Halfway to forever by Karen Kingsbury

A nurse came up beside her and gave her a shot of something,
and in less than a minute, the woman calmed down. Doctors took
her pulse and checked her heart, rattling off numbers as they
worked. "Ma'am, what did you take this morning?"
Hannah wrapped the baby in the clean blanket and held him
against her heart. Then she positioned herself so she could see the
woman. Hannah's stomach turned at the way the woman's bones
stuck out, as though they were trying to break free from her skin.
Hannah had never seen anyone so thin.
"I...didn't take nothin' until... until after the baby was bbborn."
She was shaking now, her limbs lurching beneath the
sheets. "Don't let me d-d-die ...I didn't mean to do it. Please! Don't
let me die."
A doctor moved, and Hannah got a better look at the woman's
face. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat. It wasn't
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woman at all, but a girl. A young girl no more than sixteen, seventeen years old. She was so frail and
damaged by whatever drugs she'd been taking that her posture, her eyes looked forty years old. But there
was no mistaking the youthful skin and hair.
The doctor leaned over her and yelled near her face. "Ma'am, we need to know what you took! Tell us
what you took this morning." The girl's eyes were still open, but she didn't respond. Gradually her legs
and arms lay still.
"We've lost her pulse!" A doctor on the other side of the bed tore back the sheet and began performing
CPR.
Hannah's eyes filled, and the infant in her arms began to squirm and cry. Soundlessly Hannah swayed the
baby back and forth and cuddled her face against his.
Meanwhile, another doctor slapped paddles on the girl's chest and gave a signal. Her body convulsed
grotesquely up and off the bed and then settled back down in what looked like a heap of brittle bones. "It's
not working!" The doctor's voice was grim. "Again!"
Hannah's heart raced and she shook her head, backing away from the room with quick steps. The baby's
mother was dying before her eyes. She had to get out of there before she was sick to her stomach. She
hurried to the nurses station, and the woman behind the desk handed Hannah a bottle. "Poor little guy," the
woman whispered.
There was nothing Hannah could say She took the bottle, carried the baby down the hall into a private
examination room, and closed the door. In the quiet of the small room, for the first time, Hannah studied
the baby's face. He was beautiful. Big blue eyes, and lips that formed a perfect rosebud mouth. He sucked
his fingers, hungry and threatening to cry again.
"There, baby, it's okay." Hannah put the bottle near his mouth and he found it, latching on with practiced
skill. "You're all right, honey. You're safe now."
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He stretched his baby hand out and Hannah placed her finger against one of his palms. With a strength that
took her by surprise, the baby gripped her finger and held on.
In all her days volunteering at the hospital, she'd never done
this, never held a baby while his mother clung to life in the next
room. Her pulse quickened, her thoughts anxious and scattered.