Life Support (12 page)

"Can you tell me what they are?"

"I, uh . . ." Molly looked down at her 12p. The short skirt was riding up her thighs. She squirmed a little in her chair. "In the morning, I'm sick to my stomach. I gotta pee all the time. And I haven't had my monthly in a while."

"How long since your last period?"

Molly shrugged. "I'm not real sure. I think it was back in May."

"That's over four months ago. Didn't it worry you, being so late?"

"Well, I didn't really keep track, you know. And then I got that stomach flu and I thought that's why I was late. And also, I�I guess I didn't want to think about it. About what it might mean. You know how it is."

Linda obviously didn't know. She just kept looking at Molly with those pinched eyes. "Are you married?"

Molly gave a startled laugh. "No, Ma'am."

"But you did have . . . sex." The word came out like a throat clearing, a low, choked sound.

Molly fidgeted in her chair. "Well, yeah," she answered. "I've had sex."

"Unprotected?"

"You mean like do I use rubbers? Yeah, sure. But I guess I . . . had an accident."

Again, the woman made that throat-clearing sound. She folded her hands on the desk. "Molly, do you know what your baby looks like right now?"

Molly shook her head.

"You do understand it is a baby you're carrying?" The woman slid the picture book toward Molly and flipped to a page near the beginning.

She pointed to an illustration, a miniature baby all wrapped around itself in a small fleshy ball. "At four months, this is what he looks like. He has a little face and little hands and feet. See how perfect he is already? He's a real baby. Isn't he cute?"

Molly shifted uneasily.

"Do you have a name for him yet? You should give him a name, don't you think? Because you're going to start feeling him move

around inside you real soon, and you can't just call him hey you. Do you know the father's name?"

"No, Ma'am."

"Well, what was your daddy's name?"

Molly swallowed. "William," she whispered. "My daddy's name is William."

"Now that's a nice name! Why don't we call the baby Willie? Of course, if it's a little girl, we'd have to change it." She smiled. "There are so many nice names for girls these days! You could even name her after yourself."

Molly looked at her in bewilderment. Softly she asked, "Why're you doing this to me?"

"Doing what, Molly?"

"What you're doing . . ."

"I'm trying to offer you a choice. The only choice. You've got a baby in there. A four-month-old fetus. The Good Lord has given you a sacred responsibility."

"But, Ma'am, it wasn't the Good Lord who fucked me."

The woman gasped, her hand flying to her throat.

Molly squirmed in her chair. "I think maybe I should go�"

"No. No, I'm only trying to lay out the options for you�all of them.

You do have choices, Molly, and don't let anyone tell you differently.

You can choose life for that baby. For little Willie."

"Please don't call him that." Molly stood up.

So did Linda. "He has a name. He is a person. I can put you in touch with an adoption agency. There are people who want your baby�thousands of families just waiting for one. It's time to think about someone besides yourself."

"But I gotta think about myself," whispered Molly. " Cause no one else does." She walked out of the office, out of the building.

In a phone booth she found a Boston directory. In the Yellow Pages was a listing for a Planned Parenthood clinic, on the other side of town.

I've gotta think about myself, Because no one else does. No one ever hag She rode the bus, transferring twice, and got off a block away from her destination.

There was a crowd of people standing on the sidewaLk. Molly could hear them chanting, but she couldn't understand the words. It was just a noisy chorus of voices, rhythmically punching the air. Two cops stood off to the side, arms crossed, looking bored.

Molly halted, uncertain whether to approach. The crowd suddenly turned its attention to the street, where a car had just pulled up at the curb.

Two women emerged from the building and moved swiftly, defiantly, through the gathering. They helped a frightenedlooking woman out of the car's passenger seat. Locking arms around her, they started back toward the building.

The two cops finally moved into action, pushing into the fray, trying to clear a path for the three women.

A man yelled, "This is what they do to babies in that building!" and he threw a jar down on the sidewalk.

Glass shattered. Blood splashed across the pavement in a bright, shocking spray of crimson.

The crowd began to chant, "Baby killers. Baby killers. Baby killers. " The three women, heads ducked, blindly followed the cop up the steps and into the building. The door slammed shut.

Molly felt a tug on her arm, and a man shoved a brochure in her hand.

"Join us in the fight, sister," he said.

Molly looked down at the brochure she was holding. It was a printed photo of a smiling child with wispy blond hair. We are all God's angels, it said.

"We need new soldiers," the man said. "It's the only way to combat Satan. We'd welcome you." He reached out to her, fingers bony as a skeleton's.

Molly fled in tears.

She caught a bus back to her own neighborhood.

It was nearly five when she climbed the stairs to her room. She was so tired she could barely move her legs, could barely drag herself up that last flight of stairs.

A moment after she'd flopped onto her bed, Romy shoved open the door and walked in. "Where you been?"

"For a walk."

He gave her bed a kick. "You're not doing a little on the side, are you? I got my eye on you, girl. I'm keeping track."

"Leave me alone. I want to sleep."

"You fucking around on your own time? That what you been doing?"

"Get out of my room." With her foot, she shoved him off the bed.

Bad mistake. Romy grabbed her wrist and twisted it so savagely she thought she could feel her bones snapping.

"Stop it!" she screamed. "You're breaking my arm�"

"And you're forgetting who you are, Molly Wolly. Who I am. Don't like it when you go off without telling me where you are."

"Let me go. C'mon, Romy. Please stop hurting me."

With a grunt of disgust he released her. He crossed to the old rattan dresser where she'd left her purse. Turning the purse upside down, he emptied the contents on the floor. From her wallet he pulled out eleven dollars�all the money she had. If she'd been turning tricks on the side, she sure wasn't getting paid for it. As he stuffed the bills in his pocket, he suddenly noticed the brochure� the one with the picture of the little blond child. We are all God's angels.

He snatched it up and laughed. "What's this angel shit?"

"It's nothing."

"Where'd you get it?"

She shrugged. "Some guy gave it to me."

"Who?"

"I don't know his name. It was over by the Planned Parenthood. There was a whole bunch of crazy people out on the street, yelling and shoving folks."

"So what wereyou doing there?"

"Nothing. I wasn't doing nothing."

He crossed back to her bed and grabbed her under the chin. Softly he said, "You didn't go and do something without telling me?"

"What do you mean?"

"No one touches you without my permission. You got that?" His fingers dug into her face and suddenly she felt afraid. Romy was speaking softly, and when he got quiet was when he got mean. She'd seen the bruises he left on other girls' faces. The bloody gaps where their teeth had been. "Thought we got that straight a long time ago."

The pressure of his fingers brought tears to her eyes. She whispered, "Yeah. Yeah, I . . ." She closed her eyes, steeling herself for the blow. "Romy, I messed up. I think I'm pregnant."

To her surprise the blow never came. Instead he released her and made a sound almost like a chuckle. She didn't dare look at him but kept her head bowed in supplication.

"I don't know how it happened," she said. "I was scared to tell you. I figured I'd just, you know, take care of it. And then I wouldn't have to tell you nothing."

His hand came down on her head, but the contact was gentle. A caress.

"Now you know that's not the way we do things. You know I take care of you. Gotta learn to trust me, Molly Wolly. Gotta learn to confide in me." His fingers slid down her cheek, soft as a tickle. "I know a doctor."

She stiffened.

"I'll take care of it, Moll, just like I take care of everything else.

So don't you go making other arrangements. You got that?"

She nodded.

After he left the room, she slowly unfolded her limbs and let out a deep sigh. She'd gotten off easy this time. Only now, after the encounter was over, did she realize how close she'd come to getting hurt.

You didn't go against Romy, not if you wanted to hold on to your teeth.

She was hungry again, she was always hungry. She reached under the bed for the bag of Fritos, then remembered she'd eaten them all that morning. She got up and rooted around the room for something else to eat.

Her gaze fell on the picture of the blond baby. The brochure was lying on the floor, where Romy had tossed it.

We are all God's angels.

She picked up the brochure and studied the baby's face. Was it a girl or a boy? She couldn't tell. She didn't know much about babies, hadn't been around one in years, not since she was a girl. She had only a vague recollection of holding her younger sister on her lap.

She remembered the crackle of plastic pants over Lily's diaper, the sweet powdery smell of her skin. How Lily had no neck, just that soft little hump between her shoulders.

She lay down and placed her hands on her belly, felt her own womb, firm as an orange, bulging under the skin. She thought of the drawing in Linda's picture book�the baby with the perfect fingers and toes. A Polly Pocket baby you could hold in one hand.

We are all God's angels.

She closed her eyes and thought wearily, What about me? You forgot me, God.

Toby stripped off her gloves and tossed them in the rubbish can. "All stitched up. Now you'll have something to show the other kids at school."

The boy finally got up the nerve to look at his elbow. He'd had his eyes closed tight, had not dared even a single peek while Toby was suturing. Now he stared in awe at the nubbins of blue nylon thread.

"Wow. How many stitches?"

"Five."

"Is that a lot?"

"It's five too many. Maybe you should retire the old skateboard."

"Nab. I'd just bang myself up some other way." He sat up and slid off the treatment table. Immediately he swayed sideways.

"Uh oh," said Maudeen. She scooped him up under the arms and lowered him into a chair. "You're moving too fast, kid." She shoved the boy's head between his knees and rolled her eyes at Toby. Teenagers. All brag and no backbone. This one would probably strut into school tomorrow morning and proudly wave his new battle scar. He wouldn't bother to mention the part about nearly fainting into a nurse's arms.

The intercom buzzed. It was Val. "Dr. Harper, they've got a Code Blue up on Three West!"

Toby shot to her feet. "I'm on my way."

She jogged up the hall toward the stairwell, bypassing the elevator.

She could make it faster on her own two feet.

Two flights up, she emerged in the Three West corridor and spotted a nurse wheeling a crash cart through a doorway. Toby followed her into the patient's room.

Two ward nurses were already at the bedside, one holding a mask to the patient's face and bagging oxygen into the lungs, the other nurse administering chest compressions. The nurse with the crash cart pulled out EKG leads and slapped contact pads onto the patient's chest.

"What happened?" said Toby.

The nurse pumping on the chest answered. "Found him seizing. Then he went flaccid�stopped breathing�" Her words came out in rhythmic bursts as she leaned forward, released. "Dr. Wallenberg's on his way."

Wallenberg? Toby glanced at the patient's head. She hadn't recognized him because the oxygen mask had obscured her view of the face. "Is this Mr. Parmenter?"

"Hasn't been doing so well the last few days. I tried to get him transferred to the ICU this morning."

Toby squeezed around to the head of the bed. "Get those EKG leads on.

I'll put the airway in. Number seven ET tube."

The crash cart nurse passed her the laryngoscope and ripped open the ET tube packet.

Toby crouched down by the patient's head. "Okay, let's do it."

The oxygen mask was removed. Tilting the head back, Toby slid the laryngoscope blade into the patient's throat. At once she identified the vocal cords and slid the plastic ET tube into place. The oxygen line was reconnected, and the nurse resumed bagging.

"I've got a tracing," said the crash cart nurse. "Looks like V. fib."

"Charge to a hundred joules. Hand me the defib paddles! And get a lidocaine bolus ready�a hundred milligrams."

It was too many orders at once, and the crash cart nurse was looking overwhelmed. In the ER, every task would have been done in the blink of an eye, without a doctor uttering a single word. Now Toby wished she'd brought Maudeen upstairs with her.

Toby placed the paddles on the chest. "Back!" she ordered and pressed the discharge buttons.

A hundred joules of electricity coursed through Angus Parmenter's body.

Everyone's gaze snapped to the monitor.

The heart tracing shot straight up, then slid back to baseline. A blip appeared, the narrow peak of a QRS complex. Then another, and another.

"Yes!" said Toby. She reached down to feel the carotid. There was a pulse, faint but definitely present.

"Someone call ICU," said Toby. "We'll need a bed."

"I'm getting a BP�eighty-five systolic�"

"Can we draw some stat electrolytes? And hand me a blood gas syringe.

"

"Here, Doc."

Toby uncapped the blood gas needle. She didn't waste her time on the wrist searching for the radial artery, she went straight for the femoral. Piercing the groin, she angled the needle toward the pulse. A flash of bright red blood told her she'd found her target. She collected 3 cc's in the syringe, then handed it to a nurse.