Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 19 of 65

By the end of the week Elowen weighed four pounds twelve ounces. The nurse wrote the number on the whiteboard above the incubator and drew a small arrow pointing up. Violetta read it three times. Her daughter was one week old. The clinic hallway outside the NICU smelled like coffee and disinfectant, and every person who passed the curtained bay seemed to know her name. Her mother's post had spread further than any of them expected. Nurses said the whole town was pulling for Elowen. Cards came in bundles at the front desk. A grocery store sent a tray of sandwiches. Violetta kept her chair inside the bay and tried not to count the eyes. The trouble started at the two o'clock pump. A woman two bays over kept leaning past her own curtain to talk. She had a son on a feeding tube and a notebook on her lap. She asked if Violetta was the girl from the showcase. She asked what next year's dress would look like. She asked if Violetta had started sketching yet, and what fabric, and what color, and whether she would use the machine her family bought her. Violetta answered in short words and watched the bottles. The letdown came late. The output was down again. At the four o'clock pump the woman was back with her notebook open, ready with more questions. Violetta felt her jaw tighten and her milk stall. She looked at Elowen through the plastic wall and made a decision she could keep. She set the pump down, drew her curtain fully closed, and asked the nurse for a paper sign. The nurse brought tape and a marker. Violetta wrote three lines in block letters: Pumping. No visitors. No questions. She taped it to the outside of the curtain and pulled the fabric tight. At the next session the bay stayed quiet. Her output climbed back to the morning number. Jordie sat on the floor outside with his back against the wall and turned anyone away who slowed down. The showcase questions stopped at the curtain. Inside it, Violetta watched her daughter breathe and kept the schedule.