Chapter 2 - THE SILENT CRAWL ACROSS THE CARPET
When my legs finally held, I took eight careful steps to my daughter, each one feeling like stepping onto lake ice in February. I picked her up, rooted against my shirt, warm and angry and alive, and swayed because babies like swaying, while my body screamed because bodies with compressed nerves do not. Marco slept through all of it. Later that afternoon, I called my mother, Elena Reyes, who had spent forty-one years as a nurse before retiring. When I described the radiation, weakness, and numbness in both feet, my mother’s voice changed completely and she told me to go straight to the hospital.
When I hesitated because Marco thought I was overacting, my mother said very slowly, “I did not ask what Marco thinks.” That sentence stayed with me, though I still didn't call the doctor that day out of fear of Marco's little half-smile and shrug if the hospital found nothing. That night, my legs gave out again, and I hit the carpet hard enough to knock the breath out of myself. Sophia woke and started crying. “Baby,” I said, hating how small my voice sounded. “Please. It hurts.” Marco glanced over from watching basketball highlights on the couch and said, “You’re doing it again.” So I crawled across my own living-room carpet toward my daughter, one forearm, one knee, then the other, with my back on fire and face wet while the electric fan clicked in the corner. I reached the bassinet, lifted Sophia against my chest, and hummed through clenched teeth while Marco never moved.
