Those three minutes stretched like taffy.
I checked the time. Checked it again. My heart kept trying to climb into my throat. My palms were slick with sweat, but the sweat didn’t feel like heat— it felt like fear.
When the taxi finally pulled in, I yanked the door open so hard the driver flinched.
“Mercy General,” I said, voice tight. “My daughter’s there.”
He nodded, unbothered in the way only strangers can be when your world is on fire. “Traffic’s heavy today.”
Of course it was. Of course the city chose today to be itself.
We crawled through streets that seemed designed to punish urgency. Red lights stacked up ahead of us like a wall of denial. A bus pulled out in front of us, lumbering. A delivery truck double-parked. A cyclist darted between cars with the confidence of someone who didn’t have a child in a hospital.
I kept calling my mother. No answer.
My father. Nothing.
Amanda. Ringing. Ringing. Ringing.
I stared out the window at the brightness of the day, the cruel normalcy. People walked with iced drinks. Someone stood outside a café laughing. A dog trotted along a sidewalk, tongue out, happy.