heartbeat

Six weeks in, the pair sat in a hospital room holding their breath as a tiny heartbeat appeared on the screen, but later that day, Daisy began to bleed heavily.

The viola sounds like a heartbeat heard through a stethoscope.

For a heartbeat, you can almost imagine an alternate ending: two lonely figures passing the winter in gentle domesticity, breaking bread, tending the fire, building a language out of generosity.

Worn for a couple of weeks, the Zio monitor looks for irregular heart rhythms, such as atrial fibrillation—a racing heartbeat that can presage a stroke or heart attack.

He speaks with the same measured warmth as ever — that deep, lilting rumble that can shift from conspiratorial murmur to amused growl in a heartbeat — but he sometimes loses a name mid-thought.