The Perfect Child(5)

He pushed through the door, and a wave of sadness washed over me as I stared at a small child lying on the bed. Nothing could’ve prepared me for her. Dan had said she was a toddler, but the child on the bed looked like she was barely over a year old. Her arms and legs were frail, like they wouldn’t be able to support her if she stood. Her stomach was distended, and her head was massive in proportion to her tiny body and too big for her fragile frame to hold. She was nearly bald. There were only short tufts of blonde where hair should’ve been. She turned to look at us with the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

“Hiya.” Her lips spread into a shy smile, revealing a rotten tooth in the front.

“Hi, Janie.” Dan walked over to her bed and bent down to get closer to her.

She reached her arms up. “Hug?”

He leaned over and wrapped his arms around her delicately, afraid to hurt her. She clung to his lab coat. Dan looked uncomfortable.

“I like your smell,” she said in a small voice, barely above a whisper.

She refused to let go, so he turned to look at me, motioning me over. I stepped around one of the nurses and into her view.

“Hi, Janie. My name’s Christopher. I’m going to be one of your doctors,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I’m going to help take care of you.”

She let go of Dan and reached out to grab my hand. Her nails were long, caked with dirt. Her fingers were so bent they couldn’t coil naturally around mine.

“Hi,” she said hesitantly. “Are you going to fix me?”

I nodded. “I am, sweetheart. I promise.”





THREE

HANNAH BAUER

I was in the kitchen packing my lunch for my shift when the front door opened, signaling Christopher’s arrival. “Hey, honey, I’m in here. I still haven’t finished getting my stuff ready for tonight. I got caught up in some stupid documentary.”

He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. He kissed the top of my head and let out a deep sigh. I dried my hands on the towel next to the sink and turned around. Sadness clouded his face.

“Did you lose a patient?” I asked. He rarely lost patients, but sometimes it happened when they had other complications.

He shook his head. “I met the abandoned girl.”

“You did?” I motioned for him to sit down at the table.

“That poor little girl. She’s so beat up and starved.” His voice caught in his throat. “People treat their pets better than she was treated.”

“It’s that bad, huh?” I asked.

He nodded.

I prepared a tumbler full of his favorite scotch and took the seat across from him. He took a small sip, then fingered the top of the glass as he stared out the window above the sink. I reached across the table and took his hand in mine, rubbing the top of his palm with my thumb. I understood his sensitivity toward children. Neither of us had had it when we first married, but years of infertility problems had made us emotional about almost everything involving kids, especially young ones.

“Her name is Janie, and she’s adorable. She has these massive pale-blue eyes that blow you away.” He took another drink. “I reviewed her notes before I left, and she’s been starved for so long her body started eating itself. She has so many old breaks that went untreated and never healed right, so some of the bones fused together. There wasn’t a part of her that went untouched.” His eyes flashed with anger. “Who would do such a thing?”

We both knew the answer to his question—a monster. It went without saying.

“She’s going to need surgery on her elbow. It was a complicated break and healed into almost a ninety-degree angle because it was never set properly. Lots of her bones have fused together from other untreated breaks and injuries. Dan and I are coming up with a game plan first thing tomorrow morning.”

“You’ve got this,” I said. We sat in silence, enjoying our brief time together before I had to leave for my shift. “By the way, I read through all the information Bianella sent us about that seminar you told me about. I even watched the videos. I think we should go,” I said after a few more minutes had passed.

“Really?”

I nodded. “No matter which direction we go, there’re going to be challenges, and we’re going to need the advice of other people who’ve done it before. Just think how helpful our RESOLVE meetings have been.”

After our third round of failed IVF, our doctor had suggested attending a support group for other parents going through similar challenges. Nobody understood the dramatic highs and crushing lows of infertility unless they’d been through it too. Christopher had balked at the idea at first because he hadn’t liked the thought of baring our souls in a room full of strangers, but he’d gotten used to it. A few of the couples had grown to be some of our closest friends, and we went out for dinner and drinks on a regular basis.

“Do you want me to sign us up, or are you going to do it?” he asked.

“I can do it on my break tonight. Why don’t you just relax and prepare for tomorrow?”

“Janie isn’t in the ER anymore,” he said, reading my mind before I could ask the question.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“They moved her to the third floor. She’s tucked in with all the geriatric patients to keep her safe.”