Pre- (Ivy League) School

Chapter 6
Maternity Ward

Chapter Description: Sarah finds out what she knew all along

The parents at the hospital were gathered into a sequestered meeting room. Sarah could now see that Amy was here now as well. She recognized almost every face there from attending some of Emily’s many social events over the years. An older police officer got up at the front of the room, certainly some sort of high ranking member of the force.

“I’m not one to mince words so here we go.” He paused for a moment. “There is credible evidence that the babies recovered from Marble Hills High School are your children and loved ones.” There were a lot of shocked gasps, and a few people even fainted. Everyone slowly started weeping, outside of a few stoic individuals.

“I don’t have an awful lot of information beyond that.” He added,  to the dazed crowd. “Sadly, due to many circumstances, you will not be allowed to take your loved one home until a successful paternity, or DNA test is conducted, to prove their identity.”

“We will attempt to keep this out of the media for as long as possible, but I suspect the news will be out about what happened by the end of the day. I will reconvene at some later point to give further information as I receive it.” He concluded, and began to walk off the stage before a question was shouted out from one of the only stone faced people in the room.

“Who did this?” The sad but composed man shouted.

“We’re not at liberty to announce that at this juncture” The well trained cop replied.

“But, we have it on good authority that whoever committed this act is in that room, and no longer and threat to anybody.” With that, he exited the room.

Sarah and her husband Robert shuffled out of the room with their son, as most of the crowd did. Sarah had known what happened at the school when they carried the babies out but had refused to accept it. Robert clearly saw why he was commanded to tow the scrapbook with him, hoping they could convince the nurses and doctors would allow her to be discharged if they could prove that they were her parents then, but that seemed unlikely. 

It was at this point that Sarah noticed that this was the ward where Emily had been born the first time. She recoiled at her own thought, “the first time”? At this point the ward was outdated and prepped to be used for emergency situations, and nobody thought that it would be re-used as a maternity ward once more. The huddled mass of shocked pale family members gathered at the glass window and looked at the 30 individual plastic bassinets, that they had all seen years before. 

At the base of each bassinet, where typically the last name is, there were only numbers. 1 to 30, labeled each plastic tub. The babies in each of these looked as if they were reaching about the maximum size that these could hold, as these were typically used for newborns exclusively, and these babies ranged from being a few months old, to almost a year old. 

In the back right corner Sarah spotted her, number 28. Even from here she could see the mess of blonde hair on her tiny head. Covered with a blanket, she looked peaceful, although her mother could see that her face was red from a long spat of crying. Who could blame them, Sarah thought. She seemed to be occasionally moving her head to the left, and looking at baby 29, maybe a month or so older than her, and that baby seemed to be continuing to bawl their eyes out.

Mason, their 13 year old son, looked through the glass inquisitively rather than sad. This is the first time he’d ever seen anything like this at a hospital, being the baby of the family himself. He asked his parents a question.

“Why is everyone so sad? They look safe and healthy?” Sarah and Robert looked at each other and thought about it for a moment. 

They couldn’t respond, he was right, they were safe and healthy. But there was so much lost even still. Her heart hurt looking at bassinet labeled #28. Emily was right back to square one, or maybe not even there yet. When the news came out about what happened the world would completely change, and her now infant daughter would be right at the center of it. How would she cope with it this time around? Could she grow up normally? These questions would answer themselves in the coming years and decades but her mind quickly went to a more pragmatic place.

“Where can we provide our DNA sample?” She asked the nurse.

The nurse led the family to a side room, where they took nose swabs of both the mother and father. The swabs then disappeared into sealed cups and they were thanked, then lead back out to the area near the window. 

“The results will hopefully be in by tomorrow morning.” Then the nurse left them there.

They all weren’t quite sure what to do next, they continued staring at the window for some time, before they once more ran into Amy, Kaitlynn’s mother, who seemed to be taking the news quite poorly. Her face was about as red as Emily’s was, Sarah thought. The two women exchanged a long and exasperated hug, while Kaitlynn’s father who was just recently arrived, looked a thousand yards off into the distance.

Sarah then realized the magnitude of the changes that would need to be made at home, and made sure her husband knew. She told him to go home and take Mason. She would need to go out to purchase some supplies.