Chapter 16 - The Waiting Room
The ensuing hours were a blur of flashing ambulance lights, screaming sirens, and the cold, sterile, terrifying environment of the hospital waiting room. Both girls were rushed into emergency, marathon surgeries. Sophie’s implant was dangerously fused with three vital nerve roots, and Hope’s antiquated system had entwined with nearly half her spinal column over fifteen years.
Elias and I sat in the waiting area, two exhausted fathers bonded by a shared, traumatic vigil. For hours, neither of us spoke, the silence heavy with the agonizing fear of what the surgeons might find. Eventually, Elias looked at me, his eyes bloodshot and weary. "What was her first word?" he asked softly, needing a piece of the daughter he had missed.
I smiled weakly, staring at the floor. "Light. Rebecca used to hold her by the nursery window. She pointed at the sun and said it." Elias nodded, a sad, beautiful smile gracing his scarred face. "Did she walk early?" I spent the next two hours detailing Sophie’s childhood—her fear of automatic toilets, her hatred of thunderstorms, her peculiar habit of eating only the white parts of strawberry ice cream. Elias listened as if I were handing him diamonds. "Thank you for telling me," he whispered. "I don't want to take your memories." I looked at him, realizing the absolute truth. "You cannot. And you don't have to. You'll make your own."
