The Choices We Made novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Sealed

The records office was on the ground floor of the hospital where Eliza had once worked nights.

She wore her old badge on a lanyard. It had expired years ago, and nobody looked at the date.

"I need my own chart," she said to the clerk. "Eliza Schermerhorn. Admitted five years ago, March third."

The clerk typed. Her eyebrows moved.

"That file is flagged."

"Flagged for what?"

"It's sealed. It can only be released to a family representative." She squinted at the screen. "Constance Schermerhorn."

"I'm the patient."

"I'm sorry, ma'am. The seal was requested by your attending physician and signed by the family. It's been locked since the week you were discharged."

"My mother-in-law has my medical file."

"I can't discuss it."

Eliza put both hands on the counter.

"Then tell me one thing. Is there a record of an infant born to me that night? A weight. A time."

The clerk's face closed. "I can't discuss it."

Eliza walked out through the lobby so fast that her shoes squeaked on the tile.

She was almost to the parking structure when someone called her name.

"Eliza? Eliza Colter?"

It had been years since anyone had used that name.

A tall woman in scrubs came across the lot, gray in her braid, half a sandwich still in her hand. Her old charge nurse, the one who had taught her to hold a newborn so she would never drop one.

"I heard you were in the building," the nurse said. "Someone at the desk got nervous."

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