The Birth on the Video Call

Ferdinand had been looking forward to the end of the trip for nine days. The contract was signed, the hotel bill was paid, and his flight home was due to board at six. The baby was not supposed to arrive for another five weeks.

At half past four, his phone buzzed in the departure hall. It was a message from Leonie's mother: "Her water broke. We are at the hospital. Don't panic."

Ferdinand read it three times. Then he looked up at the board, where the word DELAYED glowed beside his flight in amber. A storm over the mountains had closed the airspace, and nobody could say for how long.

He ran to the desk and was told, kindly and firmly, that no seats were available on any other flight before morning. He would have walked home if walking had been possible.

At six, Leonie's phone called him. First came the midwife's voice, then a shaky picture: a ceiling, a lamp, a hand holding the phone too close. "Leonie wants you here, so here you are," the midwife said. "I'll hold you up. You can be our guest."

Ferdinand sat on the floor of the gate area with his back against a pillar, because his battery showed nine percent. A cleaner passing with her cart said nothing. She simply pulled a long cable from a box on the cart and plugged it in beside him.

The video was unsteady, and the sound kept cutting out. He saw pieces of the room: a curtain, a blue sleeve, Leonie's hair stuck to her forehead. He heard her breathing, slow and deliberate, and he found himself breathing along with her. Around him, strangers stepped politely over his legs.

The midwife told him to talk to her, because she had been asking for his voice. "I'm here," he said, feeling ridiculous. "Leonie, I'm here. You're doing it. I should have been there. I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," Leonie managed, "and count with me."

So he counted. It felt like hours and was in fact forty minutes. His coffee went cold on the floor. An announcement in four languages said that another flight had been delayed, and he did not hear a word of it.

Then the screen swung toward the ceiling, and the room filled with voices. Someone laughed. Someone said, "Almost." Ferdinand pressed his palm flat against the glass, as though he could reach through it.

And then he heard it: thin, furious and unmistakably alive. A single cry, then another.

He realized that he was crying too. A few steps away, the cleaner stood with a hand on her cart, looking tactfully at the floor.

The midwife turned the screen. A small red face, a clenched fist, a striped blanket. "Say hello," she said.

Ferdinand wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Hello," he said. "It's your father. I'm the one who's late."