Lauren held his gaze. “She asked that no personal information be released to you beyond what hospital policy requires.”
Mark blinked. “What?”
“She amended her contact permissions before discharge.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
“She was barely conscious.”
“She was conscious when she signed the paperwork.”
Something about the word signed made his face burn.
Paperwork.
Emily signing alone.
The consent form.
The phone calls.
The dark screen in his jacket pocket while Madison leaned close and whispered, Today is about us.
Mark turned away, pressing his hand against the wall. For a moment, he thought he might be sick.
“I need to see my children,” he said.
Lauren’s eyes softened, though her voice remained firm. “You need to speak with NICU administration.”
“They’re my children.”
“Yes,” she said. “And they are patients. There are protocols.”
“Are they alive?”
The question broke out of him before he could stop it.
The hallway quieted inside his mind.
Lauren did not answer immediately, and in that pause Mark heard the memory of fetal monitors screaming.
Finally, she said, “You need to speak with Dr. Patel.”
Mark stared at her.
The refusal told him nothing.
And somehow it told him everything.
Dr. Naomi Patel met him twenty minutes later in a small consultation room with pale walls and two boxes of tissues on the table.
Mark hated the tissues immediately.
He sat down but could not stay still. His knees bounced. His phone lay faceup on the table, silent now, as if all urgency had expired while he was gone.
Dr. Patel entered with a folder pressed to her chest.
She looked exhausted.
Not ordinary tired. Not end-of-shift tired. The kind of tired that settled behind the eyes after fighting hard for someone else’s future.
“Mr. Carter,” she said.
“Where are they?”
She closed the door.
“Before we discuss anything, I need to confirm your identity and legal status. Your wife changed certain permissions after delivery.”
“My wife was angry.”
Dr. Patel sat across from him.
“She was also recovering from major surgery, severe blood loss, and the premature delivery of three infants.”
The words landed one after another.
Major surgery.
Severe blood loss.
Premature.
Three infants.
Mark swallowed.
“I didn’t know it was that serious.”
Dr. Patel’s face did not move.
“We called you repeatedly.”
“My phone died.”
The lie sounded small in the sterile room.
Dr. Patel looked down at the folder, then back up.
“Your phone went straight to voicemail after several unanswered calls.”
Mark opened his mouth, then closed it.
Madison’s perfume still clung faintly to his sleeve.
He folded his arms, trying to hide the scent from the air itself.
“How is Emily?” he asked.
“She survived.”
The simplicity of the answer frightened him more than any dramatic explanation could have.
“And the babies?”
Dr. Patel breathed in.
“Grace and Lily are stable.”
Mark gripped the edge of the table.
Grace.
Lily.
Names he had not known.
“And Baby C?”
