The Clone's Mother Read online

  Pulling her legs back did it. Her pelvis opened just enough to let the head drop another smidgen, putting her at a four-plus station, at a minimum. That’s when the baby is almost ready to say peek-a-boo. Paula, where are you?

  Her contraction eased off and the head sucked back inside a tad. The mom lay back to rest until the next one hit. I used the reprieve to stick my head out the door and take another look. Dr. Ghatak, an attending physician, stood near the desk writing on a chart.

  “Dr. Ghatak, can you come deliver a baby for me? I can’t find the resident.”

  Before he could answer, Paula emerged from Three, taking her time, apparently knowing nothing of the urgency to get to my room. I forgot Dr. Ghatak. “Paula, come now. We’re having a baby in here.”

  Paula’s mouth formed an “O” and she changed mid-stride and dashed in after me. Just in time for the start-up of the next contraction. Good timing. The fetal heart rate plummeted and wouldn’t recover. She needed to get this baby out faster than it was coming. It seemed to hover right at four-plus station. The heart rate stayed low. The husband peeked up from his knees, moaned, and dropped his head back down. The heart rate stayed low. I opened a forceps tray for Paula and she worked in a controlled frenzy to shoehorn them around the baby’s head. The heart rate stayed low.

  While I threw an oxygen mask on the mom and Paula worked to free the baby, I moved to the panel above the headboard of the bed. I hit the “Code Pink” button that alarmed in the NICU. The heart rate stayed low. The alarm called for a back-up team to help with an infant in distress. They’d be good to have around if this heart rate didn’t recover soon.

  Paula worked a while longer and the baby finally broke loose. The head was delivered. The heart rate stayed low. The cord coiled several times around the baby’s neck. Paula wriggled some hemostats onto the cord to clamp it off and cut it. Then she towed out the rest of the kid. He was floppy. With one hand she held the baby while she whipped the other around to unwind the umbilical cord. Then she handed him off to me.

  I bustled him to the warmer next to a mask blowing oxygen. I suctioned his nose and vigorously rubbed his back with a blanket, hoping the stimulation was enough to get him to take a breath. I listened to his chest with my stethoscope. He began to move around a little and made some weak attempts at respiration.

  His first Apgar was only two at one minute, but his heart rate was on the way up. Then the NICU people burst in to save the day. I gladly let them take over.

  Sheila finally poked her head in. The rush of people into the room must have alerted her to the fact that things were happening which she didn’t know about and better find out. She was in charge, after all.

  “What’d ya do, Kate? Drop a baby?” she said too loudly.

  I grabbed her sleeve before she could duck out. “Come in here. I need to go check my other patients. You stay.” I left without getting her permission.

  The day deteriorated from there. When I went to check my lady in the bathroom, her furious doctor yelled at me, right in the face, like an angry umpire. I hadn’t started the Pitocin yet. He’d wanted it started at seven a.m. sharp. Probably had a tee time to get to.

  Sheila continued to help. She had no choice, now that she’d been swept into the raging current. Her face was flushed like a strawberry. Sometime in the chaos, she too threw her jacket off when her hair began to wilt and her foundation to drip. Whenever she got the chance and our frantic paths crossed, she made sure she snarled her Apple-Berry-Blossom lip in my direction.

  ***

  I didn’t get lunch break and I stayed an hour after my shift trying to catch up and chart what had happened during the day. I couldn’t input my notes into the hospital computer because it was an obsolete system that was offline more than it was on. Instead, I wrote on a paper chart the old fashioned way. The oldest doctors never had wanted the computer charting system anyway. And they had to be kept happy or the hospital would lose their business. Scuttlebutt was we were going paperless, but most of us thought it wouldn’t happen until the entire old regime died out or retired. When I finally wrapped up my charting, I collected my things and headed out.

  At home, I turned the shower on full blast to pull the warm water up the pipes from the basement, and I peeled off my clothes. I discovered I’d picked up Sheila’s scrub jacket instead of my own. The pocket was full of her junk—lip gloss, comb, Altoids, nail file, a crushed pack with two Marlboros left in it. I think I had some Tums in mine. And a tissue. Maybe I’d blown my nose in it. One could hope. And the pictures of Baby Girl Trent. I hope she didn’t lose those. Or get lip gloss all over them.

  Chapter 9

  The next day work was quieter. Every single pregnant woman on the West Side must have had her baby the day before. There was no one left to deliver.

  While I minded my own business at lunch break, chipping away the crusty edge of the Chef’s Surprise looking for something I could recognize and eat with some confidence, Dr. Schroeder materialized in a chair next to me.

  “Hello?” My voice sounded steady, even though my insides had just revved up to ten-thousand RPMs.

  His voice was low. “You lied to me.”

  Guess we were going to skip any pretense of pleasantries.

  “Lied?” All innocence. I couldn’t let him know how he affected me.

  “That baby was not black.”

  “The mother told me.” If Nikki said so, who was I to argue?

  “I saw pictures,” he said.

  Sheila. I swear, I am going to out your boob job!

  “Tell me where she is.”

  “Tell you where who is?” I couldn’t believe Sheila had stolen those pictures. When I’d switched back the jackets at the start of shift, I hadn’t even checked the pockets.

  “Don’t mess with me. Tell me who has the baby.” That blood vessel in the middle of his forehead bulged. It looked like a throbbing purple rope.

  “I can’t do that. It was a private adoption.”

  He inhaled deeply, gaining some control of himself. The purple rope looked like it could blow any second. “Her mother was my patient and there were some genetic irregularities. I need to follow up. Make certain proper counseling is provided.”

  Uh-huh, sure. Thought you knew the grandfather. Get your stories straight. “Put together what you’ve got and I’ll see that her lawyer gets it.”

  “I need to talk to her myself.”

  “Can’t help you.”

  “You’re impertinent.”

  “My mother told me that a few times.”

  The purple rope twitched like there were miniature monsters inside pounding to get out.

  “Who is the lawyer? I’ll talk to him directly.”

  “No you won’t.” Couldn’t believe I actually said that.

  He shoved out his chair so hard it hit another behind him and tipped over. I jumped at the sudden movement and noise. He left but made sure I saw his final nasty glare before he did.

  Yikes. I was going to sleep with the nightlight on tonight.

  I realized he and Sheila had to have a connection. What a pair. They must be getting it on or something. That would explain why I caught it when I sent her home from work.

  I wondered if Sheila knew he’d had a baby with Nikki. At least that’s what it seemed like from the way he was acting. I figured it was time to talk to Nikki and see what was going on.

  Chapter 10

  I didn’t have to work hard to track down Nikki.

  After I got home, I took some trash out to the Dumpster in the alley behind my building. Lo and behold, Nikki sat on the cement block that held up the giant power line tower. She was propped against the huge steel monster taking shallow puffs off a cigarette and coughing after each draw. Her inhaler lay in her lap. In addition to her face metal and spiked blue ’do, she wore a fuzzy orange bathrobe and gigantic pig slippers. She must have resumed her street drug intake, because even I would have to be on crack to wear that get-up.

  She still looke
d very peaked. Maybe she was febrile, delirious, and totally unaware of her fashion faux pas.

  “Hey, Nikki.”

  She jumped and looked at me like she was angry. Maybe she was confused. Or maybe she’d changed her mind and wanted her baby back.

  “What’re you doing here? Are you looking for me?” I asked.

  She answered me with a crass word then looked away. Who knows? Maybe that was the current slang for Glad to see you.

  She leaned back onto her metal backrest and resumed her smoke. She wasn’t acting like she had been looking for me.

  For a minute we stayed there in silence, me standing, her sitting and sucking on her cigarette between coughs and wheezes. We listened to the ever-present deep hum reverberating from the power lines overhead.

  “Cute pig slippers.” Then I actually oink-snorted. Twice. No response. “What’re you doing here?” I asked again.

  She held up her cigarette, as if that explained everything.

  “Why are you here?” she said, still leaning on the metal beam and not looking at me.

  I held up my black Hefty bag. “Disposing of the body.” She didn’t laugh. “I live here.”

  Her glance flicked in my direction, then quickly away. “My grandparents live here.”

  So that’s why I saw her at my bus stop.

  And she wasn’t here to tell me she’d changed her mind.

  I said, “Dr. Schroeder’s been asking about you and the baby.”

  “Who’s he?” She took another drag, stifled a cough as long as she could, then hacked out all the smoke. With a piece of her lung, it sounded like to me.

  “Come on. I know you guys had something going.”

  “Don’t even know the guy.” She flicked ashes onto the asphalt.

  “Well, he sure seemed to know you and act like you and he had a baby together.”

  She grunted.

  “You’re saying you didn’t have something going with him?”

  “Told you, I don’t know the guy.”

  “He said he was your doctor, but it seemed like more than that.”

  “My boyfriend woulda killed me if I cheated on him.”

  That big extra-dark black dead guy who made white babies.

  “He has some information for you.”

  She looked at me for the first time.

  “Something about genetic concerns.”

  “And that meant to you we had a thing going?” She looked at me like I was an idiot. Maybe I was.

  “He said some other stuff….” I tried to dig myself out.

  “What’d you say his name was?”

  “Schroeder. But it’s spelled funny.”

  “Maybe he was that douchebag I saw once, about a year ago. Does he have an office in that ugly pink building a mile or two from the hospital?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What kind of genetic concerns?”

  “He didn’t tell me. I’ll try to get more information from him. If it’s important, I’ll give it to Howard and he can pass it on to you.”

  She snubbed out her cigarette stump on the cement. “Yeah, whatever.” She got up and left me.

  Yeah, whatever? She gave me the feeling she didn’t like me very much, even after we’d had a baby together and everything.

  I tossed the dead body into the Dumpster and headed back to my apartment, all the while trying to figure out what part of her rulebook I’d violated that might have left her less than happy to see me again.

  Chapter 11

  At work two days later, I was walking through the hallways with one of my patients who was Failure to Progress and was very teary-eyed. I gave her just enough empathy to soothe away her panic, then just enough rah-rah to help her know she would in fact live through the ordeal. When her husband arrived and took over for me escorting her on the laps around the nurses’ station, Charge Sarge called me over to the front desk. As I walked toward her, I saw a man standing just a few steps from the desk. He was by far the most handsome man in the world. Well, excluding George Clooney, of course. He wore a white lab coat over a pink button-down shirt, blue Dockers, and a giraffe necktie. His dark hair waved over his forehead, not quite styled—free and easy. His end-of-summer tan was deep and bronze. And he was tall and broad. If I were a cat, I’d be purring. And probably head-butting his shin. And making a fool of myself, and that’d be the end of that.

  Good thing I wasn’t a cat.

  He was looking in my direction. In fact, it almost appeared like the Greek God was watching me, studying me, like he’d been listening to the conversation I’d been having with my emotional patient.

  I approached the desk to ask Sarge what she needed, trying to act like I didn’t notice his stare, but his smiling eyes held mine as I walked. Luckily, I didn’t trip. I felt compelled to return the smile. My luck, I probably had spinach in my teeth.

  Before I could mumble anything incoherent, Charge Sarge said, “Mackenzie needs to talk to you.” After she said it, she went back to her paperwork like she hadn’t even noticed how handsome he was. Maybe he wasn’t her type.

  He smiled wider and nodded at me.

  “You Mackenzie?” I asked. Please say yes. Please say yes.

  “Indeed, I am he.” His voice was dark honey. Low, smooth, seductive. He watched me, melting me with his indigo eyes. The needle on my happy-gauge was twitching up into the red zone.

  This guy could make me forget that I’d committed my undying devotion forever to George Clooney.

  “You want to talk to me?” I said, probably sounding stupid for repeating what Sarge had just told me.

  “I do.” That smile. I’d do anything. Sorry George.

  “I need to talk to you about a patient you had.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m in research and need to do some follow up.”

  “Okay. Whatever you want.” To father my children?

  “The patient is Nichole Trent.”

  My happy-gauge did a header and I scowled. “Schroeder sent you.”

  Too good to be true. I’d forgotten—I didn’t want children anyway. I didn’t mean it, George. He meant nothing to me!

  “I’ve done some work for him and he just got some information to me that I need to follow up on,” he said.

  “What kind of work?” I said, not doing much to hide my skepticism.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss it. Part of the grant stipulations. You know how they can be.”

  Not really. “I don’t see how I can help you.”

  “I need to do some testing on the Trent baby. That’s all I can say really.” He gazed into my eyes, turning up the charm. “I’m sorry.”

  Man, he was good. Tough to resist. “But the baby’s not available.”

  “I don’t need the baby, at least not right away—only if the preliminary analysis pans out. If I could just get her PKU test, I can use a sample from that blood specimen. But it seems she isn’t in the system. I can’t find her. So I thought maybe you could help me.”

  “I can help you find the PKU. But that’s all. She was adopted out—private. And all parties want it to stay that way.”

  His smile grew wider. “I’ll take what I can get—it’s a start, anyway. It might turn out to be all I need.”

  I explained that the mother had given the baby the father’s name before discharge, so her name was changed in the system. She was there, just under a different surname.

  He wrote down the name in a pocket-sized notebook he kept in his lab coat. Over his perfect chest beneath his beautiful pink shirt.

  “Now, how can I repay you for your help?”

  You could take me out to dinner.

  Oh man, did I just say that? Wait, he didn’t move, he’s still waiting. Phew. I’d just thought it really loud. “You don’t need to repay me,” I lied. “Glad to help.” Say dinner, say dinner.

  He shrugged and sighed. “Well, let me know if you change your mind.” He turned and left, totally oblivious to my brain waves ch
asing after him: Take me to dinner, take me to dinner!

  Chapter 12

  Two nights later in the cafeteria, I had just swallowed a bite of muffin when Mackenzie arrived at my table with a tray full of fried food and a biggie-sized cup of coffee. His eyes were less awake than during the daylight hours, but the smiling dolphins on his necktie perked up his appearance.

  My heart fluttered, hoping that he wasn’t just lost and by some slim chance he was actually coming to say hello to me.

  “Hi, Kate.”

  Quick, suck the poppy seeds out of my teeth!

  “Hey there, Mack.”

  His face twitched. Uh, oh. Did I remember his name wrong? “I’m sorry. I thought, um, your name—it’s not Mack?”

  Great. I encounter Mr. Greek God himself and I forget his name.

  “I’ve never gone by Mack. Before. I’m James. Jim. But Mack is okay.”

  He looked flustered, maybe even embarrassed. Did I make him nervous?

  He put out his hand to shake. “Let’s start over. ‘Hello. My name is James Mackenzie.’ Jim.” He chuckled awkwardly while fumbling with his name badge to get it turned around and presented so I could see it. “Oh, and please, do call me Mack. I like Mack. When you say it.”

  I took his hand. Warm. Strong. He didn’t shake my hand. He held it. And lowered his badge and looked right at me. He’d regained his composure really fast. Now I felt embarrassed.

  “I’m, my name—Kate, I’m Johnston. I mean, Kate Johnston.”

  “Nice to meet you, Kate Johnston. May I sit down?” he said.

  “Sure. Have a seat.” Unbelievable. An entire cafeteria and he came to sit with me.

  Oh, yeah. I was the only one there.

  “What are you and your happy fishies doing here?” I asked. Why do I always say such stupid things?

  “I was hoping to share lunch with you.”

  Even if poppy seeds garnished my teeth, I couldn’t help smiling.

  “Any luck with your PKU search?” I asked, carefully sidestepping another outburst of Stupid.

  “As a matter of fact, I did get lucky. I contacted the state lab and they ran it down. They should forward it on to me within a few days. I wanted to thank you again for your help.”