Relief flooded through me as I recognized Olivia’s voice float into the room. “UPC. Prep OR. Need O2. Stat.”
In seconds, the door burst open, and I yelled for someone to get Dad. Within a minute, the entire bed, me included, was being pushed down the hallway, my fingers growing numb from holding the baby’s head up as my knees slipped and slid on the sheets.
“What’s happening?” Mrs. HW5 cried out, and I gave her a gentle smile as I hovered above her. I explained the situation again as we raced down the hall.
“You’re going to be fine,” I soothed. “I can feel your baby’s head. I think little Marie Claire’s got lots of hair.” With the gloves on, I didn’t know that at all, but it gave me something to talk about during one of her most terrifying moments. “I bet she’ll be as beautiful as you.”
Mrs. HW5 smiled, just a little, tears shining in her eyes. “Do I look okay?” she asked and it didn’t even piss me off. I laughed and promised that she did.
We were lucky. An OR had just been cleared and cleaned after one of the traffic accident victims, so we were wheeled in immediately. I held my position as we moved to the operating table and the OR nurses covered me with blue sterile sheets.
Covered as I was, I couldn’t see anything, just listened as the anesthesiologist gave the go ahead, indicating she was asleep. The sound of the scalpel slicing through skin was shiver inducing, but still, I held my position, knowing my fingers were the only thing saving this precious little human at the moment.
Within minutes, the weight of the baby’s head was lifted from my fingers, and I could finally remove my hand, although it took a few moments to uncramp from the position it had been in for so long. I crawled off the table, my legs shaky beneath me as sweat dripped down every part of my body, and pulled off the gloves, tossing them in the trash.
Then, there was the cry, the sweetest sound in the entire world. It started out small, then grew stronger with each breath. I deeply hoped the meconium didn’t affect her too badly.
That sound was one of the reasons I loved this job so much.
“Great job, Scarlett,” Dr. Edmond said, glancing up from where he was delivering the placenta before going through the process of sewing the patient back up. Mrs. HW5 would probably have a hissy fit about the vertical scar, but it couldn’t be helped, and I hoped she would find beauty in it one day.
As I watched him stitch up the uterus that was still lying on the outside of the patient’s body, my hand went to my own scar, caressing the long line of puckered tissue that ran down my side.
Maybe I’d find beauty in my scar one day too.
CHAPTER TWO
Langston
“Langston, sweetheart, are you sure this is what you want to do?”
I looked into my mother’s honey-colored eyes and gave her a kiss on her soft cheek, inhaling the Clive Christian fragrance she favored. “Absolutely sure. The time will pass in a flash. I’ll call every week, I promise.”
She waved a hand in front of her face, as if she could wave the threatening tears back into her eye ducts, the growing pinkness from her nose. I bit back a groan and held the tiny but formidable woman to my chest. I loved my mother dearly and hated to see her genuinely sad.
I was a lucky son of a bitch. I’d hit the lottery at birth, had been given the golden ticket just by being born. Not just in wealth and privilege, but by also having a mother and father who adored me, who only wanted the best for me. And if they attempted to steer my life a little too much… it was a small price to pay to know that, no matter what, I was genuinely loved by at least a couple of people on the planet.
“I know,” she said with a delicate sniff as she reached into her sleeve for one of my grandmother’s antique handkerchiefs she kept there. “It’s just so surreal. You were away at school for so long, and then moved around so much. I thought for sure you’d finally move back home to take over your father’s practice. Then this…” She sniffed and blinked harder, but a tear escaped this time, sending a shot of guilt into my gut as she gently dabbed it away, careful not to distort the public persona she’d so carefully crafted over her fifty-eight years.
She was right. I had been away at school for a long time, but that had all been part of the master plan conceived by my parents long before my actual conception thirty-six years ago. To a letter, I’d followed their wishes. Well, for the most part, anyway. Four in the exclusive boarding school I’d been thrust into for my high school years. Then another four at my father’s alma mater, Columbia, then another four in medical school. That was followed by five incredibly grueling ones in the residency program, years that sleep deprivation had pretty much evaporated from my memory.
I only strayed from my parents’ path when I’d chosen a two-year fellowship in a busy inner-city trauma surgery program instead of quietly stepping into my father’s established New York City surgical practice. I wasn’t yet ready to deal with the cushy but sterile life of treating high society gallbladder attacks and appendectomies. I wanted more action. That was what I loved. Getting my hands dirty while patching people back up, pulling them back from the brink of death, and giving them a few more years on this earth while riding the high of a stress-induced adrenaline rush.
Following the fellowship, I’d spent the past couple years as locum tenens, floating around the country, practicing wherever I was needed, moving between inner city and remote rural as necessary. After spending my entire life in practically one place, I’d enjoyed the variety of different cities and towns, mountains and deserts — and the lovely ladies with different accents was a bonus, especially the southern ones. But it still wasn’t enough. I wanted to explore the country a bit before settling down on the East Coast permanently. I wasn’t ready to plant myself in any one place. When I was approached by Doctors Beyond Borders, I’d jumped at the chance to spend more time away from familial obligations. Because I knew, once I took over my father’s practice, it would all be over.
The travel.
Freedom.
Flying under society’s radar.
All my life, I knew it was coming, but I’d hoped I would at least be forty before that noose slipped around my neck. At thirty-six, that deadline was looming close, then after that, there would be the pressures of settling down and continuing the family lineage, as my parents hadn’t been blessed with a spare to take that pressure off.
“I just miss you,” Mom said and straightened her face. “When I knew you were in the States, it was an easy flight to come visit. Now…” She shivered, and I knew she was envisioning wild animals and mosquitos and dirty conditions of living in huts with no running water. She wasn’t far off.