She looked at Paula, whose breath felt stuck in her throat.
“That fetus was breathing.” Louise’s hand covered her heart. “Her little chest was going up and down so fast. It was no twenty-one-week-old fetus.” She clutched at the floral nightgown. “Then Dr. Miller turned to me and put the infant in my hands—and it was an infant to me at that moment. She looked no different to me than the tiny babies whose lives I fought so hard for in the NICU.”
She coughed again, and Paula handed her the thermos. She was so eager for the rest of Louise’s story, yet a seed of fear was germinating somewhere deep inside.
“Before I could say a word, Dr. Miller peeled off his gloves and said quietly, ‘Get rid of it.’ Those were his exact words. I remember because they echoed through my mind for weeks. I remember standing there, staring at this miniature human being. Her eyes were sealed shut, and I could see her heart’s movement through her thin skin. I was frozen. I could feel Nancy staring from across the room and wished she’d been the one he’d handed the child to.”
She closed her eyes. “Dr. Miller nudged me out of the room, telling me what to do. I could tell he was horrified too. He wouldn’t look at the baby.” She blinked rapidly, lost in memory. “I knew what he asked of me was wrong. This was a living, breathing human being I held in my hands, and every instinct I possessed told me to save her. But Dr. Miller told me to get rid of it. I was confused and scared. Scared of disobeying his orders and scared to murder the child in my hands, for surely that was what it would be! Oh, I was so scared!”
Paula’s mouth went dry. She was too taken aback to ask anything and was glad she’d let Louise tell her story, for what a story it was.
“I ran to the women’s lounge and locked myself in the stall. My heart was beating as fast as the infant’s. I unbuttoned my scrubs and held the baby against me for warmth. I knew her chances of survival were miniscule, but to do nothing seemed cruel beyond words.”
Louise dabbed at her eyes with shaking fingers. “I tried to collect my thoughts, but there were other nurses coming and going through the rest room because of the shift change. And I realized I was going to be late for my other job. That’s when the idea occurred to me.” She drew her shoulders up in a helpless shrug. “At first I thought it was crazy. No, I knew it was crazy. And I wondered how on earth I could smuggle this child downstairs to the NICU without anyone noticing.”
A terrible thought winged through Paula’s mind. Chills chased down her spine. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but nothing came out.
“I took off my scrub top and wrapped the baby in it, keeping it loose around the face but covered nonetheless. I took a moment to compose myself and tried to hold her casually in my arms as if she was just my dirty scrub top. I hoped Nancy wouldn’t be around to ask questions. I wondered how I would answer to Dr. Miller the next day, but I just put all that out of my mind. One thing at a time, I told myself.”
Louise pushed the afghan down, as though she’d grown too hot under the layers of bedding. “I made it out to the hallway with no trouble, and I knew I needed to make it to the elevator without seeing Dr. Miller or Nancy. Once I was inside the elevator, I wished I could push the stop button and think, but the baby needed help quickly if she had any chance at all.” She shook her head. “I had no idea what I was going to do when I got downstairs to the NICU.”
When she paused for a sip of water, Paula gathered her courage. “Did you say downstairs?”
“Yes, to the NICU floor.”
“The—the abortion occurred in the hospital? Chicago General?”
She nodded. “Dr. Miller’s practice was on the fifth floor.”
Dr. Miller. Dr. Miller. Had that been the name of her doctor? Paula’s heart was working so hard, she felt slightly faint. What floor had her abortion been on? She couldn’t remember. She steadied her voice. “And what was the date again? The date the abortion occurred?”
“June twelfth, three years ago.”
It was all coming together now. Coming painfully together. Though she didn’t remember the doctor’s name, Paula did remember she’d been twenty-one weeks, or so she’d thought. She was under anesthesia for the procedure, and when she awakened, she was told everything had gone just fine.
But had everything gone as she thought, or was Louise . . . was Louise talking about her baby?
No, it can’t be. Her thoughts raced. It wasn’t possible. These things didn’t happen. Fetuses didn’t survive abortion. Nurses didn’t smuggle them to safety. Was Louise demented or hallucinating? What did she really know about this woman anyway? And besides, Paula’s abortion wasn’t the only one that day, she was sure. Still, fingers of dread curled around her stomach in a white-knuckled grip.
“Do you remember the patient’s name?” Liquid fear pumped through Paula’s veins, paralyzing her. She wanted to take the question back. To put her hands over her ears.
“Yes, yes, I do. It was O’Neil.”
Paula’s vision swam; her thoughts spun. She remembered the day like it was yesterday. Filling out forms and pausing over the patient information section. David thought she went to Chicago for the conference, but she went to have a “miscarriage.” When it was all over, she’d go back to her hotel and call him, crying, saying it had all happened so fast. As she hunched over the forms, she knew she wouldn’t have any trouble conjuring up tears.
But she had to be careful. If she listed her own name and information, it would have gone through their insurance. She planned to pay cash, but she used another name just to be safe. So on June twelfth she had lowered the pen to the paper and written the first name that had come to mind. Paula O’Neil.
Now Paula closed her eyes as heavy and dark emotions welled up in her like a summer storm cloud. Panic followed, shoving her heart into a rhythm too fast for her lungs to follow. She stood and walked across the room, her back to Louise.
Sweat broke out on the back of her neck. She wanted to shed the Anne Klein suit coat. No, she wanted to run from the room.
“Are you all right, dear?” Louise called.
She couldn’t face the woman yet. Not even Paula was that good at disguising her feelings. She sucked in a breath full of air, almost choking on the smell of antiseptic and urine. “I’m fine. This is just so—wow, it’s amazing.” Her voice sounded false in her own ears. But then she was hearing everything as if through a tunnel of disbelief. She had to finish this. Louise was going to wonder what had upset her, and heaven forbid she should find out the truth. The woman must not recognize her. It had been three years, after all. She needed to collect herself.
Paula schooled her features and turned. “Please, continue.”
She walked back toward the bed but remained standing. She watched the wheels on the recorder spinning, catching every word. She wanted to reach out and jab the Stop button.
“Well, like I said, I didn’t have time to plan anything. When I reached the NICU, I was late. I was so worried about what I would do once I got there. There were two nurses on the shift before me and another coming on the same time as I was, so I knew I couldn’t keep the infant a secret. All I could hope for was to convince them we needed to treat the baby.
“But when I got to the NICU, the two nurses were peeved with me for being late, and they were in a hurry to leave. I set the baby, still wrapped in my dirty scrub top, on the sink counter while I scrubbed in. One of the nurses caught me up to speed on the conditions of a couple of the babies. I kept looking at the wad of material, hoping the baby wouldn’t move and betray her existence.”
There was something unfathomable in Louise’s eyes. “According to the nurse, one of the babies was expected to pass anytime. A very premature infant who’d been born that morning. Her condition had deteriorated, and the doctor gave her less than a 1 percent chance of survival. A sad story, especially because the mother had hemorrhaged badly during the delivery and had to have a hysterectomy to save her life. The other nurses said the father sat by the baby’s side that
afternoon while his wife was in surgery. He was not only about to lose his baby girl, but he and his wife wouldn’t be able to conceive again. My heart broke for them.
“The other nurse scheduled to work with me, Evelyn Bernard, called in just before my arrival and said she’d been pulled over for speeding and would arrive as soon as she could.”
Louise shook her head. “I couldn’t believe my luck. As soon as the nurse left, I opened the wadded-up scrub top, half expecting to see that the infant had died. But the little miracle was still breathing. I picked up the child and put her in an incubator. I didn’t know how I was going to explain this child’s existence to anyone. I knew I would probably lose both jobs, but I couldn’t just let this child die.”
She looked at Paula, a question in her eyes. She wanted Paula to understand why she’d done it. More than that, she wanted Paula to approve what she’d done. Paula nodded. That was her baby. Her child. An ache welled up inside her.
There was one vital question remaining, and Paula wasn’t sure she wanted an answer.
Louise continued. “I started an IV through the umbilical cord, hooked up the assisted ventilation, and injected fluids and antibiotics. It was the same treatment we’d used for the infant who lay dying in the next incubator. I stood and watched her rapid breaths. I guessed her to be about twenty-four or twenty-five weeks. She was holding up remarkably well for the terrible ordeal she’d survived.”
Her eyes found Paula’s. “Have you ever heard of botched abortions?”
Paula shook her head, her mouth too dry to speak.
“It’s rare, but there are documented cases of it. If the child lives, he or she often suffers from cerebral palsy or some other malady.”
Louise’s eyes got a faraway look in them, and Paula knew she was revisiting the past again.
“After the infant was stabilized, I turned to the incubator, where the other preemie was, the one who was expected to die. I’d just checked the monitors a second before they went off. The baby’s heart had stopped. I had known it would happen soon, but when it did . . .”
Louise blinked away tears. “This is going to be hard to understand, but you have to realize, this baby had no chance of survival. The monitor alarm would have alerted the doctor on call, who would have tried to resuscitate the infant, but her little body wasn’t developed enough to live outside the womb. It was a horribly sad but foregone conclusion.”
Paula knew then what Louise had done, but she had to hear it from her. “What—what did you do?” This was her child Louise was talking about.
My child. The words echoed through the darkened corners of Paula’s mind.
Louise wet her lips. “The idea hit me so quickly, it almost knocked me off my feet. I remember looking at the dying infant, whom the parents desperately wanted, and then at the nearly aborted infant, whom nobody wanted or even knew about. See? Can you see what I mean? There was a set of parents who needed a child. Then there was a child who needed a set of parents.”
“Go on,” Paula said.
“You have to understand that all those thoughts ran through my head in a matter of seconds. I reacted, that’s all. First I turned off the alarm so the doctor wouldn’t come. Then I did it.” Louise’s eyes were shadowed with emotion. “I switched them. I put a bracelet on the living child that would identify her as the Morgan child.”
What Louise had done was unthinkable. But it happened. Paula pictured the nurse frantically unhooking all the medical equipment from the dead child and switching the incubators. It was clear the woman had operated out of compassion, but still . . .
And yet the child Louise had saved was her own. And David’s. The thought awed her and frightened her in ways she couldn’t think about right now.
She watched Louise dab at her face with the corners of the afghan.
“What—what did you do with the . . .”
Louise looked out the window. “The Morgans’ birth child? I brought her home with me. I cradled her and told her she was greatly loved, then I buried her under a shade tree at the back of the property.” She wept then, covering her face with hands that appeared older than she was.
Paula gazed out the window that faced the backyard and saw the tree Louise referred to. It was what the woman had stared at throughout her story.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Louise said through her hands. “It tore me apart—the guilt. But what was I to do? The baby had died. I gave her a proper burial, and I gave the parents hope.”
Faith.
Paula struggled to remember the girl’s face. Her daughter’s face. Even now it seemed incomprehensible. But Faith had cerebral palsy, didn’t she? Just like Louise had said happens sometimes to botched-abortion survivors. Paula thought of the Morgans but pushed the thought away. It was all too much.
“Looking back now,” Louise was saying, “I can see how my decision seems irresponsible, even cruel. I’ve had three years to second-guess myself. But if I could do it over, I would. I would give that little girl a chance at life. But I didn’t have three years to make the decision, I had three seconds. And I’ve lived with guilt every day since then.”
Louise had stopped crying. Her face now simply appeared old and weary.
Paula felt like she’d aged ten years in the time she’d been in this room.
Her baby was alive.
My baby is alive.
My baby is alive.
Maybe if she kept repeating it, she’d believe it. The ache that had sprouted inside grew until it nearly swallowed her whole as she realized the truth. Part of her didn’t want to believe it. Because to believe her baby had lived would mean the abortion she’d tried to have was . . .
Murder.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
The bus hit a rut, and Linn grabbed the English textbook on her lap to keep it from spilling onto the dirty floor. She wasn’t sure why she had it open anyway since she hadn’t read more than two sentences since she stepped on the bus fifteen minutes ago.
No, her mind was only on one thing: Adam. She both dreaded and looked forward to seeing him at work today, and she wasn’t sure which feeling was stronger. She hadn’t seen him since the kiss and didn’t know how he’d act when she did. Would he feel guilty and ignore her? Would there be only awkward silence between them?
Had he relived the kiss a hundred times like she had? She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the vinyl seat. She’d only been kissed by a handful of guys, but she knew one thing. The passion and feeling that had been stored up in that kiss had been enough to fill the Sears Tower to the rooftop.
She closed her English book, finally giving up the thought of studying. As she slipped the book into her book bag, she saw the letter she’d retrieved from the mailbox on the way out of the apartment.
She pulled it from the bag and tore it open. At least a dozen pictures were nestled inside, but she only took out the sheet of stationery. She would save the pictures for last . . . like a long-awaited dessert at the end of a meal.
She opened Natalie’s letter, two small pages written on parchmentlike paper that had moose and bears chasing each other around the border.
Hi, Linn!
I hope you had a nice Christmas and that it’s not as cold in Chicago as what I hear on the news! As you know, Kyle and I were married on Christmas Eve, and we have moved into our new house. Little Grace has the best bedroom. It has a huge gable overlooking our backyard with a window bench and bookshelves. It’s a little girl’s dream room!
Thank you so much for sending her the precious bracelet. I will make sure it is well taken care of, and one day she will understand just how much her birth mommy thinks of her and loves her.
Linn stopped reading and looked out the bus window, her eyes stinging. She watched people exiting the bus and noted it wouldn’t be long until her stop. As much as she wanted to hear about Grace and see pictures of her growing, it was hard. She wondered if it would always be this hard. She knew she’d done the righ
t thing for her baby, but would it always feel like a part of her was missing?
Her eyes found the page again.
I hope things are going well for you in school. I know you are going to ace all your classes, and I can’t wait to see the future God has in store for you!
Have you had any luck finding another place to stay, or are you going to be staying with Paula for a while? She can be a little intense, but she’s a softie at heart. One day God will grab hold of her the way He did you, and she will be a shining light, just as you are.
Oh, Alex just walked by and asked me to tell you that he got the new Uno game for Christmas and wishes you were here to play it with him because he “rocks” at it. His words, not mine. Ha, ha.
We went over to Higher Grounds yesterday and had dinner with Hanna, Micah, and Grams. Hanna is due in four weeks, and she is bigger than you were at the very end of your pregnancy. Of course, I would never tell her that. They have converted the room next to theirs into a nursery, and Gram is just on the other side so they can take care of her as her Alzheimer’s progresses. Micah thinks he’s located his sister, Jenna. I told you about her back in November. She and Micah were sent to separate foster homes as children, and he’s been looking for her.
We stopped by Bubba’s for lunch last week, and one of your friends that you worked with, I think her name was Kayley (??), asked about you and said to tell you hello. I almost gave her your address but didn’t know if you wanted her to have it, so I didn’t. She made over Grace and said she has your eyes and coloring, which is totally true.
Linn flipped over the page, already looking forward to seeing the pictures of Grace.
Well, I’ve rambled long enough. Write or call when you get a chance, and let us know how you’re doing.
Love,
Natalie, Kyle, Alex, Taylor, and Grace
Linn folded the letter and returned it to the envelope before taking out the bunch of photos. Her heart squeezed at the first one. It was her little Gracie, snuggled up in a yellow fleecy blanket, her eyes closed in sleep. All you could see of her was her head and her little fist tucked up against her ear. The photo was a bit fuzzy, as if Natalie had gotten too close to her subject. Linn reached out her finger and touched the photo, almost expecting to feel the softness of Grace’s skin. The next two pictures were from the hospital, when Linn had given birth to Grace.