the drugs beaten back, for now, by the sheer force of human contact.<\/p>\n As the clock ticked over to 5:00 a.m. \u2014 the exact twelve-hour mark of his vigil \u2014 Sarge let out a long, shuddering exhale.<\/p>\n A weight seemed to lift from his shoulders. He looked down at the sleeping infant, and a soft, heartbreaking smile touched his lips.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He’d done it. He’d paid his debt.<\/p>\n “Okay, little bird,” he whispered, shifting to stand and transfer her back to the incubator. “Watch is over. You’re safe now.”<\/p>\n But the universe rarely allows a quiet victory.<\/p>\n Just as he shifted his weight, the secure double doors of the NICU didn’t open \u2014 they were shoved violently apart, slamming the magnetic stops with a sound like a gunshot.<\/p>\n “Where is she?!” a voice shrieked, shattering the quiet.<\/p>\n I spun around. A young woman, no older than twenty-two, vibrated with frantic energy in the doorway. Tessa. The mother.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She looked terrible \u2014 hair matted, clothes filthy, eyes wide and darting with the paranoid intensity of someone strung out and cornered.<\/p>\n Two hospital security guards flanked her, out of breath, as if they’d chased her up the stairs.<\/p>\n “Ma’am, you can’t be in here without scrubbing in!” one guard said, reaching for her arm.<\/p>\n “Get your hands off me!” Tessa screamed, shoving him back with shocking strength. “Where is my baby? They told me you were trying to take her away! Where is she?!”<\/p>\n Her eyes swept the room, past the empty bed seven, and locked onto the corner \u2014 a giant, scarred man in tactical gear holding her child.<\/p>\n “What the hell is he doing with my baby?!” She charged across the linoleum, unpredictable, desperate, running on volatile adrenaline. Her hand dove into her pocket and closed around something metallic \u2014 keys, or maybe worse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Security, stop her!” I yelled, stepping forward, but she was too fast, bypassing me in a blind rage, making straight for the rocking chair.<\/p>\n Sarge didn’t panic. The weeping, grieving father vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by the seasoned combat veteran.<\/p>\n In one fluid, protective motion he turned away from the charging mother, laid the sleeping baby onto the sterile mattress of the incubator, and shielded her tiny body from the commotion.<\/p>\n Then he stood.<\/p>\n He didn’t take a fighting stance. He simply turned and put his six-foot-four frame directly between the volatile mother and the fragile incubator, widened his stance, crossed his scarred arms, and became an impenetrable human wall.<\/p>\n Tessa slammed into him, beating his chest with her fists, screaming. It was like watching a bird fly into a concrete pillar. He didn’t budge an inch. He didn’t raise a hand against her. He simply absorbed it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Give her back! You’re trying to steal her!” she sobbed, thrashing.<\/p>\n The guards rushed in, grabbing her arms, dragging her back. She fought them like a wildcat, screaming, her eyes fixed on Sarge.<\/p>\n “Look at me,” Sarge said. Not a yell \u2014 a deep, resonant command that cut through the hysteria like a foghorn.<\/p>\n Tessa stopped for a fraction of a second, breathing hard, staring up at him.<\/p>\n He stepped forward, ignoring the guards, keeping his body between her and the baby, and looked down at the young, broken mother. He didn’t look at her with the judgment I’d felt in my own heart. He looked at her with devastating empathy.<\/p>\n “Nobody is taking your daughter, Tessa,” he said quietly, holding her frantic gaze. “She’s been fighting a war all night. A war she inherited. I just sat with her in the trenches so she wouldn’t have to fight it alone.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tessa blinked, the manic energy draining from her face, replaced by a sudden, crushing exhaustion.<\/p>\n “She was crying,” Sarge went on, his voice softening, the gravel smoothing out. “She just needed someone to tell her she was going to be okay. You have a beautiful little girl. But she needs you to fight for her now. Not against us. For her.”<\/p>\n Tessa stared at him, chest heaving. She looked past his shoulder and caught a glimpse of her daughter, sleeping peacefully in the warm glow of the incubator, the monitors reading a steady green.<\/p>\n The fight went out of her completely. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed sobbing into the arms of the guards \u2014 not with rage now, but with the terrible guilt of a mother who knows she is failing.<\/p>\n “Take her down to social services,” I told the guards quietly. “Get her evaluated. Tell them she’s ready to talk.”<\/p>\n They led her away, the double doors sealing the quiet back into the unit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I turned back to Sarge. He leaned heavily against the wall, head tipped back, eyes closed, his shift over, the adrenaline burned out, a bone-deep exhaustion left in its place.<\/p>\n He reached up and traced the tarnished metal of the dog tag against his collarbone.<\/p>\n “You did good, Sarge,” I whispered, walking over. “You saved them both today.”<\/p>\n He opened his eyes and looked at the incubator. “She’s a fighter. She’ll make it.”<\/p>\n He stripped off the blue gown, his muscles groaning in protest, and turned to me with a stiff, respectful nod \u2014 the kind one soldier gives another after a long, brutal night on the line.<\/p>\n “Thank you, Sarah. For letting me finish the watch.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Anytime, Mr. Ransom,” I said, tears pricking my eyes. “Same time tomorrow?”<\/p>\n A small, genuine smile cracked through the silver of his beard. “Tomorrow. I’ll be here.”<\/p>\n He walked out of the unit, his heavy boots echoing softly down the hall, leaving behind a room that felt entirely different than it had twelve hours before.<\/p>\n He still walked with a limp, and his hands still trembled \u2014 but his shoulders were a little straighter, his head a little higher.<\/p>\n He had finally brought his daughter home from the war.<\/p>\n THE END.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A six-foot-four combat veteran with severe burn scars and trembling hands walked into our NICU. He didn’t look…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":828,"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions\/828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laptopsvilla.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chapter 2 \u2014 The Hold<\/h3>\n
Chapter 3 \u2014 Liability<\/h3>\n
Chapter 4 \u2014 Nora<\/h3>\n
Chapter 5 \u2014 The Mother<\/h3>\n
Chapter 6 \u2014 Home From the War<\/h3>\n