You climb over the railing. It’s difficult with Caroline in the carrier. You move slowly and take deep, steadying breaths. You place your feet between two rails and hold on like you’re scaling the building. You’re trembling and realize that you’re not going to be able to turn around to face forward. You’re going to have to do this backwards.
One at a time, you let your feet go. You’re dangling from the fire escape now. You hear someone shouting from below. Then more voices. This is the last moment to change your mind. You could still swing a foot up sideways, get some leverage, pull your body over the railing. But Caroline is strapped to your chest. She’d be pressed between you and the railing. Maybe you could do it without hurting her. But then you imagine yourself back up on the fire escape, that much farther from freedom, having to provide an explanation to whoever is watching you now, and you feel wild with fear. This world doesn’t deserve Caroline. She can leave without knowing its pain, in the arms of her mother—the only person who will ever love her enough to save her. You’re able to lower your face to kiss the top of her head, take a deep breath of her, even though your hands are starting to slip and you’re now gripping the railing with just the ends of your fingers and it’s actually quite surprising that they’re able to hold this much weight, even for a moment. You let go.
Shapes and colors blend with the light. An unstoppable falling, your last moment as you. You close your eyes and inhale, and before you reach the top of the breath, hot searing pain spikes through your heels up to your hips. Your knees buckle the wrong way. You hear Caroline’s shattering cry, and then nothing.
*
Damp warmth and the smell of ammonia are the first things to enter your consciousness when you wake up in Lenox Hill Hospital four days later. Something sharp and horrific swirls in your chest, but you can’t quite grasp it. Information moves through your body that hasn’t reached your brain yet. Your shoulders rise and everything above your waist, everything you can feel, seizes up. You scream, which summons a nurse from the hallway.
She checks the monitors and your vitals. When you ask where your baby is, her nostrils flare. This woman is angry with you. Several people come in and out of the room. Some talk to you, some do not. You’re told that you hit the ground feet first, shattering most of the bones in your legs, which you realize you already knew—even in the strange sleep you’ve been in, you’ve understood that something is very wrong with your legs. Then you’re told what you don’t know. After the impact, you fell backwards, with Caroline on top of you, snug in the carrier. She’s fine.