The Door on the Right: Book #1 by Elyse Salpeter

Author:Elyse Salpeter [Salpeter, Elyse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The nursery was small, but clean. Framed cartoon pictures decorated the plain walls, making it look cheerful. Corrine West brought the infant into the room and laid her next to her twin brother in the same crib.

Mary Greer glanced up. “They’re doing wonderfully, Corrine. You did well.” Her voice was so frail. Tendrils of gray showed through her otherwise impeccable brown bob. “How are you feeling today?”

Corrine placed a hand on her abdomen. The sagging skin was held in place with a special compression garment hidden beneath her pink skirt, but she wasn’t wearing her face mask at the moment. “I’m coming along slowly. The stitches took longer to heal this time because there’s so much added skin.” She glanced at the crib next to Mary. “How is your little one doing?”

“She’s holding her own.” Mary leaned over and adjusted the oxygen tube the infant wore. She took a moment to listen to the baby’s labored breathing. “She will survive. Not like Nancy’s.”

Corrine and Mary gazed at the old woman across the nursery, slumped over a crib and sobbing quietly.

Corrine shook her head, a tear forming in her otherwise dry eyes.

Mary turned away. “He didn’t make it and she can’t bear to part with him yet. None of hers have. This is the tenth baby she’s burying. She can’t carry any more. None of us can.”

“And that’s why it’s time we started.”

Corrine and Mary turned to see the man who had entered the room behind them. The bitterness in his voice was evident. While he was nearly the same age as Corrine and Mary, he appeared years younger. He stood upright and didn’t hobble—in fact, he had a spring to his step. And while his skin suffered the same connective tissue disorder they all had, it wasn’t as severe and only distorted his features.

“I see from your gait you’ve had another transfusion,” Mary snapped. “I’m not sure what makes you think you can have more than the rest of us.”

“I don’t see you volunteering to be the bad guy to the kids. Someone has to do it. You want me to control them? You want me to have to touch them to handle them? Then I need the transfusions more than the rest of you so I have the strength. Otherwise you two can continue to stand your ten feet apart from them, or project yourselves from the imaging room.”

Another old man entered the nursery. His bow tie hung limply. He moved slowly over to the woman crying over the crib and patted her shoulders. She turned and hugged him.

Mary turned to Keene Orson. “You are not the supreme leader here. You do not have the authority to just start when you please. The four of us make decisions together. That was the deal we agreed on decades ago. We are a team.”

Orson raised his brows. “I’m well aware of the deal, but when do you think the right time to finally start will be, Mary? After the Grid

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