Notorious D.O.C. (Hope Sze medical mystery) (32 page)

It was a group photo, taken outside on a sunny day much like
this one. I sucked in my break when I saw Laura in a white coat. On her right,
at the edge of the group, I noted a balding, South Indian man with glasses, no
doubt Dr. Ven. On her left, Mike Martinez flashed his teeth in a practiced
smile. He was standing a little close to Laura. She had her arms crossed and
her smile looked slightly forced. I felt a pang of sympathy for her.
But I felt relieved that it was the same
guy I'd met tonight. At least Mrs. Lee hadn't shelled out her money to an
imposter.

I scanned the group until I found Reena kneeling in the
front row. She smiled with her lips still covering her teeth. Her eyes were
uncertain. Her face was younger and rounder and she wore more eye makeup than a
K-pop star. More importantly, she'd bleached her hair. Even as my heart seized
up, I noticed her spiky blond hair was cut too short for her heavy jaw.

I could hardly speak for a minute. A lot of things were
coming together. All I could say was, "She bleached her hair."

"Yeah, I noticed that, too. It's funny. We think of
Reena as such a pain in the ass, but Dr. Ven remembered her as more a dependent
personality. He laughed when he saw the picture because he called Reena and
Jodi 'the twins.' Soon after Jodi joined the group, Reena bleached her hair and
imitated her makeup and looked pretty godawful."

Bleach.

I said, "We need a DNA sample from Reena
Schuster."

"You don't think—"

"I've got my suspicions." I looked at him. "I
mean, we have plenty of samples from her—blood, urine, maybe even sputum.
But I doubt it's legal to use them."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Especially on your say-so."

I ignored that. "I remember a forensic pathology case.
They gave the suspect a piece of gum and he spit it in the toilet afterward.
They collected it and ran it. The judge ruled it was allowed, not entrapment,
because he'd thrown it away."

"Uh uh. You can't go through her garbage, Hope. There's
the whole chain of evidence thing, remember?"

Damn. I did remember, from rape kit talks, how important it
was to get consent, label, and store everything so it would stand up in a court
of law. The police would have to do it.

Tucker narrowed his eyes at me. "You're not going to do
anything stupid, are you?"

"How could I? I have a baby to deliver."

"Uh huh." I wore my most innocent expression,
à la
Paddington Bear, but I could
practically see him swearing to keep a close eye on me.

I could live with that.

I glanced back down at the picture. Jodi stood in the second
row directly above Reena. Jodi's head was turned aside as if someone had called
her name while the shutter clicked. From what I saw of her face, she looked
startlingly young, narrow-faced like a kitten, pretty in a sulky sort of way.
She was wearing a beret low on her forehead. Kind of an odd choice on a
summer's day.

My eyes moved back to Laura's image. Her posture was
impeccable. She looked directly at the camera with no hint of coyness or
shyness. Here was a woman with nothing to hide and, I would have guessed,
little to fear in her life. Until she got mixed up with this group. And, once
again, studying her heart-shaped face and the determined lift of her chin, I
saw that she looked uncomfortably like me in that Brownie photo.

I put it down. "I gotta get back to my patient."

***

Mrs. Valdez's moans shifted to a high-pitched keen.

"Hold your breath," said the nurse. "Use it
to push." She hoisted Mrs. Valdez's leg in the air and gestured at the
husband to grab the other. "Push!
 
Push! You can do it!"

Mrs. Valdez strained, red-faced, with her eyes screwed shut.
The baby's scalp descended toward me, a few centimeters from the perineum, but
soon its dark, wet hair retreated.

"Don't stop now! You've still got some left! Come
on!"

"You're doing a great job," I chimed in, but Mrs.
Valdez shook her head and groaned. Her hair was knotted and matted to her face
temples with sweat.

Her leg flopped. The nurse shoved it back in the stirrup and
said, "Okay. We'll try the next time. Don't worry. There's a reason they
call it labour."

True dat. I wasn't sure how much Mrs. Valdez could
understand, even if we spoke Spanish or Portuguese. From her glazed eyes, she
was orbiting Planet Exhaustion right about now. TV tends to focus on the glory
of the baby, without all the pain and pushing. Not to mention the poop. Before
going into medicine, I hadn't realized that they used to give women enemas so
it would be nicer for the staff. Fortunately, I only witnessed a log once. The
nurse instantly swept the stool into a towel and from there into a tray so we
didn't have to watch it or smell it.

Dr. Zahrad passed by. He was a short, peppy man, with
prematurely gray hair. He examined Mrs. Valdez, conferred with me and the
nurse, and buggered off to watch TV.

My own montage was running through my head. If only we could
get DNA samples, we could implicate Reena in the vehicle. If only she would
give them voluntarily. If only we had enough evidence to bring to the police.

If only she confessed.

Beep-beep-beep said the baby's heart on the monitor. The
heart rate dipped to ninety. We all eyed the monitor, but the red numbers
hesitated before they blinked back up to one-thirty.

The nurse and I sighed with relief and shared brief smile.

Reena was still at the hospital. What if I were to pass by
her room tonight, after delivering this baby?

"Here we go again," said the nurse. "Come
on!" She gestured at the husband. Simultaneously, they each lifted Mrs.
Valdez's legs. She closed her eyes. The fat on her thighs jiggled.

Mrs. Valdez gritted her teeth. The tendons in her neck and
the veins on her forehead bulged. "Uhhhh!" Tears leaked from her
eyes.

"Come on, you're great, it's fine, let's go. The baby's
almost ready to come out. Come on, baby. Say hello!
 
Say hello to your mommy!"

"Hi, baby!" I chimed in. I really didn't know what
to say.

Mr. Valdez spoke in Spanish.

Slowly, excruciatingly, the baby made progress. At some
magic moment, the nurse called Dr. Zahrad and unfolded the delivery cart,
revealing stainless steel instruments and bowls, blue paper drapes, and cloth
gowns.

For a moment, I felt nostalgic for the OR. I have always
loved the surgical dance. The sterile gown, where you twirl around and the
nurse holds the gown's tie, wrapping it around you. The ritual of saying what size
gloves you wear and plunging your hands into each one while the nurse snaps the
cuff over your wrists. The metal instruments on the tray. The beam of lights
angled just so. Painting the patient's skin with iodine or chlorhexidine and
draping the surrounding area. Picking up the scalpel to make the first
incision.

In another life, a life where I could always put my career
first, where I could press snooze on my biological clock without worrying about
the consequences, where my back didn't freak out after standing with a
retractor for two hours—in that life, I would be a surgeon.

I snapped back to reality as the baby's head began to bulge
the perineum. It wasn't crowning yet, but it was close. Dr. Zahrad pushed open
the door. "Massage her!" he snapped to me as the nurse gowned him up.

I fumbled for the packet of Muco gel.

"Not that! You're sterile!
 
Wait, I'll get it for you," said the
nurse before I made contact. "Just stand there for a minute. Don't
push," she said to Mrs. Valdez, and then to Mr. Valdez, "Tell her not
to push!" She tore open the packet and squeezed a blob onto my fingers.
"Go!"

Gingerly, I daubed it on the vaginal opening.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you?" snapped Dr.
Zahrad, reaching around me to pull at the lips of the vagina.

I shook my head.

"Where did you do your medical school?"

"Western."

He rolled his eyes at the nurse. "Western."

Mrs. Valdez groaned and clutched her husband's arm.

"PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!" they chorused. I joined in.

"Come here," Dr. Zahrad said, grabbing my hand.
"See how the skin is blanching? There is too much pressure. I don't want
to have to do an episiotomy. Massage, massage, massage! You don't want her to
have a tear!"

The nurse squeezed two more packets of Muco. Imitating Dr.
Zahrad, I hooked two fingers inside her vagina and pulled at the skin closest
to her anus, trying to stretch it out.

"The baby's coming!" called the nurse. "Tell
her the baby's coming any minute!"

And then, in a gush of blood and more salty-smelling
amniotic fluid, the baby's head pushed at the rim of her vagina.

"Stop pushing! Stop pushing!" they chanted.

"Control it," Dr. Zahrad muttered at me.
"Push back. No tearing. No tearing."

The baby's head eased out, slippery with white vernix. I
spotted little black curls. Its squashed little face pointed toward the floor.
Then it rotated slightly and its arms dangled. I grabbed the chest and held the
baby's body as its hips and legs came into the world.

I swooped it onto the mother's stomach gently. I heard a
roar in my ears.

Mrs. Valdez reached toward her warm, pink-brown-white baby.
Its eyes were open. Its mouth smacked once as the nurse swabbed it dry and
wrapped it in a warm blanket.

"Just a minute," said Dr. Zahrad, handing me a
clamp.

I clamped the umbilical cord where he pointed with his
finger. Dr. Zahrad clamped it again, about an inch away, after milking a bit of
the blood out in between. Then the father cut the cord and we all stared at the
folds between the baby's legs.

"It's a girl," said Dr. Zahrad.

Mrs. Valdez burst into tears and scooped her daughter close,
kissing her. Her husband watched both of them, laying his hand tentatively on
his new baby's back. The nurse snugged a hat on her.

I blinked back tears.

When all was said and done, this was a miracle. I felt
privileged to be in the room. This was life. This was creation. This was love.
This was motherhood and fatherhood and daughterhood.

I had to do what I could to honour that sentiment.

Dr. Zahrad nudged me, pointing to a bloody gash in Mrs.
Valdez's perineum at six o'clock. "She has a second-degree tear. We will
need to repair it after she delivers the placenta."

I nodded and stepped between her legs to apply gentle
pressure to the dangling end of the umbilical cord.

Mrs. Lee had lost a daughter. Mrs. Valdez had gained one.

When I was finished here, I would pay Reena a visit.

Chapter 36

"Ryan," I said, as soon as he picked up. "I'm
just about done here. There's one thing I need to do, and I'll be right
home—"

"Hope. I'm on my way. I'll see you in five. Where are
you?"

It was 10:55. He was right. He had to get back to Ottawa. I
glanced down toward triage and saw Tucker's lean figure walking toward me. Man,
oh man. Or rather, men oh men.

I made a quick calculation. I wanted to be alone with Ryan,
and not in the stinky residents' room or the weight room where someone might
burst in on us. "There are usually some empty call rooms on the sixth
floor. I'll meet you by the elevators. It's deserted, but just page me if you
don't see me."

"Done."

I hung up and faced Tucker, who was smiling at me so
intimately the unit clerk and two nurses gave us curious looks. I beckoned him
down the hall, past triage, toward the elevators. "Tucker—"

He smacked a kiss on my cheek. "Feels good, doesn't
it?"

I stopped short, and not just because his lips and the smell
of his body made me want to sink my teeth into his bare shoulder..

"Doesn't it feel awesome, delivering a baby? I may do
OB for the rush, even though everyone says I'm nuts. Including you."

I shook my head, feeling guilty that my rush had turned back
into my primary obsession already.

"Aw, I can see it in your eyes. You look
bee-you-ti-ful!" He lifted me up and swung me around in a circle.

I squealed. I could just picture him lifting me wrong,
throwing his back out, and me having to drag him down to emerg for Toradol. I
banged on his shoulder, but he spun me around again, faster. The dingy yellow
walls and orange carpet whirled, and suddenly I was afraid I'd be sick.

The elevator dinged. Tucker stopped and set me down. I
wobbled, but fortunately the elevator swooshed open to reveal no one. I laid a
hand against the control panel. Before I left, I had to explain. "Tucker,
Ryan's coming to meet me."

"Great. I'd like to see him too."

I scowled at him as best I could while my head still felt a
bit like an egg yolk swirling in a sea of albumin.