I decided to just say it. “Could it be possible he wasn’t the daddy?”
She grumbled a very crass word.
Guess not. “They’re all doing great.” What else could I say?
But she wasn’t black.
I delivered Nikki to a gruff nurse in the ER and got back to my own patients. But I couldn’t get her off my mind. As I mulled it over, Dr. Schroeder’s obsession with Nikki came back to the forefront of my thoughts. He had some weird connection with Nikki.
Maybe when he was off duty he pretended to be black.
Chapter 6
Lunch break came and half of the L&D staff went to the cafeteria for thirty minutes while the other half watched the patients. By then, I was relieved to have a chance to get some food and give a rest to the thoughts about Nikki. And I’d just about convinced my inner selves they could come out of hiding. What we really needed was some good, all-American, tasty hospital cuisine.
The drawback to my little diversion was that Sheila was taking first lunch too. Lucky me. She’d rotated to Days just as I had. At least I wouldn’t have to spend the whole meal with her. She was a smoker, and even if it meant one day she’d lose her prized bouffant to chemo treatments, Sheila made sure she replenished her blood nicotine levels first chance she got. When we left the unit, she and two other gals grabbed their Marlboros and headed for the slab of patio blazing outside under the hot sun on the south side of the dining room.
The rest of us went straight to the lunch counter and got in line to order our greasy burgers or greasy omelets or greasy grilled cheese. (On Days, I really missed our night cook, Betty.) Once we were served, Sheila and her cancer buddies came back inside—each with a thick aura of swirling acrid smoke like they were smokestacks on Waste Management trucks. A couple of the other nurses had picked up the smokers’ lunches for them so they would have more time to inhale. Healthcare workers.
We met up with some staff from the NICU—the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, or Nick-U as we called it—then all crammed in around a large round table made for eight. It could really accommodate eleven or twelve, if you didn’t mind holding your plate in your lap or inhaling cigarette exhaust.
As I poked under the skin of my fried chicken and pulled off strips of stringy white meat, we nurses—ten gals and two guys—chattered through full mouths about all kinds of stuff.
First, we caught up on the hospital gossip. The juiciest late-breaking news was Dr. Osborne had a new mistress. His third this year. And word was she belonged to the L&D staff. A few eyes made furtive glances around to check out if anyone was unusually quiet or blushing during the revelation. She could have been right there with us. Then we could have gotten the real scoop, if she’d just fess up.
Once the grapevine withered, we turned to the most recent episode of Dr. Phil on pregnancies breaking up marriages, which was a nice segue into rehashing a Jerry Springer show about girls getting pregnant on purpose to keep a man. We argued about whether some soap character had done that to keep her leading hunk or if she really had believed she could never have a baby. Oh, the sorrow.
Barb, a skinny NICU nurse with a bun and perfect posture showed her bleached teeth and asked, “Did you read in The Journal that the DOW rallied a hundred points yesterday?” No one cared (or even understood), so she went back to her bean sprouts and drizzled honey on rye.
Francis, who was old enough to have been nursing school roommates with Florence Nightingale herself, caught us up on Limbaugh. What would lunch be without a little Rush to flavor the meal? And that course, of course, was criticized by Mario, one of our token male nurses and a Howard Stern fan.
His diatribe was followed by an update on Dr. Laura. Very flavorful.
A pregnant teenager had called Dr. Laura to seek wisdom about whether or not she should abort because she had smoked some crack and didn’t want a messed-up kid.
Dr. Laura’s pregnant teenager opened wide the door for my co-workers to jump right in and tell every little opinion we never wanted to know.
Sheila immediately brought up Nikki.
“I heard that chick with the blue hair was too stoned to even know who the father was. Now there’s a girl who could have used a trip to Planned Parenthood.”
I heard. What a gossip. She’s tight with the gal who took care of Nikki between the shifts I had with her. One idiot quoting another.
I said, “She knew who the father was. He died.”
“Bet he OD’d,” one of Sheila’s smoking companions offered.
“He had cancer,” I said.
Well, he might have.
They ignored me.
“Can you believe her? Gives up a crack baby to some poor unsuspecting folks, taking no responsibility for her own screw-ups. She made her bed, she ought to lie in it.”
This from the religious fanatic who forgot how to love and wallowed in the misunderstanding she had the right to point out everyone’s short-comings.
The tension was growing. I didn’t like tension. I tried to change the subject.
I said, “What happened on General Hospital last week anyway? Yesterday, I was so confused.”
“She should have aborted. If that’s what she wanted, it was her right,” Mario said.
So much for my diversionary tactic.
“How can you say that? Abortion is murdering a human being.”
Uh, boy.
Sheila’s other black-lung buddy flung down her burger. “No one can tell a woman what to do with her own body.”
The scene was like an old Western movie. I think everything went silent. The entire room full of people dropped their poker chips and cards, scrambled to safety under their tables, and trembled in fear. Those of us around the table scooted back our chairs to give the duo room for the challenge. We watched. Black Lung’s hand hovered over her holster, ready to whip out her Colt. Her eyes narrowed and froze on her opponent. Miss Fanatic was a stone, watching, thinking, preparing for her next move. Black Lung went for the revolver. I braced to duck under the table.
She pulled out her pack and snagged a cigarette with her lips. Guess she didn’t have a gun. Just a lot of stress. And nobody was really paying attention to our edifying little group after all.
Miss Fanatic gathered her composure and sputtered, “Life begins at conception. Abortion stops a beating heart. Aren’t you glad your mother chose life?” Wow, I felt like I was in a traffic jam behind a minivan with a fish on it.
Black Lung said, “You Religious Right. You’d keep our children from knowing their right and freedom to have abortions, to be gay, to enjoy sex. You call fetuses babies just to guilt people into believing they’re committing things they’re not. They’re not babies until—”
“Until you say they are? Till it’s convenient for your promiscuous lot to say so, if ever?”
Yowza. I should have stayed on Nights.
But with my history of taking care of my own parents, bailing them out or making peace between them, I was a born negotiator. I couldn’t let this go.
“Hey guys, can’t we agree to disagree here?” I pushed the hair back behind my ear and tried to look confident.
All the heads snapped to me in attention. Wow, this mediator thing wasn’t so tough. I added a smile to soothe my rapt audience.
“Whatever it is, baby or fetus, can we at least treat each other with respect and allow everyone their own opinion?”
A limp piece of greasy lettuce flew through the air and slapped me in the smile.
“Keep out of it,” someone said.
“What do you know?” said another.
Guess they didn’t want resolution.
“They use abortion as a contraceptive.” That was from Miss Fanatic’s best friend.
“You anti-choice people just parrot back whatever your popes tell you to say.”
“Now girls,” I tried again.
“Shut-up,” the group said in unison.
Then they all exploded with their own opinions, turning back toward the cent
er of the table and ignoring me.
When all but thirty seconds of lunch break was gone, the whole group rose as if on cue and started stacking trash and food scraps back onto their trays, changing the subject without so much as a blink to who their current favorite singer was on The Voice. I guess the volatile Roe v. Wade discussion was over.
I still sat, somewhat hurt from the rejection I’d felt. I put a Tums in my mouth to obliterate the taste of my stringy chicken with chalky cherry. Sheila turned back around for a second to grab her lighter that she’d forgotten on the table.
I said, “Guess we shouldn’t talk about patients in the cafeteria.”
She flipped her blood-red-manicured middle finger at me and left.
Guess she told me.
Chapter 7
After my shift that afternoon, I walked to the bus stop in front of the hospital. As I crossed the lawn toward the bench, someone shouted my name. I looked behind me. My stomach lurched. Dr. Schroeder was hoofing it to reach me.
“I was hoping…to find you,” he puffed. He stopped on top of a little rise, winded and red-faced.
Just jog right back under your rock, Dr. Schmo.
“I have to catch my bus.” I kept walking, steeling myself against all the hang-ups my past had given me.
“Please don’t…rush off. I need to talk…to you.”
I continued down the hill toward the bench. He stayed on my tail, struggling to catch up to me. The hair on my neck snapped to attention.
“Wait. Please.”
I glanced over my shoulder, more to assure myself of his distance than to acknowledge his request. His salt and pepper comb-over had dislodged and the ends wisped across his flushed face.
“I need to talk to you.”
I slowed my pace. I needed to get a hold of myself. It wasn’t his fault he reminded me of someone else. How pathetic. I needed to learn to face middle-aged men while keeping the door to the nightmare closet shut.
“Please,” he pleaded, his voice wheezing.
I stopped. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk about Nicole Trent,” he gasped between breaths.
“What about her?”
He took a moment to suck in oxygen.
“I understand you helped her adopt out her baby.”
“Maybe.”
“I’d like to see the baby.”
I turned back toward the bus stop and continued walking. “Then go see her.”
“Wait. I need your help.”
“What’s it to you?” I said over my shoulder.
“I was a good friend of the father. I mean, the grandfather. The father’s father.”
I kept walking. “Then talk to him. I can’t tell you anything.”
“Just tell me what she looked like. What did the baby look like?”
I spun on him, glaring into his lima bean eyes. “She was black. All right?”
Okay, so I’m a liar. But I wanted to see what he’d do, to see why he was so interested in this baby.
His face dropped. “Really? Black?”
“You were more than just her doctor, weren’t you?” I’d bet a case of chocolate ice cream he’d had a fling with Nikki.
An expression came over him that I couldn’t read. “No. Thank you. That’s all. I made a mistake.” He wandered off without another word.
What if I had told him she wasn’t black? But I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t about to betray my patient’s privacy. Even if this guy had committed some indiscretion with a minor nine months ago and was the father. That was his problem.
Chapter 8
Charge Sarge had assigned me to the day shift for the rest of the week. In the locker room on the third morning, I changed into scrubs, throwing on a scrub jacket because somehow the whole hospital had been programmed to the same temp as the morgue refrigerators. Old wrecks like my hospital never could get the clanking radiators to turn off in winter until every last person was well-done, or the AC to shut off in summer until icicles hung from everyone’s nose.
Rubbing my arms to warm up, I headed to the front desk to get my patient assignment. Sheila met me with a smug look. She was filling in for Charge today.
Yay.
I assumed her triumphant expression came from her knowing she’d gotten me in trouble with the principal. But once I got Report, I knew her satisfaction came from the patient load she’d dumped on me.
“Sheila, you gave me two moms in active labor and another already at Four going on Pit this morning. What am I supposed to do when all three start crowning at the same time?”
Her eyes glowed belligerence at me. “We’re short-staffed. Nothing I can do.”
“I can’t be in three places at once, Sheila. The patients deserve better than this.”
“You’re right. They shouldn’t have to settle for you. Deal with it.”
Deal with it? Creep. Maybe I could push their three beds together and stand at the foot of them all with a bucket ready to catch whatever fell out.
“Sheila—”
The phone rang and she snatched it up, waving me off with her manicure.
I hope you break a nail!
While I waited for her to get off the phone, Sandi from the nursery approached me. She held up a couple of instant prints from the nursery digital camera with “Baby Girl Trent” written on the back.
“Judy printed these out of that adopted baby we had a few nights ago. Didn’t know what to do with them.”
“I’ll take them. Maybe the birth mom will eventually want them.”
“Great,” Sandi said and yawned. “I’m going home. I’m beat.”
“Thanks. Sleep well.”
I slipped the pictures into the pocket of my green scrub jacket. I’d get them to Uncle Howard soon.
I returned my attention to Sheila, who refused to get off the phone. She ignored me while I glared at her, so I decided to check my patients.
When I walked in on the first one, she was panting like a Cocker Spaniel on an August afternoon. When she complained she was tingling all over, I tried to convince her to slow down and breathe through her nose. She hurled a cup of ice chips at me and yelled that she was lucky to be breathing at all, then grumbled something about her stinking Lamaze class. I tried to explain to her plaid-clad husband that she was hyperventilating, but he looked at me like he was going to barf. I tossed a paper bag to him from a drawer and said to have her breathe into it.
I darted out to check my other two ladies. The next one desperately wanted to push. She hadn’t been checked in a while, so I did a quick exam. She was ready. We were about eight or ten good pushes away. The room hadn’t been set up yet, so I scrambled to open a delivery pack, break down the bed, switch on the warming bed for the newborn, and page her obstetrician. I scribbled a few notes on the fetal heart monitor paper as it hummed from beneath the needle scratching mountains across the graph paper and told the couple I’d be back before they could figure out how to spell “episiotomy.”
I ran into my third patient’s room. She was in the bathroom. Hope she wasn’t having her baby in there.
Had to get back to my pusher.
As I dashed by the desk, I passed Sheila, who was still attached to the phone. I screeched on my brakes and yelled her name a couple of times, but she ignored me. I reached over the counter, grabbed the phone out of her hand and slammed it into the base. “I’m pushing in Two and hyperventilating in Five. You need to either get in there and help me or bring someone else in to give me a hand. Or I can call the House Supervisor and see what she suggests.” I left before she could spit out the profane words that were undoubtedly tangled on the tip of her tongue.
When I ran back to Two, I threw off my jacket. My forehead was damp with perspiration. Williams, a silver-headed Southern obstetrician, was already in the room preparing his work space, slowly, deliberately, calmly.
“I wondered if I was going to have a nurse today,” he drawled with a smile. He pulled on the sterile gown himself. His movements were
as slow and relaxed as his speech. He’d done this a few times. About fifty years worth, I think. Fortunately, he was an easy-going kind of guy. He managed to keep an air of tranquility in spite of the woman yelling in front of him and me flashing around the room getting things ready.
The baby arrived without any trouble. But I still hadn’t seen or heard from Sheila. As the doc waited for the placenta to be expelled, I took the opportunity to dive into room Five to check Mrs. Hyperventilation and her pale, plaid husband.
She had transitioned from breathing too fast to holding her breath and doing some red-faced pushing. I grabbed a sterile glove and lifted her gown to check her. Geez Louise. She was crowning. Forget the check. I needed a doctor to come catch this one soon.
I grabbed my notes to find out who her OB was. Her prenatal care had all been at the clinic. She was a pot-luck patient—she’d get the resident on call. Today that was Paula. I thought I’d seen her on the floor earlier. I shot her a quick text saying to beat-feet it to my room.
I stuck my head out the door and saw another nurse, Steph. She was gliding toward the door of her patient’s room.
“Steph, you seen Paula?”
“I just texted her. I’ll tell her you need her.” Her door closed and she was out of sight.
Sheila was at the desk. “Sheila,” I hollered. “I need Paula in here now. Overhead page her. And you need to check in Two to see if Dr. Williams needs any help. He’s got a new delivery in there.”
Sheila huffed at me, teetering her hair precariously as she tossed her head to make sure I knew I exasperated her. She picked the phone back up. I had to trust she was calling for Paula.
I dashed back in and dropped the foot of the bed away and had Mrs. Hyperventilation pull her thighs back. Her husband had shriveled into the corner, green as pea soup. I told him to put his head between his knees before he fainted.
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