The Phoenix Project

by M. R. Pritchard

  Crane was able to get the small local hospital up and running to treat injuries, illnesses and perform monthly physicals on the District Residents.

  “What does that have to do with me?” I’m not sure why exactly I’m being bothered with this.

  “Dr. Akiyama, from the hospital, is going to call in a moment and explain the details to you.”

  As soon as the words are out of his mouth the phone rings, and when I walk over and answer it. “Andromeda? Can you hear me?” the doctor is on the other end of the line. I haven’t seen Dr. Akiyama since last summer when he stitched my back, but his voice is easy to remember.

  “Yes, Doctor.” In the background I can hear the familiar beeps and alarms of a hospital monitor. “What can I do for you?”

  “We have a situation at the hospital. It’s an emergency. I need you to come down here.”

  “I have Lina here. I can’t leave her.” Lina watches me from the dinner table.

  “I need you to find someone to watch her. This is urgent.” I can hear it in his voice. “Please come quickly.” I hear the clatter of metal and someone asking him a question, he hangs up abruptly.

  There’s no one I would trust to watch Lina, Ms. Black has the boys and I’m sure this Volker is going to escort me to the hospital. There is one person whom I trust more than anyone else here, but he’s been hard to locate for months. If they want my help at the hospital then Crane is going to have to give him up for the night. I pick the phone back up and when the operator answers I tell her exactly who I want to speak with.

  “I need Colonel Waters, Volker Sovereign.”

  “I’m sorry. There is an order not to disturb him at this time.”

  “This is an emergency-” She starts to interrupt me. I hate to drop the emergency bomb, but Adam told me that if there was ever an emergency we are to state that we are a District Sovereign, our name and who we need to talk to. Since the Volker are our protectors, they are required to stop what they are doing and respond. I figure what better time than now to test out his instructions. “This is District Sovereign Andromeda Somers, I have an emergency and I need to speak with Colonel Waters.”

  “Yes ma’am,” the operator responds, changing her tone, the phone rings twice and before he answers.

  “Yes.” His voice is heavy, tired, I feel a little guilty that I might have just woke him up.

  “Adam?”

  “Yes. What do you need, Andie?”

  “They need me at the hospital and I need someone to watch Lina.”

  “Can’t Ms. Black watch her?” he asks.

  “I’m not leaving her with anyone else. If you don’t come then I’m not going to the hospital.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” he responds.

  I hang up the phone and walk back to the table where Lina is sitting. “Lina,” I tell her, “I have to go to the hospital, the Doctor needs my help with something. Adam is going to come over and watch you.”

  I was afraid that she might be upset but at my mentioning of Adam’s name she raises her arms in the air and hollers out an excited, “Yay!”

  Adam arrives within ten minutes. He’s out of uniform and looks tired. I truly must have woken him. It’s been so long since he has been here that I’m not sure how to approach him. I struggle with the desire to hug him and yell at him at the same time.

  “Do you know what’s going on at the hospital, Adam?” I ask.

  “No. I haven’t been told of anything. Your guard can fill me in after he escorts you there.”

  I tell him Lina’s bedtime routine and I remind Lina to brush her teeth before bed, as I hug and kiss her goodbye. “Thanks, Adam.” I tell him as I’m walking towards the door. He meets me halfway and we walk to the door together and for the first time in months he places his hand on the small of my back, sending tingles up my spine, shooing me out the door.

  “Don’t worry, Andie. You can trust me. I’ll take care of her.”

  I watch him through the glass door as the elevator closes and the guard and I are descend to the lower level.

  --

  The hospital looks the same. There have been no changes to the external structure or the internal structure. When the Volker escorts me inside he brings me to the third floor. The level usually reserved for labor and delivery. Dr. Akiyama must have been warned I was in the building because when the door to the elevator opens he’s standing in the hallway waiting for us.

  “Thank God you’re finally here.” He pulls me by the arm down the hallway, the guard follows us.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, still not sure why I’m here.

  “Is is true you are certified in neonatal resuscitation?”

  “Yes, we were required to at the hospital I worked at.”

  “And you were working in a neonatal ICU before you commenced your duties here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, we have a situation and I need your help. I can’t do this by myself anymore. None of the other nurses Crane has provided me with have your training.” He stops outside a patient room and hands me a set of light green scrubs. “I need you to change and scrub in.”

  I stare at the scrubs in my hand. I haven’t been a nurse in a long time. I left that occupation behind, when I fled the city to find my family.

  I use the bathroom in the hallway to change into the scrubs and I clean my arms up to my elbows at the medical sink outside the patient room. From inside the room I can hear monitors beeping and a woman moaning.

  “Are you ready?” Dr Akiyama pops his head outside of the door and grabs my arm pulling me into the patient room. It has been almost eleven months since I have stepped foot inside of a laboring mother’s room. But everything is the same as it always is: woman, belly, monitors.

  A pregnant woman lies on the bed, a thick band around her pregnant belly, monitoring the baby inside. I look to the monitor, watching the infant’s heartbeat. With each contraction it slows, much too low and never quite gets back to its normal range. I look at the mother’s distended abdomen, she’s an average size woman but her pregnant belly is much too small to be full term. She’s breathing fast and wincing through the contractions, her forehead caked in sweat, this has been going on for some time.

  Dr Akiyama pulls me over to a warmer, similar to what we used in the NICU, a small open bed with its own heat source and an examination light. I haven’t been to a delivery since before the day of the earthquake, when our lives were changed forever. I try to remember what I did for the four years that I worked in that hospital, going to the delivery room, what we looked for, what we monitored.

  “How old is this baby?” I ask the doctor.

  “Almost thirty-four weeks.” I know this. It’s seven weeks too early. It could be a perfectly viable baby or a train wreck, that I have no way of saving here. “She’s fully dilated and effaced. Now that you’re here I’m going to have her push. I need you to be ready for this baby because I’m bringing it to you.”

  I pull a pair of gloves out of a box on the wall and turn the warmer on. There is a stethoscope and suction waiting. I look around the room and see a man standing by the pregnant woman’s head. He’s wearing a mask and scrubs. Usually that is the spot reserved for the father. But no one should be having babies right now. I haven’t completed the genetic pairing.

  I hear Dr. Akiyama counting for the mother, instructing her when to push and when to wait. I hear him say that the head is out. He tells the mother to stop pushing while he suctions out the mouth and nose. Then he tells her to push hard. There is the metallic snip of chord clamps and medical scissors. Then he is next to me, placing a small, pale baby on the warmer, it’s a boy, a tiny little baby boy. I stare at it for a moment, unsure of what to do next, trying to remember.

  “Andromeda!” The doctor yells at me.

  And that’s all it takes. After years of training and getting yelled at in the delivery room each time I did something wrong or not fast enough, I return to the methodical assessing nurse that I was a
lmost a year ago. I take warm blankets and scrub the baby with them, wiping off the blood and birthing fluids, trying to get him to cry. The baby’s toes and hands are still blue, but the center of his chest is pink and red. I wrap an oximeter probe around its hand and use the stethoscope to listen to its lungs and heart. His breath sounds are strong, but wet sounding. I take the suction tubing and use it to suck the fluid out of the infant’s nose and down the back of its throat. I check the baby’s pulses on his tiny wrists and ankles, feel the soft fontanels on the top of his head, he has feathery blonde hair matted to his head. I watch the newborn and the clock, waiting for the baby to “pink up,” turning from a dusky blue hue to bright pink, and to breath in a normal rhythm. I place a small hat on his head and wrap him in three blankets; I turn up the temperature setting on the warmer. I change my gloves and give the baby a minute to warm up.

  After a few minutes I continue. I touch the side of his mouth as though I was going to feed him. He turns his head in the direction of my finger. I feel inside his mouth, checking the roof for a cleft, making sure he sucks. I un-wrap him and feel his ears, his collarbone, extend his limbs out, count his fingers and toes. I turn him over and run my finger down his back, checking to make sure the vertebrae are in a straight line and that there are no openings in the meninges. I check his privates and rectum to make sure everything is present and intact. Then I wrap the baby in a clean set of blankets. He’s been out for almost ten minutes now. The blue tinge has left his mouth and hands. There’s a pacifier on the warmer, when I place it in his mouth he sucks hungrily.

  “Is my baby okay?” I hear the mother ask Dr. Akiyama.

  I stare at the child, watching, another five minutes pass. I stare at him longer, waiting for the swelling to go down, for his facial features to settle from being pushed out of the birth canal. He is so small that it doesn’t take long. I look under the hat at his blonde hair again, pale features, and at the baby’s nose, which is already high and arched. Dr. Akiyama moves to my side.

  “How is he?” The doctor pulls his mask down and changes his gloves, examining the baby.

  “He’s breathing on his own, has a strong suck, his oxygen saturations are within the normal range. For a preemie he’s doing well.” I continue to watch the baby closely. I can’t help but feel this baby looks familiar, as though I might know his parents from somewhere.

  “Good. How does he compare to what you’ve seen in the NICU?” He looks back at the parents and then back towards me.

  “He’s breathing on his own and as long as he keeps doing that, the only things you will have to worry about are maintaining his temperature and getting him to eat.” The doctor walks back to the parents to fill them in on the baby’s status. I watch as the mother smiles at the doctor. The father just sits there, presumably shocked, as all first time fathers are in the delivery room. Usually they don’t know what to do with themselves, they pace, and then get faint, and then they are afraid to touch the baby. It’s always the same.

  Dr. Akiyama is back at my side. “Doctor, whose baby is this,” He looks at me skeptically. “Who are the parents, what are their names?” He looks back to the parents and then to me. I can tell he’s hiding something from me. There’s something he doesn’t want me to know. “Who are they, Doctor?” My heart is starting to beat heavily in my chest. He doesn’t want to tell me. I watch the parents. The mother smiles as she looks at the tiny baby bundled on the warmer. A nurse helps her change her gown and get comfortable in the bed. The mother reaches over to the father and takes his hand. He still looks like he’s in shock, like he doesn’t know what to do. All I can see are his brown eyes since the rest of his face is covered by the surgical mask. Then the mother reaches up, trying to get his attention, stroking his cheek, and pulls the mask down.

  “Andie…” Dr Akiyama must be trying to warn me, the tone of his voice is much lower, but it’s too late. My heart picks up the pace, thumping wildly in my chest, my hands are in tight fists at my sides. I knew the baby looked familiar but I wasn’t prepared for this, to see who the father is. In the corner, at the head of the bed sits a proud new father, and it is Ian.

  --

  I leave the room. I collect my clothes from the hallway. The Volker who escorted me to the hospital is at the nurse’s station talking on the phone. He must be talking to Adam, filling him in on why they needed me here. Dr. Akiyama follows me out of the room.

  “Andie, I’m sorry. Andie, stop, please, I need your help. I need you to tell me what to do with this baby.” He grabs my arm and I jerk it back from him.

  All this time I have been alone, taken away from my husband, feeling guilty for leaving him, for barely having a relationship with Adam, and he’s moved on, already. He’s replaced me. He’s found someone who could give him another child.

  I am furious and heartbroken. “You could have warned me! You could have done something,” I tell at the Doctor. “Any one of these guards could have told you that father in there is my husband!”

  “Andie, keep your voice down, please.” He pleads with me, closing the door to the room where we just came from.

  “They all know. Every single one of them knows who we are!” I point to the Volker in the hallway. The one who escorted me here puts down the phone and walks towards us. “You could have-” the tears are starting and I can’t stop them. “You could have done something. I didn’t need to see that. I don’t need to see any of this,” I fall to the floor, sobbing to myself. The men stand around me, unknowing of what to do with me. Someone hands me a box of tissues. I do my best trying to clean up my face, to catch my breath, before I stand up, I turn to Dr. Akiyama. “You need to keep the baby warm. He’s too small to keep his own temperatures up.” I wipe at my eyes again, trying to stop the tears that keep leaking out. “He needs to be kept clothed and bundled under the warmer, if his parents want to hold him, that’s too bad. He comes out to eat every three hours; the mother needs to breastfeed him. If that doesn’t work contact me and I can tell you a few other methods to get him to eat. I don’t want to have to put an IV in him, but I can if it needs to be done. Monitor his temperature and his vital signs right before he eats. Other than that, the baby needs to sleep and grow.”

  The infant isn’t critical and Dr. Akiyama should be able to manage his care. I collect my things from the floor and then leave without saying anything else.

  The Volker drives me back to the loft. Since Adam is upstairs with Lina the guard stays at the front door to the building. When I get to the loft Adam is waiting by the door. His arms are crossed and he stares at the floor, focusing on something. My sadness has turned into white hot anger by the time I get to the door.

  “Andie,” Adam reaches for me as I walk through the door. I swerve to the side to avoid his grasp. I throw the clothes that I carried home on the floor, wishing they were made of glass so I could watch them shatter into a million pieces. Maybe breaking something would ease my anger right now.

  “Is Lina asleep?” I ask Adam. I feel him grab the back of the scrub top but I pull myself forward quickly, ripping it out of his grasp.

  “Yes, she’s asleep, Andie, wait.” He follows me as I walk to Lina’s room to check on her. She’s sleeping soundly and innocently in the large plush bed. Stevie lifts her head off the end of the bed where she lays and perks her ears at the sound of me entering the room. I close the door behind me, so I don’t wake her. Adam is waiting for me when I leave the room. He reaches for me again, grabbing the scrub top.

  I slap at his hand. “Don’t touch me, Adam!” I glare at him and stomp towards the phone. I know who I’m going to yell at, who I am going to make pay for what I just saw. I pick up the phone and the operator answers.

  “Burton Crane,” I snarl into the receiver. For the first time the operator doesn’t respond. The phone just rings and Crane picks up.

  “Hello?” he sounds surprised that he’s getting a call this late.

  “I need to see you. Now.”

  “Andromeda?�
� My name unfurls off his tongue slowly, like a sweet surprise.

  “Yes, Crane. I need to see you now.” I think I actually stamp my foot on the floor as I say it.

  “Well then. I will be there momentarily.” I slam the phone down hard, not giving him the chance to say goodbye.

  Adam follows me down to the atrium as I wait for Crane. “Are you sure this is a good idea Andie?” He asks me in the elevator. “Don’t you think you need a moment to cool down?”

  “I’ve been cooling down all winter, Adam.” I try not to yell at him, but my words echo loudly off the metal elevator walls. “I’ve been doing what Crane asks me, keeping my head down, putting up with you ignoring me. I’m done with it. I’m sick of Crane trying to run my life and Lina’s life.”

  When the elevator doors open I stomp to the front door of the building and pace in a large circle waiting for Crane to show up. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrored glass. The scrubs hang loosely off me; I almost resemble the nurse I once was. Adam stands by the elevator. At first I think he might be hiding from me. But I realize he may be shielding himself from Crane’s view, so he can watch.

  Finally a car pulls up and Crane gets out. He takes his time walking into the building, adjusting his scarf and gloves, wiping off his heavy wool coat when stray snowflakes land on it. Finally the door opens and he comes inside.

  “Ah Andromeda, what a pleasant surprise in the middle of the night,” He holds his arms open and smiles at me. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  I’m not sure if he hasn’t seen the look of flaming anger on my face or if he just doesn’t recognize it. I can’t hold it in anymore. “Why are people having babies, Crane?”

  “Well, whatever do you mean, Andromeda?”

  “You know what I mean. I was just at the hospital.” I pull the front of the scrub shirt out at him, pointing out the fact that I am wearing hospital scrubs. “Do you know what I just saw at the hospital?”