LITMIR.BIZ

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11

      Like the old dance marathons, it was an endurance test. Cindy stayed awake out of sheer stubbornness. Though queasy and off-balance, she knew she’d make it through the night. She’d had lots of prior experience from cramming for finals.

      A little past one and all was well. Up for hours upon hours. As she flipped through her memory file, she seemed to recall her father doing consecutive shifts at work for two, even three days in a row … her mother complaining about it, some of her annoyance stemming from worry. How did Dad operate on such little sleep? But Dad was always driven.

      Cindy contemplated a catnap—Hannah had just fallen asleep and wasn’t due to be fed for two more hours—but she had decided against it after talking to Dad about Marie … and about Darlene, also. Hannah was just too important for her to be asleep at the wheel.

      At this point, Cindy didn’t really trust anyone on duty. So many weirdos coming in and out of the nursery, all of them hidden under surgical masks. Not that Cindy really knew they were weirdos. It was the time of night. Everyone looked fun-house distorted.

      Just make it through the next six hours, and Hannah would no longer be her responsibility. Rina would be going home in the morning, the baby with her. Dad had even hired a baby nurse named Nora. Even though Cindy had told him that she’d take care of Hannah until Rina was well enough. But that was Dad. Worried that she wasn’t having enough fun. And then when she tried to have some fun, he’d worry for her safety.

      It was an occupational hazard of his job, always seeing the world as a battlefield. That’s why she decided to study criminal science from an academic viewpoint. Still, it must be thrilling to be tossed in the thick of it. A rush that did strange things to your head.

      Like right now. She thought of herself as kind of an under-cover cop, analyzing Marie and Darlene while trying to appear casual. Silly, but it helped pass the time.

      One-fifteen A.M.

      All the babies from Nursery J had been wheeled back home, an earful of noise coming from the other room. Cries in counterpoint harmony. Symphonie aux Bébés!! From all the fussing and yelling, it was a sure bet that Marie was doing checkups. Not that Marie was particularly heavy-handed, although Cindy thought Darlene was better, but the babies didn’t like the procedures. They didn’t like the weighings because the nurse had to unwrap them, and the cold air on their tummies made them cry. They didn’t like the measuring because they were on their backs, their little leggies all stretched out. All the probing and poking. And then there were the blood tests taken from their teeny heels. That was always good for a yelp or two.

      The stuff you pick up hanging around a hospital.

      The crying seemed a little louder tonight. Maybe it was just her. Sound magnifies when one is sleep-deprived. Something she’d learned in one of her psych courses.

      Cindy glanced at the clock again. The big hand had moved two minutes.

      Too tired to read, she scanned Scientific American and looked at the pictures. Multicolored graphs and schematics that looked like stacked Tinkertoys. They were supposed to represent the cellular makeup of a rare tree lichen. She closed the magazine and placed it on her lap. Then she stood and put the magazine on the chair and peered inside the layette.

      Hannah was snoozing like the proverbial baby.

      Cindy didn’t want to bug the nurses, but she was so damn bored staying up with no one to talk to. Maybe she could help Darlene. Darlene was always willing to give her something to do. Part of it was propaganda: showing her the wonders of nursing. Every time Cindy did something, Darlene would praise her to high heaven and tell her what a wonderful nurse she’d make, how the profession needed smart, dedicated people like herself. Cindy took the compliment but tuned out the message. Though she’d learned that nursing was a lot more than changing bedpans, she’d also sensed that the profession was a lot of hard work and responsibility for the compensation. Always under a doctor’s orders …

      Not that power and money were important to her. But passion was. She didn’t feel passionate about nursing, not like she did about criminal sciences.

      Cindy blinked several times, then stared out the window to the nursery. Lightly, she massaged her temples, trying to rub away the small throbs of an upcoming headache. Headaches just like Dad’s, only sometimes hers turned to migraines. Dad said he had them in his younger days. The wonders of genetics. It was all the noise. The babies going at it without coming up for air—so loud.

      Carefully, she tiptoed to the main section of the nursery, her eyes falling on the layettes aligned in teeth-comb order. No one was around—not Marie, not Darlene, not any of the other nurses. Distressed-infant cries were echoing off the walls.

      Cindy felt strange and suddenly cold.

      She called out a hello, projecting so she could be heard over the squeaks and wails.

      No answer.

      Wrapping her arms around her chest, she walked over to the layettes. Baby Girl Jackson’s diapers had leaked onto the blanket. Spencer Dole had become completely untucked, the blanket loosely covering the infant’s face. My God, even Baby Boy Yamata was crying. He had spit up on his blanket, black hair wet and sticky.

      Cindy pulled the coverlet off Spencer’s face and placed the red-faced little baby boy on his stomach after reswaddling his body. Comfortable and cozy, the infant immediately fell asleep as he sucked on his fingers. She cleaned Baby Boy Yamata’s face with a sterile wipe, wrapped him in a clean blanket, and placed him on his stomach. That was his position of choice. He closed dark eyes and drifted off to baby slumberland.

      She looked around. Alone and anxious, she changed Baby Girl Jackson’s diaper, hoping no one would walk in and think she was molesting the infants. She knew she had no business touching the babies, but no one was in sight.

      Something was wrong.

      She looked inside the glass window of the nurses’ station for Nursery J.

      Empty.

      Where the heck were Marie and Darlene?

      Cindy looked at the clock, looked at the window, looked at the babies, her mind dizzy with indecision. She started toward the yellow line, but realized she was suited up. If she crossed the border, would she have to regown in order to get back to Hannah? She didn’t even know where the nurses kept the gowns.

      Then she saw the wall phone and a directory posted to the phone’s immediate right. She dialed the exchange for Front Desk. The phone rang and rang, and no one answered. Then she tried the hospital operator, who answered after ten rings. Cindy explained the situation to the operator and was then connected back to the front desk. Again no one answered.

      Darlene had said there had been some major cutbacks at the hospital, but this was ridiculous! Suppose Cindy was a sick person who needed help? Or suppose she was calling for one of the babies who needed help? What a disaster that would be. Her mind was suddenly besieged with worst-case play-outs.

      The clock read 1:45.

      All of a sudden, time was moving quickly.

      Two experienced nurses supposedly on shift, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.

      What to do, what to do?

      Give it another five minutes.

      And then what would she do?

      At two, she tried the front desk again.

      No one.

      Where was everyone? A baby could be choking or something.

      Now she was thinking like Dad.

      Dad!

      Good old Dad!

      She could call him, but she didn’t want to wake up Rina. Nor did she want Rina to know about the lax care at the nursery. Daddy was right. Darlene was weird to leave the babies alone. And Marie was weird, too. But at this

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