- A Lesson in Living -
By Kelly
Disclaimer: ER and all that goes with it does not belong to me. Christmas is coming though.
Feedback is always welcome.
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Over the last 14 hours, she'd gone over every possible scenario in her head, carefully planning and reacting to each possibilty that would be the end result of this problem. This wasn't ever something Abby thought she would have to face. She'd been so careful for so long, so afraid of having to go through what'd she'd been through years ago. So afraid of becoming what her mother was, regardless of age. So afraid of having to raise a child who suffered from the illness. So afraid of being hurt yet again. Laying in that bed that afternoon, so close to all of these fears becoming a possible reality, so close to becoming the one thing in the world she was more frightened of than anything, a mother.
Running her hand slowly over her swollen stomach, she could do nothing but push her head back into her pillow, and moan quietly as another contraction raveged her tiny body. She could see her nurse Anna out in the hallway, and silently prayed for her to walk into the room. She couldn't deal with much more of this pain. She had cried silently for hours, never letting the nurses see the tears, never allowing them to see the true pain she was in. She never allowed others to truely understand the degree to which her pain registered. It was a constant act she had put on throughout her life in an attempt to safegaurd herself. If nobody had to see the pain, nobody would have to try and help. Abby hated when others tried to help her.
It was in this room alone that she would be finishing what had started so many months ago. By this time tomorrow, she would be someone's mother. On that night she had discovered she was pregnant, her immediate thoughts were of manic mothers and abortion. She'd clutched that stick with her hand, and slowly fallen to the floor of the bathroom stall she was in. And she sat there, her back pressed into the cool stall door throughout the rest of her break. She hadn't cried, or sworn, or punched the wall, she could do nothing but stare at the two pink lines in front of her and wonder what she had done. It had been so many years since she had faced this same dilemma and found herself in that clinic, aborting the one thing she'd been closer to than anyone else in her life. Though it was only years later she had realized the emotions that had gone along with the procedure, and how scarred she truely was.
The night that had started these last 9 months had been an unbearable hot and muggy one. Long after Abby's shift had ended, she stumbled out the doors into the ER's ambulance bay, all too eager to get as far away from County as possible. Almost finished with her first year of Residencey, her focus had finally torn from that of a nurse's, to a doctor. Her job was now to treat the patient as quickly as possible, not to hold their hand and calm their fears. But when it came to children, no matter how many patients she was juggling, Abby continued to treat like a doctor, but care like a nurse. And that night had been no different.
A woman and her two young daughters had been brought in by ambulance, all severely burned and the mother beaten. Abby had cared for Polly, the older of the two girls. After nearly 15 minutes in exam 2, Polly had been stabilized and ready to be tranferred to the burn unit with second degree burns covering more than 40 of her body. Leaving her in the care of Haleh, Abby had entered trauma 1 to find Dr. Corday and Chen throwing their gloves to the ground and signing off on the chart for the younger daughter Kristen, and Chuny begining a death kit. It had only taken another 10 minutes for Dr. Weaver to call time of death on the mother in trauma 2, where she and Dr. Pratt had worked. It wasn't until at the end of her shift that Abby had learned Polly had been taken to burn unit, and wanted to see the lady with the long hair.
For the next hour or so, Abby sat with Polly who was conscious but in a lot of pain. The small 6 year old asked to sing to Abby and told her how her mom had just gotten her a new barbie. And throughout the hour, Abby slowly got the story of what had happened that night out of Polly, and promised she would come visit her again tomorrow. She had to painfully lie to the girl, telling her that her mother and sister were still downstairs, and the doctor would come see her soon. When in truth, neither would again be able to see or speak to Polly, and after many weeks, Polly would be released into the custody of DCFS.
She walked for blocks that night, subconsciously knowing where she was heading the whole time. She'd passed the EL outside the ER without a second thought. That night, she walked for the one place that had given her solace many times before. The place she knew would help her forget her last patient, forget how her father had grabbed the frying pan full of cooking chicken and oil, and aimed to throw it on his wife, but tripped and dropped the oil not only on his wife, but his two daughters as well. Forget the story Polly told of him grabbing her hysterical mother and punching his fists into her burned face, each time with more force and anger. Forget that Polly was left with no family. Her mother and sister dead, and father on the run somewhere, trying to escape from the heinous crime he had committed.
Pulling the door of her haven open, she was quickly met by Billy Joel screaming from inside the juke box, and the cloud of smoke that surrounded the bar. Plopping her bag on top of the bar, she quickly caught the bartenders eye, and had a Heineken in her grasps within seconds. She couldn't have cared less that night that she was a drunk. Tonight she needed to escape, and escaping meant booze. Two beers and four shots later, Abby was happily on her way to feeling the way she had loved for such a long time. The feeling of complete obliteration, the feeling of absolute ecstacy.
"Abby?" she heard a voice call from behind her. Turning around slowly and nearly losing her balance, she came face to face with a man she knew well.
"Hey." was all she could say without giggling uncontrolably. The man right next to her could do nothing but the same, himself drunk after nearly 2 hours of drinking.
"What are you doing here?" he managed to spit out, before again laughing.
She attempted to provide him with an explination, but they were both so far gone, neither could even tell the conversation had become nothing but incoherant jokes and laughter. After another round of drinks, neither could do much except stumble out onto the streets, and wait for the cab they had managed to call. And before long, Abby's apartment was suddenly the crash pad for the night.
Abby awoke to a pitch black bedroom, and her clock reading 4:13am. Reaching to pull her comforter back over her head, it was only then that she realized her clothes were in a pile on the floor, and the space next to her on the bed had been vacated. She couldn't remember most of what had gone on that night, but in remembering who she had done some of those things with, she couldnt bear the thought of ever facing him again. She knew this had been wrong. Really, really wrong.
"Congratulations." the post partum nurse whispered to Abby later that day as she handed her the small baby wrapped tightly in a blanket.
"Thank you." was all she replied as the nurse left the room, leaving Abby and her son alone.
Her son. That statement seemed so incredibly foreign, even if she did have him in her arms, and she was staring right at him. His scrawny legs, his blue eyes, the small amount of brown hair atop his head. How had she done this? How was she going to do this? She wasn't ever suppose to be a mother, and yet, now she was one. This still didn't make any sense.
"Hello?" an almost squealing voice came from the door, as Abby turned to see Susan nearling dancing. "Can I come in please?" she begged.
Abby laughed as she watched her friend, and nodded quickly. "Come in." she said, watching as Susan shuffled quickly over to the bed, and peered into the small blanket.
"So?" she pressed excitedly. "Tell me!"
Abby chuckled slightly, and raised her arm, pulling the blanket around his head down. "His name, is Nathan." she said, smiling.
"Hi Nathan." Susan cooed, taking one of his small hands between her fingers. "Hi."
The next morning, a nurse came in as Abby changed Nathan's diaper, and handed her the baby blanket from it's place on the bed. Placing the certificate down with a pen, the nurse took the nearly empty breakfast tray into the hall, and signaled she'd be back soon. Looking at the form on her tray table, Abby took in a deep breath and began to fill it out. Quickly filling in the needed information for her half, she turned now to the task of filling in the information of Nathan's father. She could leave it blank, lie and say she had no idea who the father was. But she couldn't. God forbid someday she wasn't there and Nathan needed him for something. She had to do this, she couldn't avoid it anymore. She wanted nothing from him. If he wanted to be involve she wouldn't deny him that, but she wasn't going to go beg for child support. She had made the decision to go through with this pregnancy, she had chosen to have Nathan. She was going to be a good mom. And she took the pen to the paper, and filled in his information.
Father's Name : Richard Allan Lockhart