Chapter 3 - Seconds in the Snow
Graham sprinted across the asphalt, sliding slightly on a patch of black ice near the center line, but regaining his footing without losing momentum. Cars blew their horns in protest, but he paid them no mind. His world had shrunk to the tiny, motionless bundle in the little girl's arms.
“Hey! Stop!” Graham shouted as he closed the distance.
The little girl flinched, pulling the baby closer to her chest as if expecting to be struck or pushed away. Tears had frozen into icy tracks on her dirty cheeks.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Graham said, dropping to one knee in the dirty snow right in front of her. The ice soaked instantly through his trousers, but he didn't feel it. “Let me see him. Let me help.”
“He’s not breathing, mister!” she wailed, her entire frame shaking violently. “Toby stopped breathing! He’s so cold!”
“Give him to me,” Graham said, his tone shifting from panicked to a firm, calm authority he didn't know he still possessed. “Trust me, sweetheart. Hand him to me.”
Reluctantly, her small, frozen hands surrendered the weight of the child.
The baby was terrifyingly light, like a bundle of hollow twigs wrapped in cloth. His skin was freezing to the touch. Graham immediately pulled the child against his own chest, using his expensive wool coat to block the biting wind. He placed two fingers on the baby’s tiny neck, searching for a pulse while checking his airway.
Nothing. No rise of the chest, no pulse under the icy skin.
Not again, a voice inside Graham’s head screamed. Not another child. Not in the snow.
“Call 911!” Graham roared at a bystander who had stopped on the sidewalk to watch. A woman holding a paper coffee cup froze, her phone already in her hand. “Now! Tell them we have an infant in full respiratory arrest at Maple and Third!”
The woman snapped out of her trance and frantically began tapping her screen.
Graham laid the baby flat across his knee, protecting him from the snow. He gently tilted the child’s head back to open the airway. With his pinky finger, he cleared a tiny blockage of mucus from the baby’s mouth. Then, covering both the baby’s mouth and nose with his own, he delivered two soft, gentle puffs of air.
The baby’s tiny chest expanded slightly, then collapsed again.
Graham placed two fingers on the center of the child’s sternum and began rhythmic, careful chest compressions. One, two, three, four, five...
“Toby! Toby, please!” the little girl wept, dropping her candy box into the slush. Chocolate bars spilled into the yellowed snow, forgotten. She grabbed the edge of Graham’s coat, her fingers locking into the fabric like steel talons. “Don’t let him die! Please don’t let him go!”
“I’m not letting him go,” Graham grit out between breaths.
He gave two more gentle puffs of air into the baby’s lungs. One, two, three, four, five...
Around them, a small crowd was beginning to gather. Traffic had come to a complete standstill. The hum of idling engines filled the air, but to Graham, the world was entirely silent except for the frantic beat of his own heart and the harsh sound of his own breathing.
Come on, kid, Graham prayed silently, a desperate plea to whatever universe had taken his wife and unborn child two years ago. Not today. Not this one. Give him back.
He performed another cycle of CPR. The cold bit into his fingers, numbing his hands, but he pushed through the stiffness, maintaining the delicate rhythm required for a baby so small.
On the third cycle, as he delivered another puff of air, he felt a faint, fluttering sensation beneath his fingers.
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A tiny, choked cough echoed from the baby’s throat.
The child twitched. Then, with a sudden, raspy gasp, the baby shuddered violently and began to cry—a weak, high-pitched, pitiful sound, but to Graham’s ears, it was the most beautiful music ever composed.
