Derrick Gladstone wheeled out onto San Francisco Hospital’s third floor and expertly guided his utilitarian but functional wheelchair over to the nurse’s station. He had requisitioned the chair’s creation for his specific needs. The first of which was to make the chair as visually unobtrusive as possible. He had heard the term “murdered out” in reference to a car being painted all black, the chrome powdercoated, and the windows tinted. He liked to think of his chair as also being “murdered out.” It was a flat black that reflected no light and blended with nearly any environment.
His second condition regarding the chair was that it appear modern and elegant. He wasn’t about to push himself around in the same wheelchair that someone of a lower station could also afford.
As he approached the nurse on duty, LuAnn smiled and said, “Dr. Gladstone, good to see you. I didn’t know that one of these babies was yours.”
He returned the smile and made some small talk, although he had no affinity for the fifty-year-old obstetrics nurse. She was a single mother and poor. She smelled of cigarettes and halitosis. He hated that the children would have to smell her as she swaddled them.
Derrick rotated his chair toward the viewing window, which was thankfully handicap accessible. LuAnn walked up beside him and asked, “Which one is yours?”
“The Jefferson child. A boy. I don’t know the name yet.”
She pointed at the glass. “He’s the third one back.” Peaking over the edge of the window, Derrick observed the newborn squirming in the hospital bassinet. The baby was healthy and strong, wide awake and alert.
LuAnn said, “Would you like to hold him, Doctor?”
“I would love to,” Derrick replied as he wheeled over to the door for the nursery. He knew the drill here well. He had visited numerous children at this hospital. Every child born under his care deserved at least a visit.
LuAnn retrieved the baby and laid him in Derrick’s arms. The child blinked up at him, and Derrick rubbed the child’s tiny hand with his own. No matter how many times he had done this very thing, he was always a little surprised and overwhelmed at how tiny and fragile human beings were when they entered the world. Many animals could walk from the moment of their birth, but homo sapien offspring were little more than balls of flesh, utterly helpless and dependent. Somehow, humankind had topped the food chain despite that inherent setback.
Referring to the chart, LuAnn said, “And, by the way, his name is Leonardo.”
Derrick winced and whispered to the child, “Sorry, kid. You were probably named after the ninja turtle, not the painter or actor. But I’m afraid what they name you is out of my control.”
“What did you say, Doctor?”
“I was just speaking with little Leo,” he said with a large grin.
She laughed. “I think it’s great that you care so much about your patients. It’s a shame you don’t have children of your own. You would have been a great dad.”
Derrick maintained his smile, but his mind turned to the scalpel in the pocket of his white lab coat. He imagined himself standing up from the chair and jamming the scalpel into one of the cigarette-stained nurse’s eyeballs. He pictured the shock on her face when he rose from the chair and the confusion when she noticed the scalpel in his hand. The blood spurted from her wounds as he sliced her neck and face to pieces. It rained a red mist over the top of the squalling and squirming children.
Pulling him back to reality, LuAnn said, “I’m assuming you want a picture with your new patient, as usual?”
“I never miss a visit or a photo op, LuAnn.”
He handed over his phone and posed with the baby. She snapped a few photos for him and then asked, “Do you want me to put him back for you?”
He wanted to scream at her that he was much stronger and more capable than she was, but instead, he held the fake smile and said, “I’d like a few minutes with him, if that’s okay.”
“Of course. I need to take him back to his parents soon, but you can wait with him until then.”
“Thanks, LuAnn. You’re the best.”
She winked at him and said, “Anything for you, Dr. Gladstone. I wish we had more like you here. That young couple was truly blessed to find you as a doctor.”
He shrugged in deference. “Thank you. That’s very nice of you to say.”
When she was gone, he stared into the boy’s eyes. The child already showed thin strands of blonde hair, very close to his own color. But the newborn’s build reminded Derrick more of his youngest brother, Simon.
He thought of the first time he had laid eyes on Simon in a hospital nursery much like the one he was sitting in now. The twins, Derrick and Dennis, had been five years old when his mother had told them that she was pregnant. It had been at the kitchen table in their old two-story colonial. His father, learning of the surprise pregnancy at the same time as his two sons, had been quiet at first.
“Say something,” his mother had said. “I just told you we’re going to be having another child.”
Finally, his father had smiled and said, “We’re adding a new lion to the pride, boys. And you’re going to have to teach him all that I’ve taught you.”
Derrick had taken those words to heart and had considered that duty as he first saw his baby brother. There had been something off about Simon even then. When a five-year-old Derrick Gladstone looked into his newborn brother’s eyes, he instantly noticed the boy’s strength. Simon’s body was strong and muscular compared to other newborns, but the thing that had struck Derrick was that Simon never cried. His brother had been born tough, and Derrick had loved the boy from the beginning, feeling a kinship with Simon that he had never experienced with his own fraternal twin, Dennis.
His mind turned then to the day when, out of kindness, he and Dennis decided to murder Simon. Looking back, Derrick wished they had killed their mother instead. His little brother didn’t deserve to be erased from existence, but the same couldn’t be said for the woman who wanted the boy gone. Still, there was little Derrick could do about that now, other than make the old witch pay for her sins, which he was already doing.
Leaning in close to little Leonardo’s face, he kissed the boy’s forehead and said, “Your parents certainly were blessed to have met me.”