Stepping-Stone for Mia novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Record
Sarah's brother, the chief of obstetrics, hands her a report blaming her for a new mother's death while their sister Mia cries on his couch; Sarah tears it in half, he tells her it's already filed and her career is over, and when she yanks his door open a man with a hunting knife is charging down the hall screaming that she killed his wife.
My brother slid the incident report across his desk and turned it so I could read my own name.
"Sign at the bottom," Bennett said. "Then go home and stay there."
Responsible resident: Dr. Sarah Harwood.
Patient: Kelly Beal, 29. Postpartum hemorrhage. Deceased, 2:20 a.m.
Six pages to the covering resident, unanswered.
I read it twice. The words didn't change.
On the leather couch under the window, my sister Mia was crying into a tissue.
She had been crying since I walked in.
She cried very prettily. She always had.
"I wasn't covering that room," I said. "I was in OR three from one-oh-five to two. Emergency section. Ask Tim Brogan. He was at the head of the table the whole time."
"The schedule says you were covering," Bennett said.
"Then the schedule's wrong."
"The pager log says the pages went to you."
"Then the pager log is wrong too."
He leaned back in his chair. He was Chief of Obstetrics at Harbor Point, like our father before him, and he wore the title.
"Sarah. The schedule and the log are the record. That's what the record is."
Mia blew her nose.
"I feel so awful," she said. "I keep thinking about the baby."
I turned and looked at her.
"Where were you at one forty, Mia?"
She looked at Bennett.
Not at me. At Bennett.
That told me everything.
I'd spent my whole life watching her look at someone else to answer for her.
When I was twelve, my science-fair project went to regionals with her name on it, because she was nine and "needed a win."
When I was twenty-five, my first research paper listed her as first author, because she was applying to medical school.
Every time, my mother said the same thing. "You're stronger, Sarah. You'll be fine."
I was always fine. That was my job in this family.
I was the step she stood on to get higher.
"She was in the lounge," I said. "Wasn't she? The night nurse paged and paged."
"Mia was with a patient," Bennett said.
"Which patient?"
He didn't answer.
"Kelly Beal kept asking for Dr. Harwood," he said instead. "The nurses heard her. You're Dr. Harwood."
"So is she."
Mia made a hurt little sound.
Bennett stood up. He came around the desk and put a hand on my shoulder, the way Dad used to before he told you bad news.
"Listen to me. Mia is a second-year. A thing like this follows a second-year forever. You're a chief resident with a fellowship in Philadelphia. You'll get a letter in your file. You'll survive it."
"A woman is dead."
"Which is why somebody has to be responsible."
"Somebody is. It isn't me."
His hand tightened.
"Mom agrees with me. I talked to her this morning."
Of course he had.
I looked down at the paper.
At my name, typed neatly in the box.
Kelly Beal had a daughter born at 12:52 a.m. Saturday. She had held her for about fifteen minutes.
I'd seen the baby in the NICU on Sunday, yellow under the lights, with a pink card taped to her bassinet. June.
I picked up the report.
I tore it in half, slowly, so they could both hear it.
Then I tore the halves in half and dropped them on his desk.
Mia gasped.
Bennett didn't even blink.
He smiled at me, the patient smile he used on families in the conference room.
"That was a copy," he said. "The original went to risk management at seven this morning. With my signature on it."
I felt the floor tilt.
"You filed it before you asked me."
"I'm asking you to sign so it goes smoother."
He went back around his desk and sat down.
"The hospital's reporting it to the state board by Friday. With this on your record, you can kiss your medical career goodbye."
He said it.
"By the way," he added, "Kelly Beal's husband has been calling risk management all day. Ronnie something. They gave him the responsible resident's name an hour ago. So you might want to keep your head down."
Mia sniffled. "Bennett, don't scare her."
"I'm not scaring her. I'm protecting her."
I looked at my big brother.
I looked at my little sister on his couch, safe and dry-eyed now behind her tissue.
I didn't have the energy to fight them both in that room.
I wasn't going to sign. That was all I knew.
I turned around, crossed the office and yanked the door open.
The seventh-floor hallway stretched out ahead of me toward the elevators.
A man was coming down it, fast.
A big man in a gray work jacket, his face red and wet, his eyes bloodshot.
There was a hunting knife in his right hand.
He was swinging it wide, at nothing, at the air.
A secretary screamed and ducked behind her desk.
He saw the white coat. He saw my name on it.
He started to run.
"You killed my wife!"
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