ADOPTED
1186 Words
THIRD PERSON
(INSIDE THE DOCTOR'S CHAMBER)
"Miss Crystal Cassel, are you sure of doing this?" Asked a young doctor,probably in his mid-thirties. Draped in a white coat and a polo shirt underneath the doctor's attire, he was a lean and pale man. He was handling the rare case of Miss Cassel, who, despite knowing about her condition, insisted on giving birth to her baby. It seemed as if the baby was more important to her than her life.
The priority that she was giving to this baby was far from reality. There was hardly a one percent chance that she would survive after the delivery. But she was metal-headed in this matter. She listened to nobody. Had she listened to her family in France, then she would not have been in that cabin that day. She was stubborn about meeting Ayush Sampang, a guy she met and fell in love with in Japan, another beautiful country in the world.
Even though she lied to her parents that she was having a trip to India for a year, she knew why she was there in the cold Darjeeling district. She meant it when she was determined that she needed to keep her baby. And nobody else except Mr. Sampang had touched her in her 24 years of life. It was as clear as day as to who the father of her unborn child was. And all she came to know about that person in a short period of their dating history of 1 month was that he was originally from India, and a science freak.
Hoping to meet him, she came to India with a 3-month-old foetus with her. But it was extremely essential for her to hand over the baby to its father before she left this world. However, her hopes began to shatter when, even after 4 long months of her search, she got no positive news about Ayush Sampang nor his family.
She learned that they used to have a business empire. They used to be hoteliers, to be specific. But what happened to that business and why did it vanish from the business sector remains unknown? And there she was, probably a few months away from her delivery. Her pregnancy was a secret. She had told nobody about that. And she would tell nobody in the
future as well. In fact, she would not be alive to speak about her secret affair and secret baby to the world. Her condition was worsening day by day. Yet she remained unfazed at the suggestions of Doctor Mishra. It was set that she could add a few years to her life if she would abort the baby. But if she gave birth then, there was a truth that she would not be able to make it after the delivery. But that definitely was not a difficult choice for her to make. She believed that she had seen the world in her 24 years. And she was more than willing to let her baby have its life and do whatever she was unable to do. She wanted her baby to have a happy ever after with its Mrs. Right or Mr. Right which she could not have, even if she wanted to.
It was at most 30 years of stay for her on this planet. She had to go after that. Her death was set and no one could change that fact. So she chose to reduce a few years of her own life expectancy against having her baby's life. She was happy about the choices that she had made. The choice of falling for Ayush Sampang, her choice of giving her chastity to him and her choice of keeping the
baby. And now she was even happy to exchange her time on this earth in exchange for a long and healthy life for her child.
"Yes Doctor. I want you to save my baby." She said with the utmost sincerity.
Doctor Mishra was saddened too. It was the first time that he had to handle such a patient as her. He, too, knew that his patient would die, leaving an innocent baby, probably orphaned after her demise. But he could not make the decisions for her. She'd asked for it. And there was yet another biggest responsibility resting upon his shoulders. He had to make sure that Crystal Cassel's child would be born unharmed. After all, that was the wish of a dying woman.
*****
The red light outside the ICU went off, demonstrating that the operation was done. The hustle and bustle that usually follows after a child's birth did not occur that day. A very soft and weak cry of the baby followed when its mother's dead body, covered in a white sheet, was shifted to the mortuary.
Nobody in the operating room was happy that day. The doctor, the nurses and even the dead mother had tears in their eyes. This was the first death in 6 years of Dr. Mishra's journey as a doctor. So, it was basically the first blow to his expertise.
And the dead mother was sad because, even after she tried to get her daughter a home and a family of her own, she had failed to do so. Circumstances weren't on her side, it seemed.
Or maybe it was the daughter's fate that had brought her there in the Darjeeling Hills, closer to her father's victim, or that was what was in the mind of Mrs. Alice Fezong, who had also given birth to her son 1 hour ago.
.....
The daughter of Crystal Cassel would really be orphaned if Mr. Fezong would not step up to adopt her right after. He heard the conversation of two of the nurses that were serving Mrs. Fezong that day. After delivery, the mother and the son were sleeping soundly in one of the private rooms at Dr. Shah's Nursing Home when the nurses were sharing their emotional conversation.
Even if he lived a happy life throughout all those years, he had seen his wife suffer. She had suffered a lot during her youthful days. She would often tell him about her stay at the orphanage, and that would make him feel as to why he wasn't of any help to her back then. His family helped generously helping the needy ones and after their marriage, Mrs. and Mr. Fezong was more engulfed in
helping such little children. But when he saw the crimped face of the newborn baby weighing 2500 grams, he felt the urgency to save her.
He asked the doctor to let him have her. She cried for a mother's warm embrace and her loving hug. He knew what he had to do to save another Alice from entering an orphanage. He was one of the successful billionaires in town, and even if matters would seem
to crook the other way around, he had his way to settle the deal.
The Fezongs adopted that little girl and then, she would be a member of the Fezong family, the next heiress in line after their baby boy.
*****
- Writer
