Free A Mother's Trial by Nancy Wright

don’t know. Maybe a foster home, Priscilla, just for a little while,” Annie said.
    “Oh, no!” Priscilla was shrieking. “Annie, you know I lost one child and now they want to take another! You can’t do this to me!”
    “Well, I don’t know, Priscilla. Why don’t we talk to the doctor tomorrow. I’ll set something up. Maybe we can work something out.”
    “Annie, you’ve got to do something about the visiting. They’re only letting me visit five minutes an hour. They won’t even let it accumulate. She’s not used to being alone like that.”
    “All right, Priscilla. I’ll see what I can do. Why don’t you and Steve plan to come by the hospital tomorrow about noon? I’m sure we can work this out. Please don’t worry.”
    Priscilla sat motionless on the orange sofa as they rose and then left. She did not even move when she heard Steve slam the front door after them. She felt rooted, helpless. Because, for once, she didn’t know what to do.
     

18
     
    Annie was there to meet them as promised. Steve felt as though he’d been treading water in a deep pond for an hour. His big, burly body was floppy with no sleep and worry and uncertainty.
    That morning he had called Jim Hutchison.
    “Someone’s trying to poison Mindy,” he said. There had been a pause before the minister replied.
    “What?”
    And Steve had repeated it, explaining what had happened. “We need you up at Kaiser, Jim. Can you come?” It was for Priscilla, really, that he was asking, he knew. Priscilla had leaned so hard on Jim when Tia had died.
    “Yes, of course, Steve.” The heavy Irish voice had been reassuring. “I’m just getting ready for the service, but I’ll be up as soon as it’s over. By one o’clock certainly. Don’t worry,” Jim had said.
    So they expected him in time for the meeting that Annie Jameson had arranged with Dr. Callas in the ICU Quiet Room.
    At noon, Steve and Priscilla drove to the hospital to visit Mindy. Steve did not go in. He couldn’t bear some nurse standing over him, watching every move. He looked through the glass door as Priscilla moved to Mindy’s bed. He knew Pris was crying.
    “How is she?” he asked when Priscilla returned five minutes later.
    “She looks okay. They’re giving her cereal and bottles. She hasn’t had any diarrhea.”
    So it was something in the bottle of formula, Steve thought. Maybe the damned doctors had done something right for once. But who? How had it happened? In a way, Steve didn’t want her to be better because now they’d surely be coming after Priscilla. Well, they weren’t going to do it. Not if he had anything to say about it.
    And now here with Annie Jameson was Dr. Callas, her face set in accusation. Steve almost flinched. Jim Hutchison wasn’t here. He had called at the last minute and said he couldn’t make it till later, that they should go on without him.
    The Quiet Room seemed smaller still, Steve thought, as though a black cloud of threat and danger had entered, seeping under the single door, filling the room. Steve could almost feel it hanging there, ready to shroud them all.
    Priscilla was crying before they went into that little room, and she cried on and off throughout the meeting. Annie said they were there to talk about the visiting. It felt good to Steve to have some support. And Annie was effective. She was an older woman with a calm voice and an air of reason.
    “I don’t see why the visiting can’t accumulate,” she said to Dr. Callas. “It is so inconvenient for the Phillipses to arrange their lives so that they can be here five minutes each hour.”
    “That’s right,” Priscilla broke in. “It’s too exhausting. Either I have to sit outside the door for the other fifty-five minutes and watch the clock, or go home, try to live a normal life, and then rush back.”
    “What I suggest—” began Miss Jameson.
    “It’s totally ridiculous—”
    “Steve—”
    “I just wanted to—” he began again.
    “Let her