Chapter 4 - The Truth in the Parking Lot
I stood up before Ryan could reach the row of chairs.
“Nora,” Ryan breathed, reaching out to wrap his arms around me. “Thank God. How is she? What did they say?”
I stepped back, slapping his reaching hands away with enough force to produce a sharp crack that echoed down the quiet PICU corridor.
“Do not touch me,” I said, my voice dead and cold.
Ryan recoiled, his face flushing red. “Nora, please. I’m her father. I raced here as fast as I could. Mom drove me because I was shaking so bad—”
“She shouldn't even be in this building,” I said, pointing a trembling finger directly at Judith, who had stopped three feet behind him.
Judith sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and shifting her weight onto one foot. “Oh, Nora, stop the theatrics. The entire party was ruined because of you. Do you have any idea how humiliating it was to have sirens blaring in front of my home? All my friends think I’m some kind of monster!”
“You poisoned my daughter!” I screamed, not caring that two administrative nurses glanced over from the nurses’ station. “You took a seven-day-old infant into the kitchen, behind closed doors, and shoved adult numbing gel down her throat!”
“I did no such thing!” Judith snapped back, her voice rising in defensive anger. “I put a dot—the size of a pinhead—on my pinky finger and rubbed it along her ridge! Ryan had terrible colic when he was three weeks old, and my pediatrician back in 1988 told me to use that exact brand! It calmed him down instantly! I was saving you from your own incompetence because you couldn't get her to stop screaming!”
“She was hungry, Judith!” I yelled, tears of pure fury burning my cheeks. “She didn't need drugs! She needed her mother’s milk!”
“Nora, keep your voice down,” Ryan hissed, looking around the hallway anxiously. “This is a hospital. People are looking.”
“Let them look!” I took a step toward Ryan, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Dr. Patel asked you a question at the house, Ryan. She asked if you knew about that tube. You didn't answer her. Now you’re going to answer me. Did you know she was going to give that to Lily?”
Ryan swallowed hard. His eyes darted toward his mother, then toward the linoleum floor.
“Ryan,” I said, the word barely a whisper, yet heavy enough to crush him. “Look at me. Look at your wife.”
Ryan dragged his gaze up to meet mine. “Mom... Mom brought it up yesterday. When we were at her house helping her set up the decorations.”
The air left my lungs. “What?”
“She told me babies cry because their jaws ache from growing,” Ryan mumbled, his voice shrinking until he sounded like a frightened teenager. “She said modern doctors don't believe in soothing babies, that they just let them suffer. She said she had an old tube of dental anesthetic from when she had her tooth extracted last year. She asked if she could try it if Lily got fussy during the party so Nora wouldn't have to keep disappearing to nurse.”
I stared at him, unable to comprehend the level of spineless betrayal staring back at me. “And what did you say, Ryan?”
Ryan looked like he wanted to dissolve into the wall. “I... I told her it sounded fine. I didn't think it was a big deal, Nora! It’s just numbing cream! People buy it at the drugstore every day!”
“It was twenty percent prescription-strength benzocaine, Ryan!”
The sharp, cutting voice came from behind us.
Dr. Patel walked out of the PICU double doors, her stethoscope draped around her neck, her scrubs spattered with saline. Her face was dark with an anger that was entirely unprofessional, and entirely justified.
“A single milligram of benzocaine can kill an infant,” Dr. Patel said, walking directly up to Ryan until she was standing inches from his chest. “The FDA issued a black-box warning banning all benzocaine products for children under two years old nearly six years ago. It causes the red blood cells to stop carrying oxygen. It suffocates them from the inside. Lily’s methemoglobin level was fifty-two percent when we drew her blood. Anything over fifty percent carries a severe risk of seizures, permanent brain damage, and cardiac arrest.”
Judith’s face finally flickered with genuine uncertainty. She uncrossed her arms, her manicured fingers fidgeting with the strap of her bag. “Well... nobody told me that. The packaging didn't say all that back in my day.”
“It’s written in bold red letters on the back of the tube, Judith,” Dr. Patel said coldly. “I read it in your living room. You just didn't care to look because you thought your thirty-year-old maternal ego was more important than pediatric medicine.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” Judith bristled, trying to regain her aristocratic composure. “I am a respected member of this community! I demand to see my granddaughter!”
“You are not seeing anyone,” Dr. Patel replied smoothly. “And neither is Ryan.”
Ryan blinked, looking baffled. “What? I’m the father! You can't keep me out of my daughter’s room!”
“I’m not keeping you out, Ryan,” Dr. Patel said, stepping aside and gesturing down the hall.
Two uniformed hospital security guards, accompanied by an officer from the local police department and a woman carrying a leather binder with a county badge around her neck, were walking purposefully toward our group.
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“The hospital social worker and Child Protective Services are,” Dr. Patel said. “Because in the state of California, administering a toxic, restricted chemical to a seven-day-old infant is classified as severe physical abuse and child endangerment. And I just filed the mandatory report myself.”
***
