Even now, if I hear a monitor beep the wrong way in a movie or a grocery store scanner stutter out a sharp electronic tone, my body remembers before my mind does.
It remembers the sound that came just before the code alarm.
It remembers the look on the nurse’s face.
It remembers my husband, Noah, standing so fast his chair hit the tile and toppled backward.
And it remembers the moment the pediatric resident came into my room, saw me still half-drugged and bleeding and smiling weakly over a paper cup of ice chips, and said, “Mrs. Carter, I need you to come with us right now.”
Nothing good has ever begun with that sentence.
My daughter’s name was Wren.
Continue on the next page:
