Page 20 of Doctor Holliday
“You did a good job with the Klein girl.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Mm.” Alonso nodded for her to walk with him as he talked. Lucy slipped her hands in her hip pockets as she listened. “Physically, good. A child that age should never go through what she did.”
Lucy refrained from saying that girls Logan’s age often suffered through the same things—in the old days, girls were married off at tender ages and expected to make babies and birth them and then get up the next day and tend to the house. Girls in some foreign cultures were deemed women and old enough to marry and make babies. Because while all of that was true, Logan’s situation made her blood pump with fury. None of it should have happened.
“Baby okay?”
“Ivy,” Alonso told her.
“She named her Ivy?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “But she refuses to look at her. Hold her. Wants nothing to do with her.”
A pang of sorrow, regret, hooked her heart like a claw. Lucy swallowed hard. Who could blame a fourteen-year-old kid for not wanting her baby?
But who could blame a newborn for being alive? For needing to be nurtured?
“Has psych done an eval?”
“With her right now.”
“What about the stepmom? She’s your patient?”
“She is.” Alonso slowed his steps as they neared the nurse’s station. He hovered at the far wall, though only one of the nurses was currently at the desk. “But I don’t know her well. She’s been my patient for just over a year. Don’t know much about the family.”
“How does a fourteen-year-old girl hide nine of months of pregnancy?”
He shook his head. “I guess you can hide anything if no one’s paying enough attention.”
Lucy flinched. “I learned a long time ago not to think about Callie when I’m on the clock.”
Alonso drew in a deep breath and waited for her to go on. Callie had been at the hospital with her on a couple of occasions through the years, and she had joined them at their department picnics and holiday parties once or twice. Her colleagues knew her daughter; Lucy knew their families.
“But it’s hard not to see your own child in a baby face like that,” she finished the thought on a rugged exhale. “Is she giving the baby up for adoption?”
Alonso shrugged. “Don’t know yet. It’s been discussed.”
“Well, I’m glad they’re both healthy.”
“Labor and Delivery’s calling you Dr. Miracle,” he told her as he started to walk away from her.
Lucy chuckled.
“I know. I heard.”
“Go see that little Christmas miracle,” he told her. “She’s a cute baby.”
“They’re all cute babies, Dr. Love,” she reminded him.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she crossed the hall to stand at the nurse’s desk.
Chapter 10
Monday,December 11th
Keaton