And he said — I’ve reconstructed this a thousand times, with a lawyer, with a therapist, with a hospital administrator, so I’m confident about the words —
He said, “Naomi, she’s very small. They said she might not make it.”
And I heard: she didn’t make it.
I want you to understand something about that room. I was nineteen hours into labor, three hours out of surgery, on magnesium and a morphine pump, and I had lost enough blood to kill a person. I could not hold my own hand up.
I heard four words instead of five.
And I screamed.
I don’t remember screaming. Grant remembers it, and a nurse named Bettina remembers it, and my mother, who came running from the family lounge, remembers it. Apparently I screamed until my throat gave out and then I made a sound that wasn’t screaming anymore.
And Grant held onto me and said, over and over, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”
