Embryo 1: Embryo

by JA Schneider

  “Hey,” he said quietly. “This is the Sayers room.”

  Jill’s lips parted. “Phocomelia…” she said softly.

  “Yep.” He pulled out the chart and read as Jill craned, trying to see in.

  The door was open a crack. It was dark inside.

  “So quiet in there,” she whispered.

  Still reading, Levine shook his head. “Listen to this: ‘Patient spent the night exhibiting borderline hysteria. Seems delusional with some paranoid tinge. Should be closely observed for signs of psychotic behavior.’”

  He looked at the door again. “They’ve knocked her out. Fifty milligrams of Thorazine at 5:30 this morning.”

  It was now 8:25. The effects of Thorazine lasted four to six hours. Jill’s brow creased. She had wanted to see Sayers, talk to her. “Who signed the note?” she asked.

  “Ganon,” he said, and there was anger in his eyes. “Guess ol’ Tom doesn’t like people to grieve too loudly.” He put the chart back on the rack.

  “Did you see her during the night?”

  “Yes. Between the Edwards and Dolan deliveries. She seemed okay. Crying, but definitely not delusional.” A pause. “Well, I saw her around twelve and slept until Dolan at four. Maybe she got worse…” He gave the rack an exasperated shove and moved on.

  Jill stood, staring hard at the dark crack in 819’s door.

  David didn’t know yet what she had discovered last night. Stryker had shot her down but still…

  “Hey,” she said, hurrying after him. The morning rush had thinned at this end of the hall. “There’s something I want to tell you. Something maybe important. Last night – ”

  A nurse popped out of 813 and hurried to Levine. “Doctor,” she said. “The hemoglobin and hematocrit you ordered for 810 are back. Shall I send them down?”

  He did not break stride. “Yes and stat, please. Dolan lost a lot of blood.”

  The nurse hurried off. Jill started to speak again when his phone chirped.

  He stopped, listened, and rung off irritated. “That was the record room. Hell, they’ve gotten everything screwed up again! Finish this, will you? There’s only a few left.” He blinked at her. “Oh, was there something you wanted to tell me?”

  “It can wait,” she said ruefully.

  “Can it wait till tonight?” He smiled tiredly. “We’ll both be off. How ‘bout dinner out. Would you like that?”

  She met his eyes. “David, I’d love to but you’re exhausted. You slept maybe four hours – ”

  “And how much did you sleep? The same? There’s a great little French restaurant nearby, and it’s quiet. We have to eat anyway and we can still be back early. What do you say?”

  Her cheeks burned. They were actually discussing a real date.

  He bent slightly and peered mischievously into her face. “Well lookey here, you’re blushing,” he said. “That means yes.”

  “Stop,” she said hoarsely.

  He straightened, grinning. “So tonight it is!” His cell went off again. He swore, answered, and got testy with someone. She started to push the cart and he touched her arm.

  “Don’t forget that lecture at 10:00.” She nodded. He went back to the phone. “No, not you. Okay, I’m coming.”

  He winked and hurried off.

  She watched him go. Then she looked back at the almost closed door of 819. Fifty milligrams of Thorazine doesn’t always knock someone out, especially if the patient is agitated to begin with. Often, the drug would only induce heavy grogginess.

  And maybe the patient could talk…

  Jill counted the odd-number charts remaining. There were four. She had more than enough time to complete rounds and stop in the doctors’ lounge for coffee, which is what they all usually did.

  On the other hand…

  She told herself she would only peek. Sayers was probably asleep, or if awake, then barely so. Jill could not shake the compulsion of wanting to see her.

  Holding Sayers’ chart she headed back, reading the notes and Ganon’s firm instructions: the patient was not to be disturbed. By whom? Relatives? Visitors? Eighteen hours in the hospital had produced no sign of either. Flipping back to the face sheet, Jill noticed that on the line designating next of kin were written “none.”

  The stillness of 819 was almost frightening. Glancing first over her shoulder, Jill knocked gently and went inside.

  The young woman was pale, with long dark hair that spread across the pillow. Her swollen eyes were closed.

  Jill stood by the bed, and in the dimness checked her watch and the medication sheet she carried. It was 8:30. The Thorazine had been administered three hours ago. It’s still working full strength, she thought. Patient’s probably out cold.

  She was squinting at some lab reports when she felt eyes on her. She looked up. Mary Jo Sayers was staring at her. The expression in her eyes was not sleepy at all. It was sharp and full of hate.

  “Ms. Sayers?” Jill’s feeling of sorrow for the woman deepened. Her face - so full of agitation and fury, fighting the medication as if it were an assault…

  Jill’s hands fell to her sides. “Please trust me,” she said softly. “I’m a friend.”

  The patient continued to watch her. Another thirty seconds passed, and the body – those white-knuckled fists and rigid forearms went limp.

  “Go…away,” Sayers whispered.

  “I will if you want me to,” Jill said. But she did not go away. She remained staring sadly at the name bracelet on the patient’s wrist, allowing the silence to stretch between them.

  “I want to die,” Mary Jo Sayers said. Quietly and calmly, no hint of hysteria. Profoundly depressed, yes…but delusional? So far, nothing.

  Jill inhaled. “I don’t believe you mean that,” she said gently, eyeing the bed’s raised side rails, groping for words. She made a helpless gesture.

  “Mary Jo, I’m just an intern. I came here because I …care, I was in the delivery room when…oh, I just wish I could help in some way.”

  Conflicting emotions crossed the patient’s face. A moment passed. Then Mary Jo Sayers managed in a trembling voice, “But you can’t help me, can you?” She closed her eyes. “Nobody can.”

  “We can talk,” Jill said with sudden firmness. She went to the window and pulled up the blinds. Morning sunlight poured in. The room was a typical private: small, the floor covered with new linoleum, the window overlooking the parking lot.

  Jill blinked out at the parking lot.

  What was this patient doing in an expensive private? She’d been seen once in the free clinic.

  She turned, and saw that Mary Jo had begun to weep, quietly and defeatedly, crossing her arms tightly across her chest.

  “Oh…!” Jill rushed to lower the side rails. Tears came streaming down Mary Jo’s face and her shoulders were heaving.

  “Poor kid,” Jill tried to soothe, wiping the young woman’s cheeks with tissues, smoothing her hair. “Go ahead and cry. It’s good.”

  Moments passed. The tears began to slow.

  Haltingly Mary Jo said, “It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.” She raised her glistening face to Jill. “I was promised it would be perfect, and now the baby’s dead…”

  She broke into sobs again.

  Jill stared at her. “You were…promised?” Mary Jo’s fingers held the crumpled wad of tissues and they were picking, picking, tearing it into ragged pieces.

  “Who promised you?” Jill’s heart was suddenly pounding.

  The fingers stopped. The patient looked up from her pillow.

  “Why should you believe me? No one else here does.”

  “Try me.” The eyes that met Mary Jo’s were intense, honest. Something flickered, then softened across Sayers’ face. She gazed down at the soggy shreds on the blanket. Then she began to speak, the words coming out like a long sigh of relief.

  The phone shrilled on the nurses’ desk of the psychiatric floor. Nurse Janelle Hester, looking harassed, put her own call to Pharmacy on hol
d and looked around frantically for someone else to take it. There was no one. The floor nurses were scattered and there was no sign of the ward clerk. Janelle hated working alone. This caller could not have picked a worse moment.

  After four incessant rings she blew air out her cheeks and pressed the flashing phone button. “Psychiatry,” she said.

  What she heard on the other end caused her to frown. A gruff male voice, identifying himself as Dr. Mackey, was ordering the immediate transfer of a patient from obstetrics to the psychiatric ward.

  Janelle did not know any Dr. Mackey, but his voice sounded very authoritative.

  “But doctor,” she said, puzzled. “Any transfer would have to be okayed by our psychiatric resident, Dr. Downey, and he’s in a consult meeting – ”

  “Downey’s already okayed the transfer!” barked the voice. “Listen. This patient’s creating havoc down here. You get her off my floor within five minutes or I’ll have your name before the hospital administration. Do you understand?”

  “But doctor,” she persisted. “We have to have the transfer order here before we – ”

  “The paper work’s being done right now. It will be sent up immediately. This is urgent. Do you understand, dammit?”

  The receiver at the other end slammed.

  Shaken, Janelle hung up and stared at the phone, thinking how, after sixteen years, she really ought to be used to this type of call. Only psychiatrists were soft-spoken; practically creepy-whispered. All the other doctors yelled, especially the residents. She was certainly glad she didn’t have to work with them.

  She shrugged. Can’t take these things personally, she thought, leaning forward and pressing a red buzzer.

  “During the night, I tried to tell, but couldn’t, not everything, because of a…a…promise.”

  “A promise?” Jill controlled her breathing.

  A silence, then: “Yes.” Sayers looked up at her, continued in a stronger voice. “I’m writing a thesis, you see…”

  “Oh yes, I was told you were a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology.”

  “Paleoanthropology,” said Sayers. “I work at the Madison Museum, right up the street.”

  “Oh,” said Jill, thinking: sharp as a tack.

  Sayers meandered for some moments on the rigors of fossil study and her thoughts on evolution. “Anyway,” she went on, “I wanted a child too, with all my heart…but I’m divorced…and then it was while I was doing my research that I – ”

  There was a commotion in the hall, and door banged open. Two men –one bull-shouldered, the other looking like a Doberman – came in pulling a gurney. Doberman shoved Jill aside.

  She froze.

  “We got orders to transfer dis patient,” Bull Shoulders said. In his left hand he carried a thick restraining strap.

  “What?” cried Jill, recognizing the uniforms of psychiatric orderlies. Mary Jo sat up in bed, comprehension dawning as her face too became shocked, then terrified. Her wide, staring eyes looked to Jill, who rallied.

  “Just what in hell do you think you’re doing?” Doberman left the room and Bull Shoulders held up a paper.

  “Orders,” he rasped.

  Furious, Jill snatched the paper from his hand and fast-scanned it.

  She looked up. “Get out,” she said, her voice charged with fury. “This paper isn’t even signed. How dare you frighten the patient?”

  Bull Shoulders’ face twisted. “Listen doc, don’t look at me! We was told to come get dis patient, see? Dere.” His burly finger pointed. “It says Dr. Downey already okayed the transfer. So if you don’t mind…”

  Doberman reappeared with a nurse who was holding a syringe. Seeing it, Mary Jo cried out in anguish. In a scolding voice Jill intercepted the nurse, who looked at her with regretful eyes. The syringe glinted.

  “Yes, I know. So sad. But Dr. Ganon’s orders said Thorazine as needed, and since the patient’s resisting – ”

  A thrashing noise. Jill looked. Mary Jo, whimpering in horror, was trying to climb out of bed.

  “See?” bellowed Bull Shoulders. “Resisting!”

  There was a daze, a swirling of images. Jill hearing her own protesting voice as Doberman swung Mary Jo, crying, onto the gurney; as Bull Shoulders, forcing her down, began attaching straps, here, there; and the nurse, all bristling efficiency, leaned over the hysterical young woman and delivered her injection. “One hundred milligrams. That ought to do it. Sorry for your trouble, boys.”

  Stupefied, Jill watched helplessly. Mary Jo Sayers’ body grew limp. Her eyes struggled to stay open but failed. Her lips worked slowly.

  “Help…me…”

  In a rage Jill pushed past the others and gripped the young woman’s shoulders. “Don’t worry!” she cried. “I’ll come! I’ll help you!”

  Mary Jo’s eyelids fluttered open; saw Jill; believed.

  Her head fell to one side, and she stilled.

  Muffling tears of fury, Jill ran from the room.

  12

  “What in hell is going on in there?”

  Sam MacIntyre had heard and rushed down to investigate. Outside 819 he ran headlong into Jill, then stared beyond her through the open door.

  She blurted what had happened.

  The gurney was being maneuvered to the door. In the hall behind Sam and Jill a group of people stood: two nurses, staring gape-mouthed, and several patients in robes. Jill was repelled. Their faces reminded her of people who rush to see a building on fire.

  “Transfer order?” MacIntyre said crossly. “I don’t know anything about any transfer order.”

  Jill held up the paper she had snatched from the orderly. “It’s not even signed!” Her chest was heaving.

  Mack took the paper and frowned, reading. “This is bullshit. Has to be a screw up.”

  The sound of wheels made them look up. The unconscious, strapped-down Mary Jo Sayers was wheeled past them. The sight made Jill’s heart turn over. Doberman stopped and regarded her peevishly.

  “We gotta have that paper back,” he said.

  “Drop dead!” It came out too stridently. Down the corridor, other doors opened; heads above bright robes craned out.

  MacIntyre’s face reddened. “Lower your voice,” he told Jill.

  “The hell I will!” she hissed, pointing. “Do you know what happened in there? A travesty, that’s what! And this poor patient has to pay by being manhandled and traumatized?”

  MacIntyre was furious but held up both hands. First get the floor calmed, he decided, and turned to the orderlies. “Okay, beat it,” he told them. “If there’s an error, we’ll straighten it out.”

  They pushed away their tragic cargo. Patients whispered and watched with grim curiosity as they passed. The syringe nurse came briskly out of 819 carrying some linen; she joined the other two nurses and the three stood, staring at Jill.

  “This better be good,” MacIntyre said low.

  Jill turned to him, her eyes flashing.

  He said, “So you got an unsigned transfer order. It’s sloppy, but it happens. Somebody made a mistake. What gives you the right to go off half-cocked and stir up the whole floor?”

  “Half-cocked? Signed or unsigned, that patient was ours, and sane, and traumatized by some bogus order whose source we don’t even know!”

  “I’ll find out. I’ll go through the proper channels – ”

  “And how long will that take?” Jill felt drained. The small group of onlookers was dispersing, at least. She stopped for a deep breath.

  “Sam,” she said. “That patient started to tell me something. I think someone’s trying to hide that phocomelia case. That explains the rush to hustle her off the floor.”

  She stopped, sensing someone watching her, and turned to see Tom Ganon, standing with arms folded about eight feet away. He was looking at her the way he might look at one of his wriggling lab animals.

  “Having a little trouble, Sam?” he asked.

  Jill turned white.

  Ganon was a heavy-faced man wi
th a receding hairline, a receding jaw, and dark little eyes. It was said he had a range of human feeling that stretched from remote to outright vicious. He looked older than a fourth-year resident.

  MacIntyre, David’s friend and no fan of Ganon, shoved his hands in his pockets and switched expressions. “Nah,” he said with studied casualness. “Just a typical morning.”

  Ganon chuckled unpleasantly. “Judging from what I just heard, your typical mornings sound like a screamfest. Maybe because certain individuals – he glanced at Jill – have personalities detrimental to the running of a hospital.”

  Jill glowered at him. “You ordered that transfer, didn’t you? You don’t like patients who make you or your department look bad.”

  Ganon took a menacing step forward. “That’s enough,” he said low, raising his finger. “You are interfering, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. I distinctly said on the night note that that patient was not to be disturbed – and you disobeyed! I could get you thrown out for this!”

  MacIntyre said, “She was acting in the patient’s interest, Tom.”

  “Disobeyed!” Ganon repeated. “How dare you pull a scene like that in a hospital corridor?” His eyes fell to the Sayers chart that Jill still held. “Give me that chart.”

  She looked at Sam, whose eyes said Give it. She lifted her chin defiantly, and did.

  “Now,” said Ganon, thrusting the chart under his arm with the face sheet toward his body. “I want you to tell me exactly what nonsense the patient told you.” His manner became silky. “For our psychiatric evaluation, of course.”

  Jill remained silent.

  “Don’t be so damned cool! I heard you tell MacIntyre that she started to say something.”

  Mac said, “Only started. Didn’t get the chance to say much.”

  Ganon wheeled on him. “Is she your wooden dummy?” And to Jill: “With this noncooperation I’ll have no choice but to report you. You know that, don’t you?”

  She looked at him blankly.

  Ganon stood motionless except for a slight leaning back on his heels. “I’m going to send this intern to the Administration Office. Let her spend a day down there seeing what probation would be like.” He stopped. MacIntyre was studying the ceiling tiles and slowly shaking his head.