Chapter 45 – New Cullen

Bella

With the start of a new work week, I hadn't even left the house yet, before "Blue Monday" was upon me. Rose called me at home, giving me directions to a house Alice and I were to meet her at as soon as we could get there.

Alice and I arrived at the same time and made our way past the police barricades, preparing to go inside. The lingering smoky odor of a recently extinguished fire on one side of the small frame house was cloying as we approached. However, the smell of old feces and urine mixed with the smoke and strong chemical odors made the air nearly toxic inside the house. We were wading through piles of dirty clothes, garbage, old broken furniture, and all manner of only heaven knew what to find Rose.

We located her in a back bedroom, where she was holding three children, all exceedingly small and emaciated. The youngest of them was a tiny infant who appeared to have been just newly born, since she still had a soft umbilical cord stump attached. It looked like it had been clamped off with a plastic-coated wire twist tie, suggesting a home birth. The baby girl was covered with sores and looked seriously dehydrated. The other two children, a little boy maybe just over a year old, and another boy who looked to be no more than three, clung to each other in terror. It was days like this I hated my job. No, not my job…irresponsible people.

"This was a drug lab," Rose said, as she handed the baby to me. "Poor things don't look like they've had a decent meal in days. They're lucky to be alive. The firefighters managed to contain the fire before the whole house exploded."

The baby reeked of stale urine, and her little bottom was filthy and crusted with dried feces. The diaper that had been on her was actually a dirty t-shirt held on with tape, which made it appear as if one of the other children had tried to change her at one point. Rose pulled me aside to tell me that the worst one, another older girl, was outside in an ambulance. Rose picked up the older boy, Alice got the younger one, and we headed outside. We got them into the back of another ambulance as quickly as possible to get them out of the cold, since they had almost nothing on.

We arrived at the hospital, and the ER staff took over care of the children, while Rose finished briefing us on the situation. The second ambulance pulled up, and they unloaded a stretcher with a little girl on it who looked to be about five. Cuts with shards of glass embedded into them were everywhere on her face, except for around her eyes. She also had burns in several places on her tiny, malnourished body. The paramedic was holding a compress to the side of her forehead, covering a gaping, recessed wound.

"From what we've been able to gather so far, the adults running the lab left to make a sale, leaving the oldest child to watch the younger ones," Rose said, as she watched them moving the girl into the ER. "The firefighters found her lying in a pile of glass wearing these, probably playing with them."

Rose held up a pair of dark sunglasses, the lenses cracked and badly scratched from being hit by flying glass. "That's all that saved her eyes, but it's also probably what caused her to stumble, knocking into things and causing the explosion and fire. If ever I doubted the existence of guardian angels, I don't anymore. Even as bad as things are right now, this probably saved all their lives."

The explosion had shattered a large bottle in every direction, sending the bottom of it as a projectile at the child's head, as well as the smaller shards of glass. Had she not been wearing the sunglasses she would have been blinded.

Edward had already left for the day when they called him back to the hospital to treat the girl. She had to be rushed into surgery immediately to stem the bleeding from the head wound and remove glass and bone shards that were inverted into her brain matter from the blow to her skull.

Rose and Alice went back to the office to start making phone calls, trying to determine the children's names and other information we would need to get them cared for. I stayed at the hospital as liaison, watching over the other children and awaiting word on the little girl in surgery.

The nurses called me back to the NICU to see the infant girl. They had bathed her and treated her sores, and she was now wailing away, gnawing her fist in hunger. I washed up and slipped on a scrub gown, and then the NICU nurse handed the tiny bundle to me. I sat down in a rocking chair in the nursery and fed her a bottle while I rocked her, gently humming a tune I had heard Edward playing on the piano late at night.

She was a voracious eater, staring up at me with her wide, newborn blue eyes. She was very fair and absolutely beautiful, with tufts of downy soft, light blonde hair. Esme had come to the hospital to join Carlisle for lunch, and she came to the nursery when she heard one of the nurses mention my name. I looked up to see her at the window, and she was grinning widely at me. I asked the nurse if she could see the baby, and they let her scrub up and come in.

"Where's Dorianne?" I whispered, smiling up from the rocker.

"Carlisle has her. She's busy charming the pants off the other pediatricians as we speak," she giggled softly, leaning down to look at the baby in my arms. "It suits you well," Esme smiled. "You're going to be an incredible mother, hopefully someday soon," she added.

"Let me get married first, okay?" I grinned, standing up and offering the rocker to Esme. She sat down, and I handed her the baby. Carlisle had come in and was standing outside the nursery window with Dorianne on his shoulders. She was pointing to Esme, smiling and waving to us through the window. I stepped out to speak to Carlisle, and Dorianne launched herself into my arms, chattering about the baby.

"Do they know anything about her yet?" Carlisle asked, watching Esme lovingly through the window.

"Not yet, but one of the nurses told me the oldest boy we brought in said the baby wasn't their sister. He said some girl who looked like she was sick just left the baby yesterday and took one of his dad's 'bags' for the guy she was with, and she never came back. The description he gave of her made her sound like a runaway teen," I said sadly, while Dorianne was trying to kiss me to make me better. "The boys and the little girl in surgery have a deeper complexion and similar features, so we're assuming that they're related until we find out otherwise."

The attending pediatrician was coming out, and we inquired about the baby's condition. He told us she was surprisingly strong, considering her size and where we had found her. She appeared to have been born just yesterday at full term, but she was very tiny, weighing just under six pounds. That was indicative of an exceptionally young mother, poor neonatal nutrition, or possibly both. The baby tested negative for drugs in her system, which was a relief. She was stable now and would be ready to be released into foster care in a couple of days.

"Do you have a placement lined up for her?" the doctor asked, glancing over his shoulder.

Carlisle looked at Esme through the glass and smiled. "We probably do if my wife has anything to say about it."

I took Dorianne with me, so Carlisle could scrub up and go in with Esme. I watched with a smile, as he placed his hand on her shoulder and spoke to her. She nodded happily, smiling and kissing Carlisle.

"Looks like you're maybe going to have a little sister, Dorianne," I laughed, as I kissed her chubby cheek and headed towards the nurses' station. Halfway down the hall, I got that familiar feeling I was being watched. I turned to see the stairwell door closing, and chills ran up my spine. The nightmare I'd had Thanksgiving morning came back to me, causing me to shudder. Maybe it was just my vivid imagination again, or someone had just entered the stairwell, and the door had been closing behind them. My internal warning bells didn't usually go off this loudly in my head, though, I warned myself, as I hurried away from the stairwell, practically running for the nurses' station, while holding Dorianne closer to me protectively. This was getting seriously creepy, and I was getting really tired of it. In fact, I was starting to get mad.