Kalila by Rosemary Nixon

path, the idea formulates.
    Because a photon responds to a momentum experiment doesn’t mean it has momentum. To these doctors, she will never be greater than the sum of her parts.
    Hope opens like the glimpse of a surprise zipper in the folds of a pleated skirt. Hope, a lid screwed off a jar. A lid pitched off a box.
    Brodie paces, wind pulling his hair. If a person desires certainty he has to create it himself. We’ll create her future, Maggie! Brodie’s face shines boyish, lines etched round his eyes these last few months erasing. The idea expands like light, rushing ahead. It will take concentration. It will take belief.
    We have to believe the things that matter are going to survive .
    Two wheels spin in two chests.
    There is one choice.
    Take Charge.

You make your way, Mr. and Mrs. Solantz, into the small and stuffy side room. Maggie has the glow that luminesced her pregnancy, a fairy story blossoming within.
    The doctors wait in a semicircle. One you’ve never seen. Mr. and Mrs. Solantz have requested this meeting. Highly irregular. Fingers tap. These are busy men. The clock reads 1:03.
    Dr. Vanioc offers Maggie a chair, then you. Whatever the doctor puts in his hair, it holds its form. You sit. The doctors stand. The meeting begins.
    Introductions. The new one’s Dr. Fezner, the kidney specialist.
    Yes, there are problems at the hospital, as at all hospitals, as in all institutions, Dr. Vanioc says.
    True, no one is coordinating, the doctors nod, solicitous.
    We’re working in the direction of changing that, Dr. Byars says.
    You feel those extra cups of morning coffee swooshing to your heart. Maggie slides forward on her chair. We can’t tell if she’s getting better here. If we could have some kind of guarantee that she’s not fallen between bureaucratic cracks.
    Mrs. Solantz, we can’t just …
    Watson.
    You clamp Maggie’s hand. We simply cannot go on knowing there is nothing being done.
    A pause. There is a lot of breathing.
    The doctors confer: they feel bad about the situation. Yes, they’re still attempting to find out what’s wrong with the baby. She’s not an easy case. No, they aren’t just letting her vegetate.
    Dr. Showalter glances at his watch. Well, we’re here if you want to talk. You can always catch us individually.
    We prefer not to push parents, chimes eager Dr. Fezner.
    We wish we could tell you we could change this and this and this, says Dr. Summers.
    Maggie stands. Her chair scrapes the brown linoleum. You rise with her. We want to take our daughter home.
    A shocked and fragile silence trails on a fine silk thread. The doctors shift their eyes onto one another. All come to rest on you. They’re men. They want you to acknowledge common ground. Separate yourself from your emotional wife.
    This may not be the time, Dr. Vanioc says after a bit of throat clearing.
    Oh, Lord. You got the time wrong.
    Maggie squeezes against you, hair smelling of vanilla. We’ve talked this over. We’ve thought it through. We want to take her home.
    More glances exchange.
    It’s just, we don’t have the whole picture — Mr. Solantz — it may not be in the best interest —
    Mistakes have been made, Dr. Vanioc takes over, carefully confident. Leaning on the passive tense. A position is needed. Dr. Summers spoke to Dr. Sinclair about the heart. There was a medical decision made not to operate.
    And we weren’t told?
    It went back to the committee.
    So many experts, working in isolation. Lungs. Kidney. Bones. Heart. Sinew. Pieces of baby.
    What will be the next step to take her home?
    Dr. Vanioc clears his throat. This is highly unprecedented — You should give it more thought. Only babies —
    We have. That’s why you’re here.
    How could I force the referring pediatrician to come in? Dr. Sinclair says with sudden and irrelevant intensity.
    Everyone looks at him. You picture particles dissolving into