A morning show played silently on the television mounted in the corner.
The subtitles talked about a spring salad recipe while Jordan’s six-year-old daughter lay under anesthesia behind double doors.
‘Mr. Williams?’ the nurse asked.
Jordan stood too quickly.
‘That’s me.’
‘Emma is doing well so far,’ she said.
‘The surgeon is repairing the ligament now.
It will still be a little while.’
He nodded, because nodding was easier than speaking.
Right arm reconstruction.
The phrase had sounded enormous from the first moment the surgeon said it.
Emma had fallen from the monkey bars at school and landed wrong.
The injury was not life-threatening, everyone kept reminding him.
Children healed quickly.
The procedure was routine.
Jordan wanted to believe every calm word they offered him, but routine did not matter when the child on the operating table was yours.
Before they took Emma back, she had pressed Marvin the giraffe into his hands and whispered, ‘Daddy, you’ll be here when I wake up, right?’
He had leaned close, touched his forehead to hers, and said, ‘I’ll be the first thing you see.’
He meant it.
