Bobby Hutchinson - Vital Signs

For forty minutes she rocked and sang him snippets from James Taylor and Janis Joplin. He fell asleep, and because his warm, soft little body comforted her, she went on rocking and singing.

At last one of the other nurses stuck her head in and smiled.

“Hailey, you still here? I thought you’d be long gone by now. You’ve gotta get a life, girl.”

“Hi, Karen. I needed a hug, so I kidnapped David.”

“He’s a real sweetheart. I heard about him from one of the ER docs.”

“He’s an angel.”

Karen came in and studied David, sleeping soundly against Hailey’s chest. “You’re right, he is an angel. But then, you say that about all of them. No word on his mom yet?”

Hailey shook her head. “His new social worker was by earlier. The other one’s dad died, so she’s gone to his funeral. This guy’s name is Roy Zedyck.”

“Oh, yeah, everybody’s heard of him. Big tall guy, great buns. Wow, he’s a celebrity. He was the one who was in the news a while back, the inquiry into that little boy who got sent back to his birth mother and ended up dead?”

Hailey shuddered. “I don’t watch stuff like that, or read about it, either. What we get in here is quite enough for me.”

“Everybody says Robertson’s testimony was the reason they set up that independent commission, so there’ll be someone else for kids to turn to besides the ministry. Hopefully decisions will be made that are truly in the child’s best interest, and not just some arbitrary ruling handed down by one judge.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t heard about it—it was all over the news. Becky’s gonna be green. She drools when Zedyck’s name is mentioned. But then, Becky drools a lot. I swear she’s got an extra few ounces of estrogen going for her.”

Hailey laughed. “She’s got a good eye for male beefcake, and in this instance she’s dead right. You’d have to be neutered not to notice how sexy Zedyck is.”

And he must have more gray matter than she thought, if he’d impressed the court that way.

“Tell Becky to give it up. He’s got a knockout for a lady, gorgeous and caring, really friendly, name of Nicole. She was with him. They were all duded up for a party or something.”

“Lucky them.” Karen wrinkled her nose. “How come some people get the full-meal deal and the rest of us have to make do with the forty-nine-cent special?” Hailey knew that Karen was going through a messy and painful divorce.

“It has to do with astrology.” Hailey got to her feet, careful not to disturb David. “I better get home. I left my rabbit in the staff lounge. If I don’t get him out of there, somebody’ll rat to Margaret and I’ll be getting a rabbit reprimand on my file.”

Karen giggled. The ongoing conflict between Hailey and Margaret Cross was constant entertainment for the rest of the pediatric nursing staff. And they were right to laugh. If you didn’t laugh about Margaret and her tantrums, you’d be tempted to smother her in the linen closet.

“I’ll bring the IV,” Karen offered. “You just carry him.”

They paraded down the corridor and Hailey settled David into his crib. She bent and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Night, little Davie. Sleep well. The angels will watch over you and keep you safe.” She told all her little patients the same thing when she took leave of them.

When they were out in the hall again, Karen gave Hailey a warm smile and a hug. “You need a dozen or so of your own. You’d make the best mom ever.”

Hailey’s smile felt strained. Kids of her own was the thing in life she most wanted. “I’ll settle for just one.”

“How’s the adoption process coming?” Most of her co-workers were aware that Hailey had recently applied for single-parent adoption.

“Slow.” Hailey grimaced. “They really check you out on all fronts. I guess it’s a good thing, but it kind of wears you down after a while.”

Karen nodded. “I can imagine.” She heaved a sigh. “I’m glad now that Jim and I didn’t have any kids. It would make this whole divorce thing that much harder, and God knows it’s tough enough as it is. But I’m getting older, and I guess every woman wants kids sooner or later.”

“For me, I hope it’s sooner,” Hailey said. “I’m gonna be thirty in another month. That’s old compared with when people used to have kids. My mom had my sister when she was twenty-four and me two years later.”

“People generally had kids earlier then. Now it takes time to be able to afford them, and with birth control we have the option of waiting.”

“Some of us, I guess. David’s mother’s only seventeen. One of the ER nurses heard it from a cop.”

Karen shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Sometimes there’s a good argument for abortion.”

“Or adoption.”

One of the monitors began to beep.

“Gotta go. Take care and enjoy what’s left of your evening.” Karen waved a quick goodbye as she hurried off.

Hailey made her way out to the car park and climbed into her battered red half-ton. She’d bought it a year ago, a few months after she purchased her house, trading in her cherished old Grand Prix for it when she realized how many deliveries she’d paid for from Home Depot and how many times she’d wished she could get rid of her own building debris.

The good news was that it took her and the half-ton only twenty minutes to get from St. Joe’s to her street. The bad news was that the two-story blue-and-white octogenarian she’d bought had turned out to be a money pit. She was slowly and for the most part single-handedly repairing and remodeling, but it was a painfully time-consuming, expensive process. The front lawn was full of moss, the back devoid of grass because of two tall cedars, a stand of overgrown lilacs and an immense fir tree that prevented sunlight from getting through. The trees did give the property privacy, though, and she’d pay more attention to the yard when she got the inside livable.

Her master plan was to finish the basement first and rent it out so she had additional income, and then turn one of the four upstairs bedrooms, the tiny one next to her own, into a nursery.

She parked on the street. None of the houses had garages. Gazing for a moment at her house, she felt the same thrill she always did when she arrived home. This funny old battered senior citizen of a house was really hers. She’d had to scrimp and save and practically offer the bank her soul to get it, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Carrying Skippy’s cage, she made her way around to the back, where she’d used chicken wire to construct a pen for the rabbit. After she’d turned him loose and made sure he had food and water, she climbed the rickety wooden back stairs—gotta do something about those stairs—unlocked the door and went inside.

The phone on the kitchen counter was ringing. A glance at her watch showed that it was ten-forty-five. She picked up the receiver.

“Hailey?” Her mother’s voice made her shut her eyes and wish she’d let the machine take the call. “Where’ve you been? I called twice before. I thought your shift was over at seven.”

“Hi, Mom.” Hailey wished, not for the first time, that she’d gotten call display. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to her mother; it was just that she’d rather choose the times it happened, like Christmas and Easter.

“How you doing, Mom?” Hailey ignored the questions, knowing that Jean really didn’t expect an answer. “How come you’re calling this late?”

“It’s Laura. She was over yesterday, and something’s not right with her.”

Hailey rolled her eyes heavenward. As far as she knew, her sister’s problems were primarily whether or not to fire the gardener, change the living-room sofa, or enroll Hailey’s niece and nephew in yet another extracurricular activity. Poor little mites. At seven and nine their lives were already as regimented as Margaret would like the peds ward to be.