The Midwife Murders by James Patterson, Richard Dilallo Page A

yourself can get out of here, but the baby must stay.’”
    She brings her hands to the sides of her head. She stops talking, and she cries loudly. I have a good idea of what happened: Maternity Discharge looked at her records and saw that her blood contained a mixture of cocaine, as well as oxycodone and hydrocodone, both powerful opioids. The discharge desk or Nurse Franklin called Social Services, and they put a stop on allowing Val to leave with her daughter.
    Val begins to compose herself. She starts talking again. Between sobs and shakes and coughs she explains some more. “They bring a nurse and a social worker and a cop, like I’m a criminal, to see me in the discharge office, and they say what the social worker already told me. I cannot have my baby. They will keep her like an orphan.”
    I try to explain to Val that her little girl will not be kept “like an orphan.” Instead the infant will stay in the GUH neonatal nursery until the great jumble of the New York City Department of Social Services sorts things out. I tell her that she can visit the baby anytime she wants.
    “But I want my baby now,” she cries. “She is my baby. I do not need the mayor to tell me when I can visit my own baby.”
    I have a choice to make now. I make it: I let her have it right between the eyes. I don’t shout. But I am way more than stern. “Look. I tried to get you help. You compromised your pregnancy.”
    Val is now sobbing uncontrollably. I’m trying to practice
tough love,
something I’m not very good at. I’m good at
tough,
and I’m good at
love
. I’m just not good at them when they’re together.
    “Why are you so mean to me?” she says. “Why is everybody in this city so mean to me?”
    “Because you don’t listen. Do you love drugs more than your baby?”
    That lights up her face with horror. “No. I love my baby. I want my baby,” she yells.
    “I know you love her. I know you want her. But you have to show and prove that you love her. You do that by cleaning yourself up.”
    But I can’t keep yelling at her. The situation is the usual crazy mess for users: heartbreaking and infuriating.
    “Where are you living these days?” I ask.
    “I think I can stay with my auntie Sofia,” she says. Then she explains that her mother, who I know is a prostitute and a user, won’t allow her back in her apartment.
    “Where does your auntie live?”
    “On St. Ann’s Avenue, 149th Street.”
    Great. Possibly the worst area of the worst neighborhood in the South Bronx. And that’s a contest that’s got a lot of competition.
    I tell her that right now we’re going to visit her baby in the nursery. “You’ll hold the baby for about ten or fifteen minutes. Then we’ve got to go someplace else. We need to go to a social service and addiction center in Washington Heights.”
    She interrupts me. She speaks firmly. “No, I like the center on East 35th Street. Don’t boss me around, Lucy. I’m in charge of my life.”
    I can’t take it anymore. “Listen, you are not in charge. We’re picking a place where they can help you and help you get your baby back.”
    I walk out of the room to clear my mind. Under my breath, I say, “Jesus Christ! When will it ever end?”

CHAPTER 29
    I WASH VAL’S FACE. “I should have used Easy-Off oven cleaner to remove all this foundation,” I tell her as I scrub. Then I dress her in a clean white T-shirt and a clean pair of powder-blue hospital scrub pants.
    Now Val is ready to see her daughter and to play Mommy. I have to say that Val does a damn good job of it. She cuddles and feeds and changes her baby in the hospital visitors’ nursery.
    Meanwhile, I gather copies of any papers the hospital has on file that can help us get through the Manhattan outpost of the Department of Social Services—MSS. Val clearly has the bio-maternal instinct. It takes a lot of cajoling and threatening to get her away from her baby and out of the hospital. Once we’re down in the mechanical