"What is it this time?" she questioned in a squeaky voice. She could feel her tear ducts getting busy already.
"Mrs Lips, you must understand—"
"That you guys are a bunch of careless, useless crap? Just tell me what you've done wrong this time. Let me guess, there was a mix-up in the name?"
The woman winced and gulped visibly, darting her brown eyes around the room, as if she felt Kiersey would attack her any minute and was searching for any form of defence.
"What is it?" Kiersey screamed, standing up from the chair. The woman's fidgety ways and expression was greatly pissing her off. If she kept on delaying the news anymore, she might just jump over the desk and scratch her eyes out.
The elderly woman blinked and swallowed again. She wouldn't take her eyes off the sheet of paper. "The reason there was a mix-up was because the sperm sample had been tagged for discarding. We did a recent check up of our inventory and . . . less suitable samples were to be taken off nitrogen and discarded. The interns placed the particular sample in the space tagged for your husband's and discarded his by mistake."
Of all the alarming information she just heard, only one stood out in her muddled, swollen brain. Abject fear and horror washed straight through her. "What do you mean by less suitable samples? You had the guy tested for disease, didn't you? You have a record of his genetic testing?" Her voice broke at the last statement. Her heart started to knock away in the small space of her chest.
The woman's eyes turned sad. "A different set of people were responsible for collecting and storing donations then. The guy wasn't tested, and . . .
" . . . and the records were slightly incomplete. The label used on the sample were not that good then, some information were starting to wear off."
Kiersey slumped in her seat and felt herself sliding down to the floor. A girl could only take so much. Tears ran down her face as she stared in horror. Her ears couldn't believe what they had just heard. Everything all felt like a nightmare—her worst nightmare. This couldn't possibly be happening to her.
So many bad news in the course of three days. What other bad news could she get that could up these?
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head vehemently. No, no! This couldn't be happening to her. This couldn't be happening to her poor baby. The clinic staff were joking. April Fool's day had recently passed by and they still hadn't gotten it out of their systems yet.
"Mrs Lips, I'm terribly sorry about it." The voice came from somewhere nearer to her.
Kiersey continued to shake her head. She wanted to scream at the incompetent bitch to stop calling her that. She wanted to scream her lungs out and wish it all away. She wanted to howl and bawl her eyes out till her spirit left her body. She just couldn't cope with all these. All the agony and bad news that had come her way recently.
She wished she had done the AI at home by herself instead of coming to this sorry excuse for a hospital. A government hospital, for crying out loud!
A warm hand rested on her bare shoulder and squeezed lightly. Kiersey stopped shaking her head only because she had gotten whiplash. The hand on her shoulder did nothing to assuage her agony.
The shake seemed to have taken it all out of her. She suddenly felt drained and slumped back in her seat. She placed a hand over her expanding middle section and silently let the tears fall.
Why was her poor baby subject to all these? First it had been at the risk of abortion, then she'd only just found out it's father could be anybody and nobody, and worst of all, he could have a genetic disease that could affect it. She hoped with all of her being the anonymous guy was clean. It would break her if she found out he was also a carrier of the Triple A Syndrome. Her baby would be doomed.
She didn't think she'd ever be emotionally prepared for it. She had watched her elder sister suffer from TAS. Her poor sister had had them all; achalasia, Addison's and alacrimia. The poor girl. Her parents had both been unaware carriers of the gene. It had dominated in her sister's traits, Kiersey herself had been a carrier. It hadn't shown up at all in her brother.
It had been too late when her parents found out what was really wrong with their daughter. Way too late. Kiersey had watched her sister go sick each day. She had watched her lose weight, lose her appetite. She had cried and cried when her skin got dark with the disease and when she couldn't swallow food anymore and had to be fed through tubes. She had watched her sister sob in agony with no tears coming out of her eyes.
And Kiersey had stood on a chair outside the operation room with the small windows in it's doors and watched as they operated on her. She had seen the EKG connected to her sister flatline into infinity as she stopped responding to treatment. She had watched Kelli die.
She had been just five then. Kelli had been a year older, but had always been a twin sister to her, rather than an older one. And Kelli had died from Triple A.
She so didn't want the same thing for her own baby. Although she was going to keep him/her, no matter what the donor's genetic testing was (if she found out at all), but the onslaught of emotions that she knew so much about was still something that made her eyes water.
What has this goddamn hospital gotten me into?
"Mrs Lips?"
Kiersey opened her eyes and said, "For fucks sake, can you stop calling me that?" Then she proceeded to extract her handkerchief and wipe her tears away, drawing in the lingering scent of the Vix to calm her tight nerves.
"I'm sorry," the doctor sputtered, standing stiffly away from her. "What happened is our fault and we promise to find out the donor's whereabouts."
"What kind of hospital takes from every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes bringing his dick? Without even testing and proper documentation?" Kiersey queried. Anger and hurt married in a quick ceremony in her head, her limbs, her soul.
"This particular donor was an exception. The staff on ground that day was an elderly woman. She must have started to get confused in the brain earlier than we thought."
Kiersey raised her head to look at the woman. "Where is the woman now?"
The woman scratched the base of her neck nervously. "Uh, she retired a few months after that day and died sometime last year."
Kiersey's heart sank in dejection and she looked back down. Why did she even think the woman would have been able to help her. A woman that was already confused two years ago, even if she was still alive, she'd have gone into the full stage of dementia.
"But there was an intern on ground then. I understand that the donor came sometime during a night shift, so not many people were around."
Kiersey looked back up at the woman, wondering where she was going with the talk.
"The guy didn't eventually work here, but I could find his last address and contact for you."
Kiersey's sunken heart floated back up. He would be able to tell her something about the donor so she could find and know his genetic test. "Yes, please."
The sun was just brightening up the afternoon when she pulled her brown BMW out of the hospital parking lot into the light traffic. She glanced at the digital clock on her dashboard and sighed.One twenty two.She had been rather been hoping to make it back to school in time for the second segment of the day after lunch break, but then, she hadn't known she was going to get some more bad news in the hospital—bad, perturbing news that would require her withgoing school for the day. On the hunt of a guy who lived on the other side of the city—and inadvertently, on the hunt of her sperm donor; her baby's daddy.She glanced at the piece of paper again. Ryan Vice. Twenty four years old. She was supposed to be looking for a Ryan Vice who lived in a trailer house in Springfield.She rubbed tiredly at her eyebrows. That was if she found him. People that lived in trailer houses didn't mean to stay in it for long, and Kiersey
She wasn't really shocked when, on getting to the trailer home, a big haired, kohl-eyed girl informed her in a monotone that no fucking Ryan lived in her home. Rather, she was just sad. It wasn't like she had expected to find Ryan Vice so easily, but confirming her suspicions still didn't hurt less.Chewing on the corner of her bottom lip, she glanced at the girl from the window of her beemer. The latter stood with her hips cocked on the extension porch and eyed her back. Kiersey swallowed the urge to roll her eyes. It seemed like she had caught her in her worst mood.She wondered if she get more 'friendly' information from the girl. She didn't look to be older than nineteen, or even eighteen and, from the torn pants and checkered top she had on, Kiersey didn't think she was well off. She wondered if she could dare offer her money for some more information. How would the girl see that?But then, she reasoned, she m
It was almost two thirty when Kiersey found herself back on the highway on her way home. She pressed a button to ease down her window and breathed in fresh air. Her hunger pangs were acting in again. After the pancakes she had thrown up this morning, what remained was the diet coke she had bought from a vending machine in the hospital and the junk from the gas station. If she had been in school, she'd have bought lunch or even made one in the staff lunchroom.She sighed and leaned back in her seat. But she was stuck trailing a nameless, faceless guy that had donated the sperm for her baby.The hospital had suggested utero testing of the foetus, it would have been easier that way to know without running around looking for the guy. But that also came with the risk of miscarriage and that was a risk Kiersey was most definitely not about to take.Ryan Vice was definitely in Cali. She was going to have to take days off
She took her finger off the indicator and stepped on the gas, going after the black car.As she zoomed after the car, the absurdity of the what she was doing struck her. She wasn't even sure if it was him. A cream sedan car had slid behind the Mustang, obstructing her view of the number plates.What even if it was him? she thought. What would she do? She had nothing with him and was even relieved to not be with him anymore. They were due for divorce mediation next week and then wouldn't have to see each other again for the rest of their lives. So why was she about to make her presence known?Yeah, he had lied about his whereabouts (if the Mustang was him at all), but that didn't mean a thing, did it? She couldn't care less if he had gone to Antarctica, or still lived somewhere in Illinois.So why was she on the chase after his car? she questioned herself again.
She struggled hard to fight it. She knew was was happening to her. Her disordered senses had probably decided it had had enough and was shutting down—she was going to black out. So she struggled hard to fight it. To push back the darkness that was steadily creeping towards her, shutting down everything in it's wake."No," she mouthed.She was aware of the strong, warm arms around her slowly lowering her into a warm cushion. Then she was aware of his face looking down at her in worry, it was the only thing in focus.He's probably going to call 911, she thought. Or the police. She had destroyed his car after all.Oh, the car.She remembered the fender bender and tried to shake her head. When had things gone from plowing into a car to fainting? She wasn't fatally wounded and dying, was she?Still confused, she struggled to grasp the reins of her world. She
One would think life would cut her some slack after the whole kerfuffle of the afternoon, but then it turned out it wasn't quite done with her yet. She barely trudged her way out of the elevator to her apartment when her phone started to ring. It was Kevyn, and of all times to call.She swiped her keycard and stepped in, immediately toeing off her flats. Then she found the nearest sofa and sank into it. She so very much wanted a cool, aromatherapic bath right now, but she didn't see how she could possibly postpone Kevyn's call. Her brother had a record for being paranoid, especially when it came to matters concerning her.So, sighing heavily, she swiped the call to pick."Key," said Kevyn in greeting. "Are you okay?"Kiersey was even too tired to roll her eyes up. "Come on, you can do better than that. And what makes you think I'm not, kiddo?"She could just imagine her brother r
The next day, she was fine enough to take two classes before the long break at which she had to go see the principal.From the call to her travel agent early in the morning, she had found out the most convenient time to travel to California was tomorrow. Unexpected, but she didn't have much of a choice.The old bastard of a principal was grumpy as usual and failed to see how a teacher in his school could have, err. . . familial matters so important as to take the rest of the school week off, albeit it was just a day before the weekend.She even had to pull the expecting mother card before the tough jerky finally agreed to let her have the rest of the day and the rest of the week off.It just happened to be around the time scheduled to pick up her car at the garage, so she took a Uber to the place.The garage was named 'The Zeunt Fix' and was an old but neat out-building that was
The sun was high overhead and burning hot as usual when Kiersey arrived at the airport. Exhausted, she paid her silent taxi driver and immediately started searching for the nearest refreshment. She was lucky to find get a chilled bottle of fruit milk drink at the nearest duty free.Recently, her proclivities went towards chilled, brain freezing drinks. Kiersey wasn't sure if that was good for the baby, but she just couldn't help the craving. Sometimes she craved for chilled stuff so bad it felt like she'd break down if one didn't gush down her throat soon enough.Her flight was in thirty five minutes, and aware of that, she had come early anyways. After all she had had the day off from work and had spent the time doing laundries and other little stuff, sufficiently boring herself out.Then she wandered more departments of the duty free before finally claiming a seat in the departure lounge.Watching