A cold prickle of dread crawled up the back of my neck. I abandoned the shopping bags and moved toward the staircase, taking the steps two at a time, my rubber-soled shoes making no sound against the carpet.
The upstairs hallway was dim, the curtains drawn tight against the Kansas sun. The door to our master bedroom was pushed open about six inches.
From inside came a sound that instantly froze the blood in my veins. It wasn't the healthy, lusty cry of a newborn baby. It was a weak, breathless wheeze—a tiny, mechanical gasping that sounded entirely wrong, followed by the faint, agonizingly slow rustle of bedsheets.
I pushed the bedroom door open the rest of the way and stepped inside.
The sight that met my eyes tore the breath right out of my lungs.
Hannah was sprawled across the edge of the king-sized mattress, her face chalk-white and slick with cold sweat. Her eyes were half-closed, glassy and unfocused, staring blankly toward the floor. Her hospital gown was damp and twisted around her torso, stained with what looked like days-old formula and dried sweat.
Just a few feet away, lying dangerously close to the edge of the mattress on a hastily folded towel, was our newborn son, Owen. His tiny face was mottled purple and red, his mouth wide open in a silent scream that lacked the air to become a proper cry. His little chest was heaving in desperate, shallow spasms, fighting for oxygen in a room that felt thick and suffocating.