She looked at me.
“Room 214.”
I felt something cold go through me.
“It wasn’t a real patient room back then,” Grandma said. “It used to be a storage room. They’d turned it into a little private room for… well, for the girls who weren’t supposed to be seen. I’ll tell you about that later. It had a bed and a chair and a sink. And four blank walls. No windows. Just white walls. And a light in the ceiling that buzzed.”
Her voice dropped very low.
“My baby girl was born at 11:42 that night. She was stillborn.”
“Oh, Grandma,” I whispered.
“They let me hold her for a little while. Not long. That’s how it was back then. They didn’t think it was good for you to hold them too long. They said it would only make it harder.” She shook her head. “Then they took her away. And they left me alone in that room for two days.”
