This girl, born too soon and tiny, purplish in hue, breaks their hearts. Her name is Jayce, with a long “e.” The couple is Paul and Joanne. Here in the NICU it is night, and they can see their weary reflections in the plate glass. Jayce is in an incubator with tubes keeping her alive, the soft whispers of the ventilator.

Joanne says to Paul, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Paul shrugs. He hasn’t slept in two days. “Just saying a little prayer.”

Joanne laughs softly. “Since when do you pray?”

“Since now.”

“I like it. Hold my hand and squeeze.”

He does this. They sleep fitfully in their recliners under blankets.

During the night Jayce requires more and more oxygen. Her lungs stiffen and the ventilator needs to use more pressure. Joanne wakes up, sensing danger. “What’s going on?”

“We need to give surfactant. It’s a liquid given down the breathing tube. It makes the little air sacs expand more easily.”

Joanne pokes Paul. “Did you hear that?”

“Huh?” He takes a Polaroid.

“They’re giving some medicine down the tube to help her lungs.”

“Okay, sure.”

Sometimes his lack of emotion angers her. For good or bad news his reaction is cool. When Jayce was delivered limp and almost black he hadn’t held his wife’s hand. He scratched his chin thoughtfully as his daughter was resuscitated. Rounded shoulders, arms hanging, he felt guilt. Early in the pregnancy he’d had an affair with one of his students. He’d paid for breast implants, and then she’d broken it off.

The stuff looks like vanilla shake. Half is squirted in as she is turned on her right side, then the other half on her left side. Then it’s just time to wait. On the ceiling twirl twenty colored mobiles.

Sometimes this student texts him. A high risk. She knows he’s having a baby. She is glad, says she’s happy. He doesn’t block her for some reason. He lets her through. He doesn’t respond, but considers it his punishment, this…

Jayce is not getting any better. In a couple hours she gets more surfactant, but hours after that her oxygen doesn’t come up. The neonatologist says it’s time they face a decision. One option is a new procedure called ECMO. She would have to be sent to the medical center for that. It is sort of like dialysis but the machine takes the place of the lungs, enabling gas exchange.

It takes hours to arrange a copter, another hour before they can see her. Her blood leaves her belly button, passes through the membranes of the machine which gives oxygen and removes carbon dioxide, then passes back through another tiny tiny umbilical catheter. Paul marvels, takes pictures, lets a tiny prayer dribble off his lips: Forgive me, for I have sinned.

This goes on, Paul blaming himself, the baby limp, until some doctors say it’s time to quit; there are signs she’s had a stroke. Her pupils do not react. Joanne sobs. Paul nods his head and she screams at him to just cut it out.

The baby is cleaned up, stripped of her tube, and presented to Joanne. As she holds her Paul takes another Polaroid and she says, in a measured tone, “Fuck you.”

In the months to come she is plunged into a deep depression. She starts to drink. She refuses sex. Paul walks the streets. He has taken up smoking. In the basement he smokes weed. One winter day the snow covers his shoulders, the wind whips his face. He walks into the CVS and buys a photo album.

In the basement he slips the Polaroids into the book. His hands shake. He’ll keep it down here. On the front in marker he writes: Jayce’s Book. He starts at the beginning and labels. When he’s done he reads it to himself.