“Right, well . . . I’m calling about Marissa.” Jenny drew a quick breath and explained that she’d known about the baby and that she knew about the abortion. At first it seemed like Dotty might dispute the fact, but when Jenny told her that the information came from Marissa, Dotty fell quiet.
“Anyway, Marissa told Bailey something very serious.” Jenny did nothing to hide the tired sound in her voice.
“Listen, Jenny.” Dotty’s tone changed. “What happens with my daughter is my business. I don’t need you calling me, making me feel like I don’t know my own child.”
Jenny stifled a sad laugh. This was exactly the response she’d feared, the reason she hadn’t ever contacted a parent after hearing the details of Bailey’s conversations with friends. For the most part, people didn’t want to know. When kids were using drugs or getting drunk, when they were breaking curfew or sleeping with their boyfriends, parents usually had some idea. But they chose to look the other way so they wouldn’t have to deal with the reality. One friend had even told her that what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her and that all teens veered a little off course now and then.
But Jenny wasn’t letting Dotty deter her. Not when Marissa’s life was on the line. She raised her voice just enough to express her concern. “Dotty, I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear this.” She launched into a brief but chilling description of the actions Bailey had told her about, the cutting and harm Marissa was inflicting on herself. “She needs counseling. Please . . . get her in to someone at church tomorrow.” She paused and did her best to sound compassionate. “Maybe you could go with her.”
Dotty was quiet for several beats, and Jenny wondered if she was stunned or crying or even if she’d hung up. But then the sound of her sighing came across the line. “She actually told that to Bailey?” The anger was gone, and in its place was something closer to shock. “Marissa wasn’t talking about someone else?”
“She was talking about herself.” Jenny glanced at Bailey, who was still watching from her place at the kitchen bar. “I’m sorry, Dotty. I thought you should know right away.”
Again there was a pause, and Jenny hoped maybe the woman would break, that she might cry out for Jenny’s friendship and the chance to be honest about the heartache that had overcome them in recent months.
But Dotty kept her words brief. “I need to go.” The heaviness in her tone said what she wasn’t verbalizing. “I’ll talk to my daughter. If she needs counseling, we’ll get it. You don’t have to worry about her.”
After a terse thank-you from Marissa’s mother, the conversation ended. Jenny replaced the receiver and sat back down next to Bailey. “That didn’t go well.”
“She probably doesn’t believe you.” Bailey rested her forearms on the counter. “But if she looks at Marissa’s arms, she’ll know.”
“And maybe then she’ll take Marissa for help.” Jenny placed her hand over Bailey’s again. “That’s all we can hope for.”
For a while neither of them said anything. Then Bailey angled her head, still sad but more thoughtful than before. “You know what I wish?”
“What, honey?” The house was quiet, except for the soft whir of the ice maker and a gentle breeze outside the open kitchen window.
“I wish the crisis pregnancy center hadn’t closed. Marissa said it was shut down before she had her abortion.” She narrowed her eyes, pensive. “I did a report on the center last year, remember? I had no idea it was closing.”
“Me neither.” Jenny felt sick about the way things had turned out.
“The center had an ultrasound machine, and they tell you information about what happens after an abortion, how damaged it leaves the mother.” Bailey stood and shrugged. “It’s too late for Marissa, I guess.”
“Not if she gets help.”
“I mean for her baby.” Bailey’s eyes glistened with sorrow. “It’s just sad, you know?”
“For the baby and for Marissa.” Jenny wanted to add that Marissa clearly was struggling with a broken relationship with God, along with everything else, but it was late. She stood also and put her hands on Bailey’s shoulders. “Let’s pray for Marissa, and then you get some sleep, okay?”
Bailey nodded and bowed her head. Jenny had expected to do the praying, but her daughter started in first, as if her heart was already overflowing with the things she wanted to share with the Lord. “Dear God, be with Marissa tonight.” Bailey’s voice caught, and it took a moment before she started again. “I can’t believe she’s hurting herself, that she’d feel so low she could do something like that. Please help her to be honest to her mom and lead them both so they can get her help. And please hold her little baby extra close. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
Jenny couldn’t have put it any better if she’d tried. She hugged Bailey for a long time, then watched her trudge back upstairs to her room. When she was gone, Jenny sat down again and stared out the window at the dark, shadowy landscape outside. Her prayer came as naturally as her next breath. Thank You, Father, for a daughter who loves me and shares with me. I know what we have is very special. And please give me wisdom so the bond between us stays.
She was about to head to bed when an idea hit her. If there was no longer a crisis pregnancy center in town, then someone needed to reopen it. And who better than Ashley’s sister? Brooke and her husband were both doctors, so they would have the connections and the means to get something started again.
Jenny’s heart raced as the possibilities took form. She didn’t know Brooke very well, but she could talk to Ashley. She could tell her about Marissa, how the only crisis pregnancy center in town had closed down, and how other teenage girls might choose abortion if they didn’t have more information. And just like that Jenny could get the ball rolling toward a change for Bloomington, Indiana.
Maybe as early as tomorrow morning.
Dr. Brooke Baxter West hung up the phone, snagged a tissue from her desk at the medical office where she had her practice, and dabbed at her eyes. Not now, she told herself. Tears would have to wait until later.
She checked her watch—10 a.m., time for rounds at the hospital, a task that always required her utmost attention and focus. As a pediatrician, the kids in her care who needed a hospital stay were usually sick with things they would recover from—tonsillitis or pneumonia or severe croup. But today one of her patients was critically ill. Ethan Teeple needed her complete attention, no matter the ideas screaming through her mind.
The phone call had been from her sister Ashley. Proof that the differences between the two were behind them and that God was healing their hearts, bringing them back to a place of friendship. Brooke gathered her file of notes, slipped them into her briefcase, and headed for the door. The hospital was the next building over, and most days Brooke walked. On this late August morning the time outdoors would be especially welcome, a chance to think over the conversation with Ashley.
Apparently her sister had talked with Jenny Flanigan, one of the CKT moms. Ashley filled Brooke in on a situation that had happened with one of the teenage girls in Jenny’s daughter’s circle of friends. The girl had gotten pregnant and had an abortion because she had no other option, no other voice of reason. Not even the voice of her mother.
“The crisis pregnancy center closed just before Marissa would’ve needed it. Maybe it’s time someone reopened it, Brooke.” Ashley’s voice was brimming with emotion. “Maybe that would be part of my Sarah’s legacy.”
The tears came quickly for Brooke as she pictured Ashley and Landon’s tiny baby born with anencephaly and her short life before leaving this earth. From the time Ashley received the terrible diagnosis, Brooke had been opposed to her sister continuing her pregnancy. Medical training and prior experience had convinced Brooke that only one option existed when an unborn baby was diagnosed with anencephaly. Abortion. Eliminate the pregnancy, thereby saving the parents the trauma of carrying to term a child doomed to death.
But Ashley and Landon had done things differently, stand
ing by their determination that God would bring a miracle out of their daughter’s life—however brief.
The resulting birth and death of Sarah had touched Brooke like nothing before. It changed her. She had since come to realize that she could not suggest abortion to her patients. Not when the baby’s ultrasound showed anencephaly. Not ever. But never until this morning had she thought about taking her new understanding of life a step further by reopening the crisis pregnancy center.
Brooke stepped out through the double doors of her medical building, and she could hear Ashley’s voice the way it had sounded moments ago on the phone.
“Think about it,” Ashley had told her. “Sarah proved that life is precious. She was loved as much in her few hours as she would’ve ever been loved if she’d lived to be a hundred. Shouldn’t the babies of teenagers in our city have that same chance? the chance to live?”
Goose bumps had run like electricity down Brooke’s arms and legs. A crisis pregnancy center was crucial. It would give teenage moms or moms in crisis a chance to see their unborn children, a chance to recognize their pregnancies for what they truly were—lives that deserved a chance.
Brooke sighed and pushed through the doors of the hospital. She could think about the center later. For now she had to focus on the sick kids in her care. Especially Ethan. She took the elevator to the fourth floor, the one dedicated to children with serious illnesses. Down the hall and around a corner, she came to Ethan’s room.
He was lying in bed, a precious bald child with huge blue eyes, but this morning he seemed more tired than usual. His mother stood next to him, holding his hand. She looked up when Brooke entered the room. Worry had creased her forehead and left dark circles beneath her eyes.
Brooke took gentle hold of Ethan’s toes and shifted her attention to the small boy. “How’s my favorite patient?”
Ethan’s eyes lit up. Even on his sickest days he was a ray of sunlight in a hospital wing of sorrow and darkness. “I got my pictures.” He pointed to a Mickey Mouse photo album on his bedside table. “The ones from Disney World!”
A lump tried to form in Brooke’s throat, but she kept it at bay. “Photos of your trip. You’ll have to show me.”
“He had a great time.” Ethan’s mother found the hint of a smile as she reached for the photo album. She was opening it when Ethan’s nurse Lindsay walked into the room.
“Dr. West, good to see you.” Lindsay’s eyes met Brooke’s and there was an awareness, a sense that Brooke hoped Ethan and his mother couldn’t see. The child wasn’t doing well. His last surgery and rounds of chemotherapy hadn’t stopped the cancer the way they’d hoped. The treatment he was getting now was his last chance.
“Did I tell you, Dr. West?” Ethan’s voice was raspy, another sign of his struggle.
Brooke moved closer to the side of the boy’s bed. She grinned at him. “Tell me what?”
“About Nurse Lindsay.” Ethan beamed at the young brunette, who had moved to the other side of his bed. “Me and her are engaged. ’Cause when I get all grown up I’m gonna marry her.”
“That’s right.” Lindsay’s eyes shone with the sweetest sorrow. “Ethan’s my little prince.”
“’Cept when I make her chase me . . . out in the halls.”
Brooke giggled at the picture Ethan painted, and she walked to the chart positioned on the wall near the doorway. Her joy faded as she looked at Ethan’s numbers. If his blood counts were a fair indicator—and they usually were—the cancer was still gaining ground.
Ethan took the photo album from his mother and began showing the pictures to Lindsay. “You can see them in a minute, ’kay, Dr. West? When you’re done with the paper stuff.”
“Okay, pal.” Brooke didn’t take her eyes from the chart. “I’ll be right there.” She flipped back a few pages and compared Ethan’s blood levels, the steady downward progression of them. The numbers blurred, and Brooke sucked in a breath and held it. How strange life was. This cherished boy was fighting to live another day when every week women walked into the abortion clinic down the street and rid their bodies of a life that would’ve been just as special.
Brooke summed up the information in the report and jotted a few notes at the bottom of the page, just below the notes from his pediatric oncologist. The boy was sicker, no doubt. But, Brooke wrote, he’s as much a sunbeam as ever, a chatterbox with everyone who comes into the room—even if he’s too tired to get out of bed. If anyone can win this battle, Ethan can. She closed the file and placed it back in the holder on the wall.
Ethan’s mother was watching her, the way parents of sick kids always watched, looking for a sign, a glimpse, a knowing that might show in a doctor’s expression. Brooke kept her eyes from the woman as she moved back to Ethan’s bedside and peered over his shoulder.
“See, Dr. West.” Ethan was practically shaking with excitement. “That’s me and Mickey Mouse! In person!” He pointed to a bright-colored photograph. “I got extra long time with him ’cause that’s called Make-A-Wish! Isn’t that great?”
“That is, Ethan.” Brooke put her hand on his shoulder. “It looks like a wonderful time.”
Ethan settled back into the pillow, exhausted from the effort of telling the story. His smile fell off a little, and he glanced at his mother. “Mommy says it was the time of our life.”
Indeed, Brooke thought. She caught the attention of Ethan’s mother on the other side of the bed. “Can we talk? Out in the hall, maybe?”
As Brooke stepped back, Lindsay moved in beside Ethan. “Show me the one with Dumbo again.” Her voice was tender. “I love that ride.”
“Yeah, me too!” Ethan’s words were slower now, his eyelids heavier when he blinked. “You and me can go on it next time . . . when you come with us.”
Brooke and Ethan’s mother went into the hall. When they were out of earshot, Brooke studied the woman’s face, the worry showing in the lines around her eyes and mouth.
“It isn’t good, is it?” A desperation from somewhere deep inside her shone in her eyes. “His skin is paler than before.”
“I noticed that.” Brooke stared at the floor for a few seconds, and a sigh slid between her lips. “No, Mrs. Teeple, his numbers aren’t good. We’re going to increase his treatment dosage. But really . . . we’re running out of ways to help him.” She reached out and took gentle hold of the woman’s hand. “You need to know.”
Ethan’s mother squeezed her eyes shut and gave a few quick nods. Brooke wondered if the woman might faint or drop to her knees from the sheer anxiety of the moment. Instead she opened her eyes, and in a voice choked with tears, she thanked Brooke. “I know you’re doing all you can do.” The corners of her lips lifted, despite her obvious pain. “We won’t give up. Everyone we know is praying for that little boy.” She glanced over her shoulder toward Ethan’s room. “God does His best work when we’re at the end of ourselves.”
Brooke thought about her own daughter Hayley, who had nearly drowned and who—but for the miraculous power of God—might’ve been in a vegetative state at this moment and not attending school with her peers. “Yes.” Brooke hoped Mrs. Teeple could feel her sincerity. “I believe that. My husband and I are praying for Ethan too.”
They headed back into Ethan’s room, and after a few minutes Brooke moved on to her next patient, a one-year-old recovering from a serious case of pneumonia. Things were on the upswing for Paige Tagliaferri, though, and Brooke expected this visit to have a much different feeling from the one with Ethan. She walked to the far end of the hall and turned down another corridor. Just past the nurses’ station, she gave a light knock on the door and then stepped inside. Paige’s parents had kept vigil at her cribside since she’d been admitted two days ago.
Now, as Brooke looked in, what she saw made her breath catch in her throat. Paige’s mother, Megan, had climbed into the oversize hospital crib and was curled up beside little Paige. From a corner of the room came the soft refrains of classical music—Mozart, maybe. Brooke studied th
e picture they made, the young mother so concerned for her daughter that she had done the only thing she could do—place herself physically next to her child.
Brooke took quiet steps to the place on the wall where Paige’s chart hung. She looked it over, and warmth filled her heart. Paige’s last X-ray was much better. Her white count was normal, her little body responding to the antibiotics. If her exam went well, she could go home in the morning. Brooke replaced the chart and stared once more at the mother and daughter. Paige had been a patient since she was born. Her parents had spent years trying to conceive, trying every possible option before finally giving up. Only then, about a month later, did Megan find out she was pregnant.
Paige Tagliaferri was a beautiful child, with dark blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and the most delicate features. Every time Brooke saw her, she was smiling. Even after giving immunizations, Brooke loved her visits with Paige because her parents practically glowed with joy, as if having Paige and being parents was nothing short of a dream come true.
Brooke went to the side of the crib, gripped the edge, and whispered, “Hello, Megan. It’s Dr. West.”
The woman’s eyes flew open, and for a moment she didn’t seem to know where she was. Then she sat up, and a sheepish look filled her face. She leaned down and kissed Paige on the cheek before climbing out of the crib. “Sorry . . . I’m not sure I’m supposed to be in there.” She reached back through the bars and stroked her daughter’s hand. “She needed me.”
“It’s fine.” Brooke smiled and pulled her stethoscope from her pocket. She slipped it on and moved in closer to the crib. “Her chart looks great. If she sounds good, she can go home tomorrow.”
“I hope so.” Relief filled Megan’s voice. “We’re taking her to California next week to visit my parents.” A soft laugh came from the woman. “Like the rest of us, they can’t get enough of her.”
Brooke finished the exam, and as she expected, the baby’s lungs sounded almost completely clear. She had finished making her recommendation that Paige go home and she was heading for her next patient when again the reality hit her. Ethan . . . Paige . . . children who were wanted and prayed for and who, by their very existence, were walking miracles.