A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

“Do you know anything about this particular birth?” asks Bea.
“I do,” Jeanette says. She breathes deeply, holds the air in. At first
she’s reluctant to tell us. But then she does. She exhales slowly and
says, “The baby isn’t right.”
Bea and I exchange a glance. We’ve both seen the baby. The
baby didn’t look not right to us. “How so?” Bea asks.
“She suffered irreparable brain damage during the delivery. The
Tebows are suing Dr. Feingold for malpractice. Dr. Feingold should
have opted for a C-section, which Meredith suggested. The mother
was exhausted. But Dr. Feingold wouldn’t listen; he wouldn’t be told
what to do. He cut an episiotomy and used forceps instead, applying
too much pressure to the infant’s fragile skull.”
“But she will be all right?” I ask, worried for baby Grace. The fact
that Shelby is suing for malpractice concerns me. Lots of doctors get
sued. As a doctor myself, it’s one of my biggest fears. Many
malpractice suits are settled or dismissed before they ever get to
court. But still, it has lasting effects on a doctor’s finances and
reputation. If Dr. Feingold is the type of man Jeanette paints him to
be, I wonder what kind of reaction he’d have to being sued.
Jeanette shrugs. “We may not know for some time. Some of these
children are diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Some seizure disorders.
Still others have developmental delays. Meredith planned to testify
against Dr. Feingold. She was to give a deposition this week,” she
says, and for a second I don’t breathe. I think that this doctor did
something to silence Meredith so she couldn’t speak out against him.
The timing is significant. First Shelby went missing and then
Meredith, the two women who were witness to his negligence.
We go quiet, each lost in our own thoughts. In time, Jeanette drifts
away, standing under a tree in the distance, staring upward at the
clouds. I watch her for a moment.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Bea says, stealing my attention
away from Jeanette.
The rain picks up and then slows down. Dusk seems to come
sooner than usual because of the rain. By late afternoon it’s turning
dark, the clouds heavy and gray. Tonight there will be thunderstorms,
some violent, newscasters predict.