“Yes,” I said, my voice sounding thin and foreign in the sterile hallway. “David Vance. What is happening to her?”
He looked down at his electronic clipboard, then back up at me with a hard, appraising stare that made me feel entirely transparent.
“She has a severe systemic infection at the site of her C-section, and her electrolyte levels are dangerously low,” he said.
I rubbed my wedding ring again, my boots sliding slightly on the highly polished linoleum floor.
“She was recovering at home,” I said. “My mother was staying with her to help with the meals and the newborn.”
Dr. Vance let out a short, sharp breath that was not quite a laugh, his fingers tapping the edge of the clipboard.
“Your wife is severely malnourished, Mr. Vance, and she has been running a fever of over a hundred and three for at least forty-eight hours.”
I looked toward the gap in the beige curtain, where a red monitor light blinked in the dimness of the cubicle.
