Chosen by Chandra Hoffman Page B

boots thumping the floor, rubbing his face with his hands. The dragon claws on the backs of his hands dance as his veins roll.
    “Of course they do. They’ve wanted a baby for years.”
    “Yeah, but you think they want this kid? A kid of some dumbass broke ex-con and his girl?”
    “Jason,” Chloe says gently; her heart aches for them.
    “What if it grows up to be like me? My own blood dad liked to beat the shit outta me; I tried him so much. My own ma—”
    “They have a lot to give a baby.”
    “Yeah. That’s why we picked ’em. Figured at least with money, he’d have a chance. I hope you know this is hard—it’s not like I don’t want it. And Penny, you have no idea…” He doesn’t finish.
    “They have a lot of love too. They want this baby.” Chloe is leaning forward. She can see the whole adoption as if she’s lying on her back watching clouds on a windy day. This is the moment when it all becomes clear—“Oh, yeah, I do see a dolphin!”—or when the whole shape dissipates, turns into wispy streaks of white against blue.
    “Yeah?” There is an animal wail from the room behind them. Jason jumps to his feet, the moment broken. “Then why the fuck ain’t they here?” And then he slams into the room, Chloe standing uncertainly, before she decides not to follow.
    Surly Nurse bustles out on her way to the nurses’ station, fixes her beady eyes on Chloe.
    “The baby’s heart rate is dropping,” she says, as though this is Chloe’s fault. “Dr. Andrew’s going to do a C. The dad’s changing into scrubs now.”
    “Okay.” Chloe checks her watch, reaches for her phone. “Thank you.”
    In the end, Chloe doesn’t call the McAdoos. She could, could tell them hurry, it’s time, jump in the car, but she knows they will miss it anyway. She waits because there might not be anything to miss. Chloe has seen so many adoptions disintegrate in those fateful seconds when the baby’s first wails fill the room. If it is bad news, she can let them sleep, at least, before calling.
    The minutes pass.
    Then Jason is standing in front of her, mashing the paper mask and hat between his huge hands, and Chloe knows, just by the defeated way his shoulders sit on his body, the adoption will go through. Thank god .
    “That them?” He nods at the phone in her lap.
    “Pardon?”
    “Did you call them?”
    “They’re on their way,” she lies.
    “Okay.” He sighs, stumbles to sit down next to her, yanks the booties off his feet. “He’s here.”

13
No
JASON
    J ason is sitting with his Pen afterward, waiting for her to wake up, her snores as steady as the tide, about to put him to sleep too, if he weren’t so agitated, right foot jiggling. He rifles around the tray beside her bed, finds the foil-wrapped ibuprofen they left for when she woke, rips it open and gulps them down dry. His back is twanging, a looping rhythm of pain like a kiddie train set, down his back to his hip to his leg to his heel and back again clackety-clack. Forty minutes ago, he saw a doc up to his elbows in his girl’s guts, lift out something bloody and purple, yowling, and he had closed his eyes like Penny’s, let his head sink to the white sheet beside hers, the hiss of the air hose running into her mouth drowning out his son’s first cries.
    It’s done. He doesn’t want to see him, wants it to be over, never thought the plaster shoebox back in Southeast would feel like home, but he can’t wait to get out of here, with the jittery lights and bossy women and Blondie and Chloe and the just-born son he will never know. As soon as she’s better, he thinks, they’re leaving this frozen city of bridges and buses and rain and fog. Mexico.
    Then the nurse rolls in with a trolley, and inside it, Jesus, it’s right here, he jumps up, backing toward the corner. In a white bundle of blankets, his son.
    “Get out!” he yells, and Fatty gives him a raised eyebrow look, like Don’t you yell at me, you’re in my world, mister.
    Jason