His Lifelong Pleas Got Nothing novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: Signed By Spouse

Sam's office was a closet with a desk in it, a lamp, and a diploma hung slightly crooked.

My friend sat beside me with her purse on her knees.

Sam had two pages in front of him, and he turned them to face me.

"The first is the hospital's record for your fourth procedure," he said. "Read it yourself. I don't want to tell you what it says."

I read it.

Patient: Matilda Huntington. Procedure: dilation and curettage following fetal demise, per attending. Consent: signed by spouse, patient unable to consent, under sedation.

Beneath it was Bancroft's signature, the same neat slant he used on our Christmas cards.

"I was awake in the pre-op room," I said. "I remember the nurse asking me to count backward."

"That would be before the sedation. They had to ask you to sign first, unless there was an emergency."

"There was no emergency. I was in the car the whole way."

"I know," Sam said. "There's no emergency noted anywhere on this."

His voice was level, and his hand on the paper was not.

"What's on the second page?"

"A note from the attending. He wrote: Fetal demise per family physician's report. Ultrasound not performed here."

I looked at him.

"They didn't scan me?"

"Not at the hospital. They took the Huntington doctor's word that the baby had died. And then they ended the pregnancy."

My friend said, "Is that legal?"

"It's not what I would call a defensible standard of care," Sam said. "I'd rather not say more until I've seen the other three. The private clinic hasn't answered me."

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