Chapter 16 - The Night One of My Babies Stopped Breathing
Noah had developed an infection.
Premature infants are vulnerable.
I knew that.
I had heard doctors say it.
Knowing something medically and seeing it happen to your child are different worlds.
His breathing worsened.
Antibiotics began.
He needed more respiratory support.
I stood beside his incubator feeling useless.
“Can I touch him?”
The nurse nodded.
I placed one finger against his hand.
“Mom’s here.”
His fingers didn’t close this time.
I began crying silently.
Dominic arrived twenty minutes later.
I hadn’t called him.
The nurse had.
He stood behind me.
“Don’t say anything,” I whispered.
“I won’t.”
For six hours, he didn’t.
He brought coffee I never drank.
Called Julia to cancel meetings.
Sat in the corner.
When my knees weakened, he helped me into a chair.
Nothing more.
At dawn, Noah’s numbers improved slightly.
Not enough.
But slightly.
The neonatologist explained the next twelve hours mattered.
I thought about every problem that had consumed me.
Arthur.
Thomas.
Vale.
Bradley.
Money.
The divorce.
They all seemed tiny beside the rise and fall of Noah’s chest.
At eleven that morning, Noah stopped breathing.
The monitor changed.
People moved.
I stood frozen.
A nurse guided me backward.
Doctors worked around him.
I heard words I didn’t understand.
Then I heard nothing.
My mind shut down.
I looked at Dominic.
His face had gone gray.
“Do something,” I said.
It was irrational.
He had built hotels.
Bought banks.
Moved entire companies.
Surely a man with that much power could make one tiny baby breathe.
“Do something.”
He came toward me.
“I can’t.”
I hit his chest once.
Not hard.
“I hate that answer.”
“I know.”
“I hate it.”
“I know.”
He held my shoulders as my knees gave out.
Then the monitor changed again.
A nurse turned.
“He’s back.”
I sobbed.
Noah breathed.
Assisted.
Weak.
But breathing.
The infection responded to treatment over the next twenty-four hours.
By the third day, doctors were cautiously optimistic.
I slept in a chair beside him.
When I woke, Dominic was still there.
“You stayed?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked toward Noah.
“Because I didn’t stay when Daniel needed me.”
My chest tightened.
“This isn’t punishment.”
“I know.”
“Then stop trying to pay a debt to a dead man through me.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“I’m not.”
“What are you doing?”
He smiled sadly.
“Trying to be your uncle.”
That broke something open inside me.
For weeks, Dominic had been billionaire.
Witness.
Family mystery.
My father’s brother.
But not uncle.
Not emotionally.
I reached for his hand.
“Okay.”
One word.
His eyes filled.
“Okay?”
“You can be my uncle.”
He laughed quietly.
“Very generous.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
He squeezed my hand.
Noah recovered.
Slowly.
Then quickly.
Ten days later, he came off oxygen.
Eli went home first.
I brought him to the apartment with three nurses giving me instructions I was sure I would forget.
The first night, I checked whether he was breathing every eleven minutes.
The second night, every fifteen.
By the fourth, I managed forty-five.
Dominic installed nothing without asking.
No security cameras.
No staff.
No drivers.
He had learned.
He simply left a number on the refrigerator.
Call if you need anything.
I called once.
At 1:20 a.m.
Not because I needed help.
Because Eli would not stop crying and I felt like a terrible mother.
Dominic answered immediately.
“What’s wrong?”
“He hates me.”
A pause.
“He’s six weeks old.”
“He’s been screaming for forty minutes.”
“Maybe he has excellent judgment.”
I laughed despite myself.
“You’re horrible.”
“Walk with him.”
“I am.”
“Sing.”
“I can’t sing.”
“Neither could Daniel. Didn’t stop him.”
I started humming.
Eventually Eli slept.
So did I.
Two weeks later, Noah came home.
I placed the twins beside each other in their bassinets.
For the first time since their birth, no monitors separated us.
No glass.
No wires.
Just my sons.
Alive.
Safe enough for today.
That night, I stood beneath the window and looked at the moon.
I thought of my father’s recording.
The moon follows because it likes you.
“Hi, Dad,” I whispered.
Then my phone rang.
Dominic.
His voice was strange.
“Rachel, I need to tell you something before the trial begins.”
“What?”
“It’s about your father.”
I closed my eyes.
“Another secret?”
May you like
“The last one.”
But I had learned by then that in my family, the last secret was usually the one that changed everything.
