Abby clenched her jaw. 'Five hundred dollars,' she said, 'for my baby.'
Chapter 26
'Hospitals are where the future is fought over,' Abby said. 'A nurse on the maternity ward told me that when I was in labor. She said that maternity was the only place where they fought to live because that's where the babies were born. Everyone else was fighting not to die.'
They were standing in the lobby of the Caulfield Medical Center studying the directory for the location of the medical records department that was scheduled to open at eight o'clock. The lobby was already crowded with doctors, staff, and visitors, who swirled past them, confident of their destinations. Like all hospitals, it smelled of disinfectant. Mason wrinkled his nose, preferring the lingering tang of smoke and beer that drifted into his office from Blues on Broadway.
'Room B-23,' Mason read aloud. 'That's in the basement.'
They were fifteen minutes early. Abby had been awake since five, tossing restlessly, finally shaking Mason at six.
'I hope it's Jordan,' she said. 'I mean, I know it's a long shot and it would probably cause more problems than it solves, but I hope Jordan is my daughter.'
Mason knew that nothing plays with you more than hope. The sliver of daylight left by the long odds of a dark prognosis. The guarantee of salvation that can't be cashed in this lifetime. The promise of love. Mason knew the truth about hope. That it was a tricky thing people stretched well past specifications, sticking its square peg into too many round holes, forcing it to fit until the peg splintered and the hole snapped shut. He knew that, but wouldn't say it, letting Abby hope a while longer.
The medical records department was across from the elevator. Instead of a door, there was a long white customer counter, furnished with a bell to ring for service and authorization forms for patients to sign permitting the hospital to release their records. The only thing the department was missing was someone to answer the bell, accept the authorization forms, and retrieve the records.
Mason often had to obtain a client's medical records, and used a standard authorization form that hospitals accepted. He'd had Jordan sign one authorizing the release of her records to him before they left Kansas City. Abby filled out one of the hospital's forms requesting her records, clutching it as she paced the empty hallway, the sound of her footsteps absorbed by the carpet, the persistent overhead paging of doctors interrupting their thoughts.
Mason leaned against the counter, watching her, wondering what it was like to reach back into the past and find a piece of yourself. His parents had been killed in a car wreck when he was three, bequeathing him memories that were now little more than vapor. Without the pictures Claire had kept in their house while he was growing up, he doubted he would have remembered what they looked like.
As if sensing his thoughts, Abby said, 'You know, it's funny. I remember my labor. It was awful. I kept asking for more drugs. I remember delivery and feeling like my insides were falling out every time I pushed. I remember holding my baby for a few minutes after she was born, before the nurses took her away. But I don't remember her face. How do you forget something like that?'
Mason didn't answer because he didn't know, though he suspected that memory sometimes protected people from remembering. A clerk appeared at the medical records counter. Mason checked his watch. It was exactly eight o'clock. He motioned to Abby, who had slipped back in her memories, searching for a face.
'Can I help you?' the clerk asked.
He was a slender, middle-aged man with dull eyes who asked his question with an uncertain voice, suggesting that he didn't think so. He wore a photo ID badge around his neck identifying him as Gene. Mason had worse luck with bureaucrats, private and public, than he had with women and bad guys. He was convinced they had a secret web site where they posted his picture under the heading Make Him Beg. Mason decided to make Gene his friend, figuring Gene was the kind of guy who needed one.
'You bet, Gene,' Mason said. 'We need some medical records.' Mason and Abby handed him their authorizations.
'ID?' Gene asked them.
'Absolutely,' Mason said, 'glad you asked. Can't be too careful, huh?'
Gene carefully studied their driver's licenses. 'It's the rules,' Gene said. 'Patient Social Security numbers?' he asked. 'That's how we search for the records,' he explained, pointing to the computer terminal behind the counter.
'They're on the authorizations,' Mason said, forcing his smile to stay on duty, deciding that Gene would probably ask his own mother for her ID and Social Security number.
Gene ignored Mason's goodwill, sitting down at the computer, his back to them. He disappeared a few moments later, returning with a thin file of papers he handed to Mason.
'That'll be twenty-five dollars,' Gene said.
Mason looked at the records. The cover sheet was labeled 'Baby Girl Doe.' Beneath that was a stamp that read 'Adoption,' and next to the stamp, a handwritten note that said 'Baby named Jordan Hackett per adoptive parents.' Mason handed the records to Abby as he wrote a check.
'The birth mother's name is blacked out,' Abby said, her voice cracking with the strain.
'The baby was adopted, so the natural mother's identity is sealed by state law,' Gene said.
'But what about my records? Where are my records?' Abby demanded, gripping the edge of the counter as if she was about to vault over it.
'I'm sorry, ma'am,' Gene said. 'We don't have any records on you. Are you sure you've got the right hospital?'
Abby's grip gave way, Mason supporting her with his hand pressed against the small of her back. 'You're kidding, right? This is some kind of a sick joke, right?' Abby asked. 'I was a patient here twenty-one years ago. I gave birth here. They took my baby away from me in this hospital twenty-one years ago! You don't seriously think I would forget what hospital I was in, do you?'
Gene raised his palms in self-defense. 'I'm not saying anything, lady. The computer doesn't have any records for you. As far as the hospital is concerned, you were never here. That's all I know.'
Abby shuddered, fighting for self-control. 'Check it again,' she said. 'It's a mistake. Check it again, please.'
'I already did, ma'am. There's no mistake.'
Mason put his hands on Abby's shoulders. She twisted away from him. 'No!' she said. 'There is a mistake. I was here! Let's go,' she said to Mason.
'Where?'
'The maternity ward,' she answered, practically running for the elevator.
Mason caught up to her as the elevator doors opened. She punched the button for the sixth floor without checking the directory. 'It's there, I know it,' she said.
'What's there?' Mason asked.
'They called it the Baby Book. All the mothers signed it when they checked in. They had at least ten volumes, hundreds of pages for all the babies born here. The nurses made a big deal of it.'
Abby burst out of the elevator onto the sixth floor, Mason trailing her, not doubting her memory of the hospital's layout, hoping her memory of the Baby Book was as accurate. She pushed through the double doors marked Maternity, breathless, glancing around in near panic.
'They changed it,' Abby said. 'It used to be right over there.' She pointed to a waiting area decorated in rainbow wallpaper and worn furniture, then marched to the nurse's station.
'Hi,' she said to the nurse, catching her breath.
The nurse, a large gray-haired, black woman with a round, tender face, put down her charts. 'What is it?' she asked evenly, accustomed to excited women.
'The Baby Books, where the mothers wrote their names when they checked in, what happened to them?'
'Oh, honey,' the nurse said. 'Just like everything else, it's all done by computer now.'
