My Husband Took My Fingerprint While I Was Sedated

I woke to the sharp, sterile smell of antiseptic. Bleach and alcohol mixing with something else I couldn’t quite place.

Grief, maybe. Loss has a smell, I think. Metallic and empty.

The fluorescent lights above my hospital bed felt cruelly bright. Too harsh. Too alive for a room where something had just died.

My body felt hollow. Not tired, not sore—just profoundly, devastatingly empty.

I didn’t need to ask the question. I already knew the answer before the nurse stepped into my line of vision.

Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her voice trembled when she finally spoke.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “We did everything we could.”

My baby was gone.

The words didn’t make sense at first. They floated in the air between continue reading …