mine {h.s.} | {b3}

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

n. can y'all comment or smn? there's only 7 chapters left don't leave me hanging now :/

— CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE —

march, year two.

Everything that I know about what happened is secondhand knowledge; the bits of pieces that my coworkers were able to puzzle together after the fact, aided by the statements of the parties involved and the security camera footage. My memory of the events are hazy. I don't know what is the truth and what was imagined in the haze of simultaneous trauma and high-grade medical drugs.

It started with Celeste Scott.

Eight months pregnant at eighteen years old, she first wandered into the halls of Seattle Medical Center. Freshly kicked out of her house, she was riding out an adoption program where she had two parents for the child set as the finalists for who would take her baby fresh from her womb. Neither of the parents came with her when she stumbled in, having come directly to me by a referral from one of the clinics that I've done occasional work for in order to gauge whether her pregnancy would be able to carry to term. Even those details are foggy on me now, without her chart in front of me. I am thankful for the smaller mercies.

I've been told many, many times that I was certain she would have a safe birth. Though, to be safe, I instructed her to come to us when the time came for her to deliver. Somewhere in the back of my head I can remember the lilac pixie cut bobbing up and down as she said, "Yes ma'am." I remember this so clearly because I remember my answer:

"Don't call me ma'am. In a month, I'll be your best friend when I'm in charge of the epidural."

She must have left, but I don't remember. It had been an uncharacteristically busy February in terms of births and OB/GYN surgical cases. Everyone was toppling on top of everyone. I'd taken some time off to host Harry's sisters, and when I first walked back in, I was stepping foot into the lion's den. Every day was filled with case after case. I hardly had time to kiss my daughter when I finally got back home before I collapsed into bed, only to wake up and do it again. I remember feeling like I was an intern all over again.

I do remember that I didn't see Celeste again. Not until March 2 when she came in, hands pressed flat against her swollen, pregnant belly. Four adults followed in close behind her, chomping at the bits as they were eager to do something, anything, for the mother of the child that they wanted. Vaguely, I remember making a comment about it. A sort of pitiful, "She should have chosen the parents by now." But even that feels faded, words that maybe I wish I thought. Maybe I was too busy in the moment, too focused on getting her into a hospital room and getting her going. March was busy, too, and I had plenty of people lining up waiting for rooms. Maybe I just wish that I took a moment to recognize that she should have made a choice.

That is where the black hole begins.

What I've been informed in the time since is that I had a rotation of interns hot on my heels. A pack of five of them were eager to learn all about labor and delivery. I could tell that they were chomping at the bits to get more surgical, practical experience—in the same way that I would have years ago—but I still sent three of them away. Celeste was only an eighteen year old woman; I didn't feel that she needed five fresh-faced interns gawking at her spread vagina.

Two interns stayed with me. I kept them behind me for the duration of the process. A little girl was born in somewhat record timing. Celeste was determined to get the baby out; she was eager to get her life back, to stop living a life that she felt was belonging to the little girl that was taking up house in her uterus.