On this strange and mournful day
Lindsay stood over the baby in the bassinet. She was barely 2 hours old, but they had her stabilized at the moment and on the respirator in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The little girl was tiny. Weighing only 750 grams on her arrival. Her skin has a shiny almost pearl like skin that made Lindsay think you might see the organs underneath if the warming lamps shone just right. That was the brightest light source around.
She was used to going into Adult ICU's to photograph survivors of assaults, but this was her first time in NICU. The Adult ICU's had bright lights blazing brightly all over the unit with beeping, buzzing & blaring machines. Even at 3 am.
The tiny little girl stirred and made a face that looked like crying, but the tube in her mouth prevented the noise of the cry from escaping. Lindsay looked around for help, but all the nurses were across the room attending to another little one that was having problems. Lindsay tentatively reached out and touched the little girl with her gloved hand. The tiny hand latched on to her finger. She was so small Lindsay thought she could almost fit in her palm. The tiny face screwed up again. LIndsay fell back on what she remembered her mom doing to calm fussy babies. She opened her mouth and quietly sang the first thing that popped into her head. "Oh, I would not give you false hope. On this strange and mournful day. But the mother & child reunion is only a motion away." She couldn't remember the next line so she just hummed her way through it.
The voice behind her made her jump. "You know, Montana. I'm not sure that she's quite ready to appreciate the irony and quirkiness of Paul Simon."
Lindsay threw an embarrassed smile over her shoulder at her partner. "She's holding my camera finger hostage. I haven't gotten a single photo of her yet." She inclined her head to indicate where the little one still held her right index finger. Her heavy SLR camera held awkwardly in only her left hand.
Danny just grinned and took the camera from her and took the photos of the tiny infant. As Danny was snapping photos of the tiny girl holding Lindsay's finger the nurse approached. "Sorry, It had been one of those days. Do you guys need anything?"
"I think the photos were all we needed for now. The district attorney's office will subpoena the medical records later, but that probably won't be until they're getting ready for trial."
"Understandable. Do you know anything about the situation that you can share? All we had time to get out of ER was they had a mom who was crashing and to get there immediately cause they were doing the C-secttion in the trauma room. We didn't even know if it was a MVA or an assault or what kinda injuries mom had so we could expect certain types of injuries. Little Bit here is still listed as Baby Girl Doe."
"Assault," Lindsay replied. "Head injury. I rode in with her on the ambulance. They said brainstem herniation in the ER when the mom's heart rate slowed. The ER when the mom's heart rate slowed. The ER team lost her rhythm about 5 minutes after they got the baby out. Trauma doc declared her dead about 20 minutes later. Mom's still a Jane Doe at the moment. We'll relay any next of kin info we find."
"Appreciate it. Oh, by the way, do you guys have any name suggestions for her? We've completely run through our list this month. I've never seen anything like it."
Lindsay thought for a moment, "Kelly." Danny's head snapped toward Lindsay. He had heard that name only once before from her. It had been at the trial in Montana. Lindsay was smiling down at the little girl with her gaze a million miles away. "Kelly had a strong grip. Champion tree climber."
The nurse smiled. "Kelly it is then."
A/N: Okay this was sort of inspired by the song "Mother & Child Reunion" by Paul Simon, but the song itself is actually based on the English translation of Chicken & Egg dish at a Chinese restaurant. So the song was not written about any sort of situation like this.
I've been working on this story for over a month (my muse let me write about a sentence at a time) so I hope it works for ya. Originally this was going to be longer and Lindsay was going to be pregnant, but that all got edited out just to keep the story about Lindsay & Baby Kelly.
ER- Emergency Room
ICU-Intensive Care Unit
NICU-Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
SLR-Single Lens Reflex
MVA-Motor Vehicle Accident