Disclaimer: I do not own these characters






Chapter Seven: To Blame Or Not To Blame





"Have you seen her yet?" Randee asked her husband when he entered her room. Bryan greeted her with a kiss.

"Yeah, I saw her." Randee was surprised at his tone. She immediately sensed that something was wrong.

"Bry? What's wrong? Is something else wrong with her? I mean, something other than what Lu told us yesterday?"

"She's just so tiny. With all those machines hooked up to keep her alive..." He pulled up a chair and sat down beside his wife's bed.

"Randee, we need to talk." Randee bit her lip, something she often did when she sensed that she did not like what was going to happen.

"Yeah? About what?" She asked softly.

"Everything. The baby. What we are going to do. Your choice of doctor."

"My choice of doctor? What are you talking about? And what do you mean, what are we going to do? McKenzie is our daughter. We are going to love her, just like we do Taylor. And when she is well enough, we will take her home, just like we did Taylor." Bryan shook his head as he searched for the right words.

"It's not that easy, Randee. Don't you get it? This baby isn't at all like Taylor. She will never be like Taylor. She will never be like a normal child. She might not even live."

"Bryan, don't say that. Lu is doing everything she can for her. You know that."

"And that's another thing. I want our baby to have another doctor. She needs a good doctor. Not this Dr. Delgado. Where did you find her anyway? Off the streets?"

"Honey, Lu is a good doctor. And she will do her very best for our baby." Randee argued.

"If she is such a good doctor, our baby would not have been born like this. She would have stopped the labor. She would not have allowed her to be born two months early. But because she did, our daughter is hooked up to a machine to help her breath. You call that a good doctor?"

"It's not Lu's fault, Bryan. She did what she had to do. She said the cord was wrapped around her neck. If she hadn't delivered her, she would have died. You heard what Lu said."

"Rand, you were just in here yesterday for your checkup and she said everything was fine. If everything was fine, then why did you end up here again yesterday afternoon? Why didn't she know something was wrong the first time you were here?"

"Some things can't always be detected." Randee said in Lu's defense. "Lu would never do anything to hurt me or the baby. Not if she could help it. This isn't her fault, Bryan."

"I don't see how you can say that. For the past seven months we were expecting a healthy baby...or at least I thought we were." Bryan told her.

"She is still our daughter, Bryan. No matter what her problems are, we will always love her. So what if she has special needs. We will deal with them. You'll see. You can love her just as much as you do Taylor." Bryan sighed.

"Honey, I'm not saying that I don't or won't love her. I'm just saying that I think Dr. Delgado could have prevented her from being delivered so early. And I think you believe that too." Randee shook her head.

"No. You can't blame Lu." Randee said firmly.

"I talked to her before I came in here," Bryan told her. "She denied that she did anything wrong."

"Of course she did." Randee answered. "Because she didn't do anything wrong. She saved our daughter's life. You should be thanking her instead of blaming her. What did you say to her?" Randee asked.

"I asked her how a malpractice suit will look on her record." Randee stared at him in disbelief.

"Bryan, you can't be serious. We...you can't sue Lu."

"Honey, I realize she is your friend as well as your doctor. But Mckenzie is our daughter. And because of Dr. Delgado's carelessness, she was born mentally retarded and with a lung disease. What if she dies? Are you still going to say that she isn't responsible?" Randee was silent as tears began to stream down her cheeks. Was her husband right? Was it Lu's fault that little McKenzie had been been the way she was? Could Lu have prevented the baby from being born two months premature?