The Truth Behind a Smile

Nurses helped him lift Ana’s body out of the car and onto a gurney.

They rushed Ana inside while Stephen followed closely behind. As they approached a pair of double doors, the nurses shouted at Stephen, telling him he could not go beyond that point. Stephen tried to make his way through the doors anyway but was quickly stopped by the colossal men who guarded the entrance.

“Ana!” Stephen screeched as he saw her lifeless hand fall beside the gurney and vanished from his sight. He fought against the guards until he lost all his strength and collapsed against one of them, who gently placed him on the tiled hospital floor. He squatted down beside Stephen and put a consoling hand on his back while Stephen wept.

“I know, buddy,” the guard said. “It’s scary to see someone you care about in a state like that, but we’ve got the best doctors around. They’ll do everything they can for her and your baby, so take a few deep breaths, and when you’re ready, we’ll get up and put you in a chair. It’ll be a little more comfortable for you, and we can’t block the doors like this. I mean, it’s an emergency room, right?”

Stephen sniffled and nodded without looking the guard in the eye. Grabbing one forearm and putting his other hand around Stephen’s back, he helped Stephen to his feet. Then he walked him over to an empty seat in the back of the emergency room’s waiting area and sat him down.

“Do you want something to drink, maybe some water?” the guard asked. “How about something to eat?”

Stephen stared blankly at the ground in front of him.

The guard looked at his partner and tipped his head toward the cafeteria. “Can you get him some water?”

His partner, a much younger guard, nodded in reply and disappeared behind a door.

“You mind if I sit next to you?” The guard pointing at an empty seat.

The guard took Stephen’s lack of response as an invitation and sat down, letting out a small grunt. He looked around the room as though making sure everything was okay. Then he looked at Stephen.

Hunched over, with both elbows resting on his knees, Stephen peered into the pale-yellow abyss of the tiled floor.

“I know what’s running through your mind right now,” the guard said.

Stephen turned his head, staring the guard in the eyes for a few seconds and saw the speckled gray hairs that decorated the top of the guard’s head. He was clean shaven, which allowed the thick skin littered with wrinkles across his face to show. Stephen looked into the guard’s dark but kind eyes and scoffed to himself before returning to his previous position.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking, trust me. You feel like a failure right about now, don’t you? You think that you failed as not only a husband and a father, but most of all you feel like you failed at being a man and protecting those you hold closest to your heart.”

The veins on Stephen’s hands and arms began to pop, and he clenched his jaw he could feel the muscles on the sides of his head standing out.

“Well, you’re not son.”

Stephen felt strange. He didn’t know whether it was because the guard had called him son or if it was because it was the first time in his life that someone had told him he wasn’t a failure. The tension holding his body rigid began to ease.

“I doubt there’s anything you could have done to prevent whatever is going on right now in that operating room. Not even the doctors knew that this would happen, or they would have confined her to the hospital until she gave birth. This is just one of those times in life that’s purely horrifying, and you just have to fight through it. Once it’s over and you’re on the other side, you’ll be a better man for it. God has a plan, and his plan may seem awful—the cruelest thing imaginable sometimes—but eventually things will right themselves, and you’ll be on the other side of the storm.” The guard took a deep breath and leaning to the side of his chair.

“My wife and I … we, umm, we lost out baby boy a while back. Some pervert out there, he took him one day in the park when he was out playing with his friends. We didn’t know anything was wrong until it was dark, out and he still hadn’t come home. He always came home before dark, especially because of how scared of the dark he was. We had no idea where he was and called all his friends’ houses, checked every park in town, and had a whole bunch of people out there looking for him. I’ll tell you right now we never gave up faith that we’d find him …”

Stephen couldn’t remember any more of the man’s story because he’d stopped listening.

He didn’t consciously ignore the guard or do it out of a lack of compassion or because of the tragedy the man had faced. Rather, Stephen’s thoughts became so loud and cluttered he was unable to hear anything but a static hiss that grew louder as time slowly passed.

Even though he could no longer hear the words the guard was saying, every now and then Stephen somehow discerned a change in tone or a sharp intake of breath. It was almost an animalistic instinct, only being able to hear the piercing sounds of breathing and of something in distress, something like that of a predator on the hunt.

Stephen tried to collect his thoughts, reset his perception, but could only hear the fizz of mental static. He had no recollection of time or any of the events that took place while he was imprisoned in that catatonic state. He could only describe the experience as a moment in which it felt as if time had slowed—the seconds felt like hours, and minutes felt like days—but when he thought back to that moment, he remembered it as only a blip that had most likely lasted only a few minutes.

Stephen was eventually brought out of his catatonic state by a nurse who nudged his shoulder after what he presumed where a few failed attempts at calling to him. It wasn’t until the guard had given a hefty shove with his forearm that Stephen was able to fully come back. He snapped out of his stupor and looked at the nurse with wide eyes.

“Mr. Clark? I have some good news,” she said gently.

Stephen looked around, reassessing his location, and adjusting himself in the chair. He nodded to the nurse to go on.

“We delivered the baby and she’s perfectly fine and healthy. We’re finishing up some tests and cleaning her up now, but we’ll be moving her to the nursery soon. Unless that is, you would like to meet her first?”

“She?” Stephen asked.

The nurse smiled warmly and nodded.