He Said the Baby Died. I Heard It Cry.
by Mira Lang
The doctor said my son never took a breath. Seventeen minutes later I heard him cry through the wall — and the nurse shut my door with her foot, without blinking.
At 3:48 in the morning my doctor stood in my doorway and said my son never took a breath. He said we did everything. He was not out of breath when he said it, and I have thought about that every day since. Seventeen minutes later I heard a baby crying through the wall to my left. Not down the hall. Through the wall. It cried, it stopped, it cried again — and a nurse came in, looked me in the eye without blinking, and pushed my door shut with her foot. I have been a court reporter for eight years. My whole job is what was said, in what order, at what time. So when my husband tells me the hallway ends at our room, and the doctor tells me it was the anesthetic, and my mother-in-law brings soup and a psychiatrist's card, I know exactly what is happening to me. They are not arguing with me. They are correcting the record. There is one thing none of them knows: the certificate says my son died at 4:12. Twenty-four minutes after a doctor told me he was already gone. So which one of them is going to explain that to me?
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