Chapter 2 Max #2
She plucked a snowflake from the box, one with silver sparkles and a hand-drawn smiley face, and taped it above the incubator, just out of reach of the infant but close enough to catch the light. “For him,” Max said. “A little early present.”
The mother managed a soft laugh. “Gracias.”
Max squeezed her shoulder, then moved on. There were other parents, other tiny people to check on. At every stop, she offered an update, a kind word, or, when possible, her best NICU jokes: “Did you know your kid’s O2 sat is higher than mine after I take the stairs to the cafeteria?”
Martha and Juliette kept pace, finishing their assignments with surprising attention to detail.
The place transformed under their hands: all monitors draped in tinsel, rails lined with sparkling blue and green, the dull plastic softened by bursts of color and, here and there, a goofy ornament.
The lights made the ceiling look lower, cozier, as if the whole unit had curled up for warmth.
Midway through the shift, Max commandeered the microwave and heated up packets of hot chocolate.
She poured it into the tiny paper cups the hospital used for mouthwash and passed them around—nurses first, then parents, who sipped gratefully and, for a few minutes, looked less like zombies and more like themselves.
The smell of chocolate tangled with the antiseptic tang of disinfectant, an odd but somehow soothing combination.
When the census was quiet and the babies all tucked in, Max allowed herself a moment at the window, looking out at the city blinking in the distance.
She thought about the things she could control and the things she couldn’t.
The first category was mostly small: decorations, cocoa, a gentle touch. The second was everything else.
Still, it mattered. Even if only for one night.
Martha appeared at her elbow, mug in hand. “You did good, Max.”
Max shrugged but couldn’t help the swell of pride. “It takes a village, a night shift village!”
They stood together in the hush, watching the unit glow with soft, improbable warmth.
For a second, Max let herself imagine that even Dr. Patel might crack a smile—or at least not call for a full decontamination sweep.
She didn’t know why she wanted her too, and she didn’t linger on the thought much longer to figure out why.
She caught her reflection in the glass: wild hair escaping from her messy bun, cocoa mustache, smiling freely and a little foolish.
There were worse ways to spend Christmas, and there had definitely been worse night shifts; in fact this one was gratefully steady.
She grabbed the stack of baby hats. Knitted donations, every color of the rainbow, and started delivering them down the line, one tiny head at a time. Every hat was different: stripes, polka dots, a lopsided pom-pom. She told each baby the same thing, under her breath, like a secret spell.
“Hang in there, kid.”
And for a little while, the whole place felt lighter, like maybe hope was a germ you could catch if you stood close enough and didn’t wash your hands.
Max was midway through taping a red paper heart to the edge of the dry erase board. When she heard Dr. Patel’s voice drift out from behind curtain three. Not the clipped, businesslike tone of “Rounds Patel,” but something unfamiliar: low, careful, as if she was coaxing a skittish cat out of hiding.
She glanced around. The nurses’ station was momentarily deserted, Juliette off on a stat call and Martha wrangling a pump in pod six. The unit was hushed, except for the shuffle of slippers and the steady beep of pulse-ox.
Max sidled closer, feet silent on the linoleum.
A part of the curtain revealed the profile of Asha, perched on the plastic visitor chair, a binder in her lap.
Facing her was Mr. Winters—the new dad, thin and unshaven, yesterday’s wristband still clinging to his arm.
In the isolette behind him, his daughter Emma slept under her radiant warmer, wires trailing from her impossibly small limbs.
Asha leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands loose and open. Max caught the tail end of a sentence: “No, you’re not bothering me at all.” Then, after a pause, “I know it’s a lot to take in. That’s why I’m here.”
The man made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “I keep thinking she’s just going to stop breathing if I turn away for a second.”
Asha nodded, slow and deliberate. “That’s not an unreasonable fear. But our monitors don’t sleep, and neither do we.” Her voice was quieter than Max had ever heard it. “I know you wish you could do more. But being here, just being here, is the best thing you can do for her.”
Max felt a prickle behind her eyes, surprised at how fiercely she wanted to believe it, too.
“I’m supposed to be the calm one,” Mr. Winters said, voice cracking.
“There’s nothing supposed to be here.” Asha’s hand, cautious, hovered before settling on his shoulder, a feather-light touch, but steady and reassuring.
“I can’t promise you what will happen. I wish I could.
But I can promise we’re doing everything possible for Emma.
And we won’t stop taking the best care we can for her. ”
There it was; the smallest wobble in the doctor’s tone. A leak of humanity, quick and dangerous. Max watched, frozen, a snowflake ornament clutched in her fist. Her heart skipped a beat as she watched the moment like a festive fly on the wall.
The man scrubbed his hands over his face. “Thank you, Doctor Patel. Really.” He looked at his sleeping daughter, then back at Asha, and for the first time since Max had met him, the terror had drained from his expression. He looked merely exhausted.
Asha squeezed his shoulder once, then stood. “If you need anything, you page the unit. Doesn’t matter what time.” She hesitated, then tucked a stray lock of hair back into her bun.
Mr. Winters just nodded, his eyes fixed on Emma.
Asha drew the curtain halfway closed, then turned and nearly collided with Max.
“Sorry,” Max said, at the exact moment Asha murmured, “Excuse me.”
For a second, neither moved. Max saw the faint crescent moons under Asha’s eyes, the strain at her temples. She also saw, in that instant, something softer: a yearning, maybe, or the ghost of old sadness.
Asha’s mask snapped back into place like a seatbelt. “Nurse Benson, is the IV for five ready?”
“On it,” Max said, a bit too fast. She held up the snowflake, unsure why. “I was just…” But she didn’t finish.
Asha’s gaze flicked from the ornament to Max’s face, and for a heartbeat she almost smiled. A real one, unpracticed, slightly uncertain. Then she looked away.
“Thank you,” Asha said, so quietly Max almost missed it. “For the… decorations.”
Max blinked. “Really?”
Asha nodded, once. “They help.”
Max wasn’t sure if she meant the babies or the parents or herself. Maybe all three.
She stood there a moment after Asha walked away.
She let herself remember the sound of Asha’s voice, the gentle way she’d spoken, the hand on the father’s shoulder.
Max had always thought of her as the frozen-hearted one, the polar opposite of everything Max prided herself on.
But now, for the first time, she wondered if maybe they weren’t opposites at all.
Just two different strategies for surviving the hardest nights.
She hung the snowflake above Emma’s isolette, then smoothed the curtain closed, giving the Winters family their small, private world.
Then, with her own smile, Max went back to her rounds, certain of at least one thing: she’d seen something tonight she wouldn’t forget.