Chapter 4: What Doreen Brought in Writing
The linen storage door opened three inches and stopped.
Leah could see the gap through the connecting door Mae had left cracked.
A hand.
A sleeve — dark wool, the kind Doreen always wore.
The hand rested on the door frame and stayed there.
Leah did not breathe.
Her son's eyes were still open.
She pressed her finger gently against his cheek, the way the maternity nurse had shown her the night before, the gentle pressure that sometimes settled a newborn before sound could escape.
He turned his face toward her touch and was quiet.
The hand withdrew.
The linen storage door clicked shut.
Footsteps retreated down the hall.
Leah exhaled so slowly that her vision blurred at the edges.
Two minutes later the connecting door pushed open and Mae came back through, moving fast, her face carrying something new — not panic, but a focused, deliberate calm that looked like the other side of fear.
"I reached him," Mae said.
"Who?"
"His name is Gerald Foss.
He's a patient advocate.
He's been working with this hospital for eleven years and he has dealt with Doreen Carver before." Mae crouched beside the bassinet and checked the baby with practiced hands — pulse, color, breathing — without being asked.
"Not here.
At Mercy General, four years ago.
A different family.
A different situation.
But the same paperwork."
Leah stared at her.
"The same paperwork."
"A psychiatric hold filed on a new mother.
Signed by a doctor with a relationship to the family.
Baby placed with the grandmother during the hold period." Mae stood.
"That family lost six weeks with their child before an advocate intervened.
Gerald made sure the hold was reviewed.
It was overturned.
But by then the damage was done."
"What happened to Doreen?
After?"
"Nothing." Mae's voice was even.
"The doctor retired.
The paperwork was sealed.
Doreen walked away."
Leah looked down at her son.
"She's done this before and nothing happened to her."
"Yes."
"So she thinks she can do it again."
"She's counting on it."
From the hallway, a door opened.
Voices — two of them, neither Nathan nor Doreen.
Hospital staff, moving efficiently, the sound of a cart being wheeled toward the nurses' station.
Mae checked her watch.
"Gerald is coming.
He'll be here in twenty minutes.
But there's something he needs when he arrives."
"What?"
Mae reached into the deep side pocket of her scrubs and produced a folded set of papers.
She held them out to Leah.
Leah took them.
She unfolded them carefully, one-handed, her other hand still resting on her son.
The top sheet was a pre-completed psychiatric evaluation form.
Leah's name was printed in the patient field.
The date was today's date.
In the section marked *Evaluating Physician*, the signature line carried a name: Dr.
Celia Rusk.
Below the evaluation, a second form.
A temporary custody transfer.
The receiving party was listed as Doreen Carver.
The duration field read *pending full evaluation*, which had no fixed end date.
The third sheet was a consent form for the psychiatric hold itself.
The signature line for the patient was blank.
They had not forged her signature.
They were waiting for the attending physician to co-sign so that the hold could be initiated without her consent at all.
"They don't need me to sign," Leah said.
"No.
Under the statute they're using, a hold can be initiated on a physician's judgment alone if the patient is deemed unable to consent.
The co-signature from the attending makes it airtight."
"And the attending goes off shift at four-fifteen."
"Which means they need the co-signature in the next—" Mae checked her watch again.
"Thirty-eight minutes."
Leah refolded the papers.
Her hands were steady.
She was surprised to find that they were steady.
"Gerald needs these?"
"He needs to see them.
He needs to confirm they match the pattern from Mercy General.
If they do, he can file an emergency objection with the hospital's patient rights board before the co-signature is obtained.
It freezes the process."
"And if the co-signature is obtained before he gets here?"
Mae didn't answer immediately.
"Mae."
"Then it becomes significantly harder to stop."
Leah handed the papers back.
"Then he needs to move faster than twenty minutes."
Mae was already reaching for the landline number she'd written on her palm.
May you like
She stopped.
The supply room door handle was moving.
