"In a sense. There are different options, and the team will decide based on what her body needs and what will be safest for her. One possibility is a system that circulates blood outside the body and returns it after adding oxygen. It can take over some of the work her heart and lungs are struggling to do."
"Does that mean her heart is stopping?"
"It means we're concerned it may not be able to keep up without more help. We're trying to act before the situation becomes harder to control."
Jack looked down at the rough skin on his hands. The lines around his knuckles were packed with old marks from tools, cuts, and winters in an unheated workshop. He could repair nearly anything that had a motor, but he had no idea how to help a heart smaller than his fist. "What happens if it doesn't recover?" he asked.
Claire did not look away. "Then we'll talk about what longer-term support might mean and whether Lily needs to be evaluated for a transplant. But we're not at that decision tonight. Right now, our job is to keep her organs getting the blood and oxygen they need, and to give her the best chance to heal."
Jack swallowed. "Are you telling me she could die?"
The silence in the room became very still. Claire leaned forward, her own exhaustion forgotten, and answered him with the respect she should have offered at the bus shelter. "Yes, Jack. She could. I wish that weren't true, and I'm not saying it because I've given up on her. I'm saying it because you deserve the truth, and because I want us to make the next decisions together."
He nodded slowly, taking the words into himself without allowing them to reach his face. Then he asked a question that Claire would remember for years. "When she wakes up and asks if I was scared, what should I tell her?"
Claire's eyes softened. "Tell her you were scared," she said. "And that you stayed."
For the first time that night, Jack sat down. His shoulders folded forward, and he pressed both hands over his face. He did not sob or make a sound. He simply remained that way while the heating system whispered through the vent and somebody pushed a cart past the door.
Claire sat opposite him. She did not reach for the tissues or fill the silence with a speech about hope. She had learned that frightened parents often remembered a doctor's unnecessary promises more painfully than they remembered bad news. When Jack finally lowered his hands, his eyes were red but steady.
"Can I see her now?"
"Yes," Claire replied. "And I can go with you."
On the short walk back to bed twelve, Jack stopped at the nurses' station to ask if Lily had been given the stuffed rabbit he brought from home. The nurse checked the shelf beside the bed and assured him Commander Flops was in place. Jack thanked her, then asked if the young father in the neighboring room had managed to reach his wife, who had been driving through the snow from Milwaukee. Claire listened as he remembered someone else's fear in the middle of his own.