Sabryna’s store is open from five in the morning until seven at night. She works hard, and she works alone, except for some reluctant help from Devan. Sabryna, who is hands down my best friend, also is my go-to babysitter when I’m called out suddenly.
A buzz, a beep, a phone text from Tracy Anne: R u on way? Hosp nurse about 2 interfere.
Let me explain something here about how things operate in my professional world. The nurse-midwives are entirely separate from the medical staff at Gramatan University Hospital. We’ve trained for three years—intensely, some of us at the best teaching hospitals in the world: Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, Yale. I honestly believe we’re only a few steps away from being doctors. I say that with just a touch of arrogance. I don’t want you to think we’re a bunch of former hippies who stand and sing over a screaming woman giving birth on a kitchen table. The hospital setting is around us only in case of an emergency. So when Tracy Anne uses the word interfere, my blood starts to boil.
“Okay, Willie. You’re going downstairs in your tightywhities,” I yell. I toss a pair of khaki cargo shorts on top of him.
“Wait. I need a shirt, and I need to go to the bathroom, and I need—”
“And I need to help a woman give birth to twins. Downstairs! Right now, buddy boy. Right now!”
CHAPTER 2
WHAT’S GOING ON IN my world this morning is really not at all unusual. My life seems to always be a great big blur of chaos. It’s the collision of my very intense job, my adorable but somewhat demanding kid, my unbearably messy home, and my dog. Yes, of course I love my son. He is smart and charming and usually quite cooperative. Yes, of course I hate my life. I don’t have enough time, and I don’t have enough money. I often think if had more of either of those things I’d be able to manage, but I’m smart enough to know that isn’t true.
As Sabryna says, “Money is a necessity, but it never is a solution.” I guess. Sabryna’s folk wisdom catchphrases always sound right, but I’ve never really put them to the test. Like the one that she loves about raising children: “Don’t pester your children with lots of discipline. Allow room for the good Lord to raise them.” Okay, sounds good, but I’m not buying it. And I’m certainly not going to test it out on Willie.
“Where you off to, Lucy?” Sabryna asks as she stacks cans of gungo peas. I can smell the frying of onions and goat meat coming from the tiny kitchen in the back. Devan is stacking cigarette packages on the shelf slowly … very, very slowly. His face lights with a smile, however, when he sees Willie. They exchange one of those complicated handshakes that only young people seem to know how to do.
“I’m sorry. I have an emergency,” I say.
“No worries, girl. We always got use for an extra pair of working hands, no matter the size of the hands,” says Sabryna.
Now it’s Willie’s turn to roll his eyes.
“Didn’t I hear you coming up the stairs early this morning?” Sabryna asks.
“Yeah, I went out running with the dog and then I got a call about an emergency,” I say.
“Some lady-mama is ready to pop?” she asks.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“You might as well live at that hospital of yours,” says Sabryna. Then she adds, “Well, you practically do. Pretty soon Willie-boy’s gonna think that I’m his mama.”
I laugh at the joke, but a part of me, just for a second, is sad at even the funny truth of it.
My own slightly bossy mother, who should be canonized a saint, lives a long, long car ride away, down in West Virginia, so I can’t lean on her for help. I’ve read all the online advice for the single mother, the working mother, the single mother with two jobs, the single mother with two children, the single mother with no family, the single mother with a bossy mother of her own. With all this advice available, why does it usually feel like I’m making it up as I go along?
“The Duke’s up in the apartment. I’m not sure he did his stuff when we were out. I’ve lost my memory completely,” I say.
“Not a worry. I’ll get the boys to take him out later.”
My cell phone buzzes. I know it will be the frantic Tracy Anne. I don’t even bother to look at the screen. Instead I stoop down and hug Willie. “Do whatever you can to help Sabryna,” I say.
Sabryna jumps in immediately. “You can start by unpacking that sack of Scotch Bonnet chili peppers.”
“A Scotch Bonnet. What’s that?” Willie asks.
“Not some rich lady’s hat. They’re the hottest peppers on earth, just about. You touch your eyes after handling the Scotch Bonnets, you’ll be blind for three days or maybe even forever.”
I kiss Willie on his forehead, what we call a head kiss.
“See you later,” Willie says. Then he glances at the small burlap sack of peppers and adds, “At least I sure hope so.”
CHAPTER 3
TWO NEW YORK CITY police officers are at the employees’ entrance of GUH.
What the hell is going on? And then, of course, I start to think about the missing baby. I’d been so focused on getting here for the birth of Val’s babies that I’d managed to forget the horrible news.
It takes a full minute of plowing through my bag to find my employee ID card. Both officers glance back and forth a few times between my face and my card. One of the guards says, “Okay. Go to second check.”
I walk about ten yards and run into Caspar, the hospital guard who usually sits weekdays at the employees’ entrance.
“Morning, Caspar,” I say. But this is serious business.
Caspar, who is usually full of jokes and smiles and weather predictions, is stern. “May I please see your identification card, Ms. Ryuan?” He usually would have just called me Lucy, but these are clearly dangerous times.
I smile. Caspar does not. I realize that Caspar’s only doing what he’s been told to do, and that it makes no difference that fifteen seconds ago I presented my ID to two New York City police officers.
Caspar looks at my ID. He says, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“‘Thank you, ma’am’?” I ask. “Caspar, it’s me. Lucy.”
“Sorry, orders from Dr. Katz. We gotta do it all by the book.”
I walk a few more yards and … Hold on, what the hell is this?
At the end of the entrance corridor stands Dr. Barrett Katz himself, the pompous, self-important, arrogant, despicable—Am I making my feelings clear?—CEO of Gramatan University Hospital. Katz has been called the Invisible CEO. He is almost always in a meeting, in conference, with an important donor, out of town. Right now he is flanked by two other physicians: Dr. Rudra Sarkar, one of the hospital’s few male ob-gyn doctors, and Dr. Maureen Mahrlig, a radiologist who may or may not be on track to becoming the fourth Mrs. Katz.
A short line has formed in front of this gang of three. The line moves quickly, and whatever Katz is telling each individual brings a serious expression and a strong nod of the head from each person. Most of us never see Dr. Katz regularly, and until today, none of us, I venture, has ever been greeted by him on our way into work.