The Perfect Child

by Berry, Lucinda

  Ron dismissed it, waving me off. “I get it. No need to apologize.” He looked at Luke pointedly. “We could all do a better job of working as a team.” He held his gaze before looking away and directing his attention back to me. “Did you have any concerns about her mother? Was anyone worried she might be in danger?”

  I hung my head, embarrassed. “I know we’re always supposed to keep an open mind and not jump to any conclusions until we have all the facts about the case, but everyone assumed Janie’s parents were the ones who hurt her. Or some really sick psycho. It never crossed anyone’s mind that someone else might be in trouble. I wished it would’ve. Maybe then things would’ve ended differently.”

  FOUR

  CHRISTOPHER BAUER

  “I meet with Janie for her surgery consult on Tuesday, and I was wondering if you’d come with me to help make her feel comfortable.” I visited with all my patients before surgery if possible. I liked us to know each other because surgery went better when we had a connection. It wasn’t the first time I’d asked Hannah to help me with a patient. Sometimes I came across too clinical when I was nervous, and she was the kind of person who put people at ease without even trying.

  She shook her head. “You know I can’t do that.”

  Janie’s presence at the hospital hadn’t stayed a secret for long. As soon as the police had started asking questions around town, her case had spread like wildfire, and everyone was obsessed with finding out the story about the abandoned girl. Police stood guard twenty-four seven at her hospital door, and no one was allowed to see her unless they were on a special clearance list. It was highly unlikely anyone would try to sneak in to see her, but everyone was protective of her privacy and care.

  “I got you added to her list,” I said.

  “Really? Stephanie told me they were being super strict about it.”

  “They always make exceptions when I tell them I need the most talented nurse in the world by my side.” I winked at her.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to stay as far away from that one as possible. You already know that.”

  She wasn’t the only one. There were interns and residents who excused themselves from rounds during Janie’s updates. Child abuse was horrible, and some people couldn’t handle dealing with it, but Hannah had never been one of those people. At least, not until recently.

  “Pretty please?” I begged, even though I knew how unlikely she was to change her mind once it was made up.

  “It makes me too sad. I’ll be an emotional wreck, and we both know that won’t be helpful to anyone,” she said, shaking her head.

  I didn’t press her further and met with Janie by myself on Tuesday. She was huddled against the wall behind her bed when I arrived. She gained weight every day but still looked so small. She wrapped her arms around her legs and pulled them up to her chest, glaring at the nurse, who was busy entering notes into the computer next to her bed, tapping on the keys angrily. What could’ve happened to make her so angry? The tension in the room was thick. I glanced back and forth between the two, wishing I’d come at a better time.

  I stepped closer to Janie’s bed, but not too close, as I wanted to respect her space. I cleared my throat. “Hi, Janie. I’m Dr. Christopher, but you can call me Dr. Chris if you want. Do you remember me?”

  She nodded without looking at me, her gaze fixed on the nurse.

  The nurse pushed the computer aside. “Janie is having a difficult time right now because dinnertime is over, and she doesn’t like when dinnertime ends.”

  I bristled at one of my biggest pet peeves—talking about patients in third person while they were in the room with you.

  “I’m still hungry,” Janie said. Her lower lip quivered.

  I reached into my lab coat pockets, feeling for the protein bar I’d nibbled on earlier. I held it out for the nurse to see. “Can she have this? It’s chocolate chip.”

  The nurse glared at me. “She’s on an eating schedule for a reason.”

  “That’s why I asked. I was hoping she might be able to have a tiny piece.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Really? A protein bar?” She turned on her heel and stomped out.

  Hannah never would’ve acted that way. I didn’t think that just because she was my wife. I knew a good nurse when I saw one, and I’d seen Hannah in action numerous times over the years. She was one of the good ones—going the extra mile, cleaning up food trays that were the nutrition staff’s responsibility, staying with patients to talk when her job was done, helping relatives after they’d heard terrible news, and doing the things everyone else avoided, like cleaning up vomit.

  I put the bar back in my pocket. I’d been pretty sure it wouldn’t be on her list of acceptable foods, but it had been worth a try. “Sorry, hon.” I smiled down at her, hoping she could tell I was sincere. “I wanted to come see you so that we could talk about what’s going to happen tomorrow.” She stared up at me. I couldn’t tell if she was hanging on my every word or didn’t understand what I was saying. “Do you remember what you and Dr. Dan talked about?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was quiet, unsure.

  “Well, I am the doctor who is going to fix your bones. Tomorrow Nurse Ellie is going to wake you up very early. You’re still going to be sleepy when they bring you to me. Then one of my doctor friends is going to make you go back to sleep and have wonderful dreams about all your favorite things. I’m going to fix all your bones while you sleep.” It was a complicated surgery. Multiple bone grafts were never easy, but I planned on doing everything within my power to make sure I fixed it all so she didn’t need additional surgeries.

  “Will it hurt?” she asked, her lower lip trembling again.

  I shook my head and pointed to a spot on the bed next to her. “Can I sit here?”

  She nodded. I perched on the edge.

  “Surgery is not going to hurt because you will be asleep the whole time, but I’m not going to lie—your arm will hurt when you wake up. I’m sorry, sweetie. I wish there was a way we could do it without any pain.”

  I would’ve given anything not to hurt her any more than she’d already been hurt. I didn’t like having to break the bones of a child who was already so broken, but we didn’t have any other choice if she was going to use her arm.

  A lone tear slid down her cheek. I reached out and wiped it with my thumb. I wanted to pull her onto my lap and hold her but was worried it might scare her. “Hey, now, it’s okay, sweetheart. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “I’m going to make sure of it. We’re going to get you magic medicine, and it’ll help your pain feel so much better. Do you know what color the magic medicine is?” She looked at me, wide eyed and curious, waiting. “It’s going to be red. Do you like the color red?”

  She shook her head.

  I faked surprise. “You don’t? How can you not like red?”

  “I like purple,” she said.

  “Hmmm . . .” I scratched my chin, pretending to think. “I can’t do anything about the magic medicine. It has to stay red, but I’ll tell you what—why don’t we make your cast purple? Would you like that?”

  “Purple?” she asked again, like it was too good to be true.

  “Yep. And I will come check on you every day after your surgery to make sure you’re getting better.”

  She squealed, beaming. She crawled toward me, and I opened my arms so she could crawl onto my lap. She cuddled up against me. I wrapped my arms around her tiny frame. I’d never felt so large. I didn’t want to move too much because I was afraid of accidentally hurting her. She was as delicate as any newborn I’d ever held.

  I was just as nervous to perform her surgery as I had been for my first solo surgery during residency. I wanted it to go perfectly. Feeding experts flew in from around the world to consult on her case. They assured me she was stable enough to go under, but it did nothing to ease my worry. I didn’t want her to go through any more than she’d already gone through. I burned
with anger every time I thought about the person who’d hurt her. The police weren’t any closer to finding out who’d done it than they’d been a week ago, but I refused to entertain the possibility that they wouldn’t find the person who’d hurt her. Someone had to be punished.

  Janie was clutching her favorite dinosaur to her chest when I came into the preoperating room. She gave me a big smile when I walked in, recognizing me even in all of my surgical gear. She had a gap-toothed smile now. They had removed her rotten tooth in front a few days ago. “Dr. Chris!” Her face lit up.

  “Hey, sweetie. I see you brought Fred.” I leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead. Normally, I wouldn’t think about kissing a patient on the forehead, but none of the regular rules applied to Janie.

  “I wanna keep Fred.” She hugged him close to her chest.

  “Of course Fred can come.” I jiggled one of his arms dramatically. “I think he has a broken arm too. We have to do something about this.”

  She giggled. It was the first time I’d made her giggle, and my heart melted.

  “Do you have any more questions for me?” I asked, even though it’d been less than twelve hours since we’d been through it.

  She shook her head, holding Fred just as tightly. I planted another kiss on the top of her head. “You’re going to do great. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  I’d never performed surgery with an audience, but the adjacent room was filled with residents and interns. It went better than I had expected. She tolerated the anesthesia, and the break to her elbow was clean, without any of the splintering I’d been nervous about. I reset it the way it should’ve been done the first time. I fused and grafted the four places where her muscles and tendons had calcified together. It was over before I knew it, and they were wheeling her into the recovery room. I wrapped Fred’s arm in a matching purple cast and brought him with me into recovery.

  I leaned over her bed and placed my hand on her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to wake up. “Look who I brought.” I held him up so she could see him better. She was still disoriented from the anesthesia. A smile slowly spread across her face. She grabbed him and brought him to her face. “See, he had surgery just like you. I made his cast just like yours so you guys match.”

  Another hazy smile. Her eyes looked funny. Her body heaved, and yellow liquid spurted from her mouth. I grabbed the green basin and quickly sat her up. I held her while she dry heaved into it. There was nothing in her stomach, since she hadn’t been able to eat anything the night before surgery. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s just the medicine making you sick.”

  I took off her soiled gown and covered her up with a fresh new blanket. I rubbed her arm softly. “You’re doing great, sweetheart. Just great.”

  She closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep. She opened her eyes every so often to make sure I was still there. Normally, the nurses sat with kids in the recovery room, but I wanted her to have a familiar face looking back at her when she woke.

  I pulled a chair next to her and propped my legs up on the end of her bed. She looked so peaceful, lost in her world of dreams. Stillness enveloped her, and Janie was never still. She moved constantly, always fidgeting. It was so nice to see her at rest, even if it was from the drugs coursing through her system. I couldn’t pull myself away from her. I closed my eyes, and it wasn’t long before I fell asleep beside her.

  FIVE

  HANNAH BAUER

  Where was Christopher, and what was taking him so long? He was the one who’d booked the dinner reservation and sent it to all our calendars, so there was no way he’d forgotten about it. I glanced at my watch for the third time in ten minutes. It was so unlike him to be late and not let me know something had come up. I’d already pictured him in a car accident on Highway 12 more than once.

  My sister, Allison, reached over and poured me a glass of wine, fingernails perfectly manicured, glowing pink. I didn’t know how she found the time to get them done with how busy she was. “Don’t worry. He’ll be here soon.”

  Of course Christopher’s tardiness wasn’t a big deal to her because her husband, Greg, was always late. Whenever Christopher and I needed them to be somewhere at a specific time, we told them it was thirty minutes earlier than it was, and even then, they still managed to be late sometimes. In fact, Christopher was so late tonight that Greg was already here.

  Greg was uncomfortable being at dinner with just Allison and me, though he wasn’t doing or saying anything to let on that he felt that way. Allison had told me he’d said that being alone with us was like being the awkward third wheel on a date. He was right. It was hard for anyone to get a word in when the two of us got going, but that was what happened when you grew up only eleven months apart. We were more like twins than sisters.

  “Should I try to get ahold of him?” Greg asked, rubbing his chin. He had a scruffy layer of light facial hair all the time—never clean shaven and never a full beard. He directed his question at Allison like he needed her permission more than mine.

  Allison flicked her hair over her shoulders and rolled her eyes dramatically. “He’s not ignoring her because he’s mad. Not like someone I know.”

  “Like I’m the only one who uses that tactic,” he snapped back.

  They had no problem fighting in public, and I’d told her how uncomfortable it made me, but she never listened. Christopher rushed up to our table right before they stepped into a full-fledged argument. I breathed a sigh of relief—both to see his face and because I wasn’t going to have to listen to Allison and Greg fight.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late.” He bent to kiss me, and I turned my head so it landed on my cheek instead of my lips, my worry instantly replaced with annoyance.

  “It’s totally fine,” Greg said. He pointed to the full drink in front of Christopher’s place setting. “I took care of you.”

  Christopher laughed and slid into his chair. “Thanks.”

  “So where were you?” I asked, not willing to let him slide that easily.

  “I fell asleep after Janie’s surgery,” he said.

  “You fell asleep after her surgery?”

  “I know, right? Pretty unbelievable. I don’t even know how it happened. One minute I was sitting next to her bed watching her sleep, and the next second I was out.” He reached underneath the table and squeezed my knee. “Don’t be mad.”

  Allison reached across and slapped my hand. “She’s not going to be mad. We don’t get to see you guys enough for her to get mad and ruin our night.”

  “Fine, but only because she’s got a point. For the record—I’m still mad at you.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “How’d her surgery go?” Allison asked.

  Even though we couldn’t see each other as much as we wanted, Allison and I texted constantly so that we stayed current with whatever was going on in the other’s life. I’d been filling her in all week with the details of Janie’s case as they came forth. Initially, police investigators had thought she was a neglected toddler, but the wounds on her body told a more painful story. The marks on her neck and wrists were consistent with being tied up, which elevated her case to another level of severity, as if it weren’t already bad enough.

  Allison was obsessed with finding the person responsible. She scoured missing-children databases and even had Google alerts set up on her phone notifying her when a new missing-child case occurred. It reminded me of what she’d been like in law school. Sometimes I thought she missed it, though she’d never admit it, since she swore staying at home with her boys was the best job she’d ever had.

  “Everything went smoothly. Perfect, really.” Christopher beamed. “I’d gone over her x-rays so many times it was like taking my boards.”

  “How’d the fusions go?” I asked. They were the part he’d been most worried about. He’d pored over those scans for hours.

  “Better than I could’ve expected. Some of it was impossible to cut through because her bones are so small. It was like wo
rking on a model. I’m glad that part is over with. Now we just hope she heals okay.” He took another drink. “You’re never going to guess what we found out.” He looked around the table, making brief eye contact with each of us. “Janie isn’t a toddler—she’s actually six years old.”

  “What?” Allison said. “Seriously?”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “No one has ever been sure about her age. Dan thought it’d be a perfect opportunity to measure all the gaps between her growth plates while she was under, so we did. Every single one. Turns out she’s six years old.”

  “Wow. How does that change things for her care?” I asked.

  “It’s going to be interesting. The progression of a—”

  Allison interrupted him. “Okay, this is where I’m stopping the conversation because I know you’re about one step away from getting all medical on us. No more work talk tonight. Seriously. Just fun from now on.”

  I laughed and grabbed my glass, raising it to hers. If anyone needed a night out, it was Allison. We’d been raised like twins, but Allison had actual twins. Caleb and Dylan were my nine-year-old nephews and kept her busier than any full-time job I’d ever had.

  “I’m so glad Janie’s surgery went well,” I said to Christopher later that evening as we turned down our comforter and climbed into bed. “Now maybe you’ll be able to relax a little.”

  He’d been so tense all week. He’d spent all of his free time studying her case. He’d fallen asleep with his notes on his nightstand, the last thing he’d looked at before bed.

  “I don’t know, but it’s weird. I’m actually more committed to her than I was before.” He pulled me close, and I snuggled against his chest. I loved when we got to go to sleep with each other at night. It was the best part of the weekend. “Like I’m kind of bummed that I don’t get to do more for her.”