Chapter 6 - The Secret in the Diaper Bag
While Linda hung between life and death in the second-look laparotomy in Operating Room 4, her personal belongings sat in an inventory locker in the nursing supervisor's station.
Sister Evelyn Morales sat at her small desk beneath a wooden crucifix, a pair of reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. Beside her sat the plastic Walgreens bag, its thin handles stretched and distorted.
Before sealing the items into the official hospital safe, protocol required a complete inventory: personal identification, currency, prescription medications, valuables.
Sister Evelyn carefully emptied the contents onto the clean desk blotter.
The jumbo pack of newborn diapers.
The tub of zinc oxide cream.
A half-used roll of cherry-flavored antacids.
A brass front-door key on a faded red plastic tag that read: *Home.*
And, tucked into the bottom of the bag beneath a folded piece of floral wallpaper, an old, blue-lined composition notebook with the cover worn down to the gray cardboard backing.
Sister Evelyn hesitated. As a hospital administrator and a sister of the Little Company of Mary, she was bound by strict confidentiality rules. But as an ethicist appointed by the court to determine Linda Miller’s true mental capacity, every scrap of documentation was critical.
She opened the notebook.
The first entry was dated five years earlier—October 12th, three days after Robert Miller’s funeral.
The handwriting was neat, the cursive of a woman educated in Catholic parochial schools in the 1960s, though the later entries showed the unmistakable tremor of arthritis and physical exhaustion.
Sister Evelyn began to read.
>*"October 12.*
*The house is very cold today. The oil heater in the basement makes a clanking sound that Robert always knew how to fix with a tap of his brass wrench. I sat on the basement stairs for an hour with the wrench in my hand, but I didn't know where to hit it.*
*Arthur came by at noon. He didn't come inside. He left the car running in the driveway with his hazard lights blinking. He said he needed the title to the Ford pickup. He said there was no point in letting it sit in the garage and rot. When I gave him the keys, he didn't hug me. He said: 'Make sure you keep the heat low, Mom. Utility costs in these old places are ridiculous.'*
*I didn't turn the heat on at all today. I put on Robert’s heavy gray sweater."*
Sister Evelyn turned the page.
>*"June 4.*
*Monica’s birthday. I baked the lemon pound cake she used to love when she was a girl at St. Luke's. I waited until seven o'clock. At seven-fifteen, she called from a restaurant downtown. She said her colleagues were throwing her a surprise party at the Drake. She said: 'Don't wait up, Mom. You know how these corporate things are.'*
*I didn't want to throw the cake away. It smelled so much like her when she was small. I took three slices down to old Mr. Henderson at the end of the block. He has dementia now, but he smiled and told me I was a good mother. I came home and sat in the dark and cried until my ribs hurt."*
Sister Evelyn’s hand trembled slightly as she turned another dozen pages, skipping forward three years.
>*"November 22.*
*Julian needed money for his rent again. He looked so thin. His coat had a tear along the left sleeve. I gave him the four hundred dollars from the jar where Robert kept the emergency roof money. While Julian was in the bathroom, I found a receipt in his coat pocket from an upscale bar in River North. A bottle of vodka for two hundred and eighty dollars.*
*I didn't say anything to him. If I say something, he won't come back. And if he doesn't come back, nobody walks through that front door for three weeks at a time. It’s better to be stolen from than to be a ghost."*
And then came the entries from seven months ago.
The handwriting changed drastically here—becoming looser, larger, erratic, spiked with the wild surges of hormone toxicity.
>*"March 3.*
*Something strange is happening in my body. The doctor at the clinic said my blood had pregnancy hormones. He laughed when he said it. He thought it was a laboratory error. But this morning, while I was boiling water for tea, I felt a flutter. Right below my stomach.*
*I know what people will say. They will say Linda Miller has finally lost her mind. They will say the grief broke her. But what if it isn't grief? What if God looked down at this big, empty house, looked at these four empty bedrooms where nobody laughs anymore, and decided to give me one more chance?*
*A baby doesn't ask you for a deed.*
*A baby doesn't leave the car running in the driveway.*
*A baby just wants you to hold it against your shoulder and sing."*
The final entry was written yesterday morning, dated November 14th, at 6:30 AM.
>*"He didn't move all night. I tapped my stomach with my fingertips, but there was no answer. Only a cold, heavy pain that makes it hard to see the clock.*
*I bought the yellow yarn because yellow is for a boy or a girl. It doesn't matter which. I just wanted something bright in the room.*
*Monica and Arthur are coming at ten. They think we’re going to the clinic to sign the papers for the conservatorship. Arthur wants the house. Monica wants the stock portfolio Robert left with Merrill Lynch.*
*I’m going to take the diapers with me. I want them to see them. I want them to understand that there is still something in this world that needs me, even if they don't.*
*Robert, if you’re listening... don't let me be alone today. Please. I’m so tired of being alone."*
Sister Evelyn closed the notebook.
She sat in the quiet office for a long time, the tears streaming freely down her weathered, olive cheeks, soaking into the starched white collar of her habit.
She picked up the telephone on her desk and dialed the direct internal extension for the Cook County State's Attorney liaison office stationed on the first floor.
"Prosecutor Miller?" Sister Evelyn said, her voice steady, hard as polished granite. "This is Sister Evelyn Morales at the medical ethics board. I have the physical evidence you requested regarding the Linda Miller case. And I want you to issue immediate grand jury subpoenas for the financial accounts of Arthur and Monica Miller before five o'clock today."
Across the hallway, through the heavy observation windows of Operating Room 4, the green monitor line gave a sudden, violent lurch.
"Ventricular fibrillation!" the anesthesiologist yelled. "She’s coding! Charge the paddles to two hundred!"
Dr. Marcus Harrison threw his hands into the air, stepping back from the open incision. "Clear the table! Salcedo, get the internal paddles ready—we’re already open!"
"Charging!"
*Whine...*
"Clear!"
*THUMP.*
Linda’s body arched off the operating table, her spine snapping upward against the stainless steel frame, then falling limp.
"No conversion! Still in V-fib! Charge to three hundred!"
Through the glass, Dr. Salcedo looked down at the pale, bruised woman on the table. Her ribs were exposed, her heart visible through the pericardial window, fluttering like a dying sparrow trapped in an attic.
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"Come on, Linda," Salcedo whispered through his bloody mask, his hands gripping the internal defibrillator spoons. "Don't let them have the last word. Breathe, damn you. Breathe!"
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