The fluorescent lights hummed like an insect trapped behind glass. The ER smelled the same everywhere—antiseptic, coffee gone cold, someone’s cheap perfume trying to drown it out. Fernanda sat on the vinyl exam chair and counted the tiny, white flecks in the ceiling tiles until the nurse came back with a paper that felt like a loaded gun. "Blood type B," the nurse said, voice practiced, flat. "We ran it twice for the newborn panel. You sure this was Milo?" Fernanda must have nodded because she remembered doing it. She remembered Milo’s fingers, fat and sticky, and the way he'd fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder two nights ago while she scrolled through a parenting forum. Her mind snagged on something less ordinary, the way the word "B" burned on the white slip like acid. "I'm sure," she said, but her voice was thin, as if she were trying to push it through a blocked throat. She clutched the paper until the edges bent. Her hands were small—toddler hands, diaper-changing hands—and now they trembled. Type O. Her blood: O. Wells’s: A. Milo: B. All the training, all the parenting blogs she’d read about getting a seamless middle-class life, about organic baby food and sleep schedules, didn't prepare you for a lab number that made everything rearrange. The nurse left. The fluorescent light kept humming. She looked down at Milo. He was asleep against her, cheeks smeared