Page 1 of Leave a Mark
CHAPTER ONE
DR. LELAND HAWTHORNEcouldn’t keep his eyes open.
He’d failed to get used to the twenty-four-hour shift, even in the fourth year of his residency. The fact that he worked two a week didn’t make life any easier.
Lee still had hours ahead of him before he could go home for the night, but if Mrs. Clark didn’t transition too quickly, he could crash in the bunkroom until his shift ended.
It was 4:03 p.m., and he’d come back to University Medical Center at six o’clock the night before. After eight deliveries — two of them preemies — Lee figured he’d need another twenty-four hours just to catch up on his charts.
But first, he had to sleep before he fell over. He waved to Elaine, the charge nurse, and pointed to the bunkroom. She smiled and gave him thefingers crossedsign. Lee opened the door slowly, just in case Mercer had found a few minutes to slip away, but the resident anesthesiologist was nowhere to be found.
He claimed the bottom bunk farthest from the door and collapsed.
Six o’clock. When six o’clock comes, I’ll head home and sleep for twelve blessed hours…
With his face in the pillow, Lee frowned.
Are we going somewhere tonight…? What day is…
“DR. HAWTHORNE? DR.Hawthorne?Lee!”Elaine’s voice pulled him up from the dead.
He had to be dead. If he wasn’t dead, why was it so hard to move?
“Yeah?” He forced the word past his zombie tongue. His awful breath was further proof that he’d expired.
“Mrs. Clark says she’s ready to push. Should I tell Bev to have her wait?”
Lee bolted up. He hadn’t become an OB so he could have mothers and babies wait on him. It was supposed to be the other way around.
“No… no. I’m on my way.”
Lee blinked to unglue the contacts from his corneas. He stumbled out of the bunkroom and dragged a hand through his hair, sure that his cowlick stuck straight up like a rooster comb. At least Marcelle wasn’t around to see it. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was only 4:19.
How’s that possible?
“Well, hello, Sleeping Beauty,” said Bev Champagne, the labor and delivery nurse with as much sass as she had height. At 5’11”, she could look Lee straight in the eye when she laughed in his face — which happened more times than he cared to admit — but she was the best LD nurses at UMC.
“Is someone ready to be born?” Lee asked, ignoring her jab.
“Mrs. Clark is one-hundred percent effaced, ten centimeters, and ready to push, doc.”
Lee crossed to his patient. She stared at him with alarmed brown eyes, so he smiled.
“How you doing, Mrs. Clark?”
“I still hate needles, but think I’d like to change my mind about that epidural,” she said, still wide-eyed.
Lee tried not to let his smile grow. “Mrs. Clark, it’s a little late for that now, but this isn’t your first rodeo,” he said, shaking his head. “You did great the last time.”
The laboring mother didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, but this one’s coming a bit faster than Desiree. I mean—” She stopped mid-sentence and grabbed Lee’s hand. The fetal monitor echoed proof of her contraction, and Lee checked the baby’s heartrate. “Lord, I gotta push!”
“You go right ahead, Mrs. Clar—” His words choked off when she squeezed his hand in a death grip.
“Dr. Hawthorne, you aren’t even gloved and gowned yet,” Bev scolded. “Out of the way, and get ready!”
Bev pushed him aside and took his place. “He’s nice to look at, honey, but he’s just like every other man,” Bev told Mrs. Clark. “You have to tell him what to do every damn day.”
MRS. CLARK’S SECONDchild, a healthy son she was naming Antoine, was born at 5:04 p.m., which gave Lee just enough time to finish his charts before his shift ended. As always, natural births invigorated him, and he found himself looking forward to eating dinner and talking to Marcelle for a few minutes before he showered and crawled into bed.
