Megan hurried out of the bathroom. Behind her she heard a woman screaming about being a man and heard the doctor’s calm voice trying to calm her down. Megan shuddered. An orderly looked at her confused by the commotion.
“We need security in there,” Megan snapped. “Patient having a mental break.”
The orderly spoke into a handheld radio for backup and rushed into the bathroom to help. Megan figures this chaos would give her time to find her family. She briefly felt a twinge of panic at losing Clark, but Clark wasn’t part of her family really anyway. It felt bad but she had to figure out what to do about her real dad, and her mom and brother too.
She made her way back to the room she remembered from before. Sure enough, there was an exhausted looking Stephanie laying in bed feeding baby Jake. Nearby a bored Alana was playing with her cell phone and little Tonya was reading a book.
Megan put on a fake smile and entered the room. “Excuse me girls, I need to speak to your mother” she said, trying to muster as much authority as possible. Alana and Tonya stood. Alana rolled her eyes and huffed, but both girls walked out.
Megan rushed to Stephanie’s side. Tentatively, she said “dad?”
Stephanie’s eyes shot open and relief washed over her face. “Megan is that you?”
“Yeah. I think that damn books done a number on all of us!”
“For real,” Stephanie agreed. “I guess I have a black daughter now.”
“Ha. And I have a pretty female father... how was it, you know...”
“Giving birth? To my own wife?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t even want to think about it right now. What are we going to do?”
“Well. I have the book. But I think we need a plan. Who knows what we’ll end up as and what we’ll remember if we just keep reading it.”
“And what’s the plan?”
“I’m gonna keep my head down and finish the shift. Then I’m going to do some research. I’ll be in touch. Let me make sure your phone number hasn’t changed” Megan recorded Stephanie’s phone number. “Don’t worry dad. We will get this fixed.”
Stephanie nodded. She hoped her daughter was right.
Megan exited the room and waved Alana and Tonya back in. She walked towards the nurse’s station. As she did she saw the blond from the bathroom strapped to a gurney being pushed towards the elevators. The woman looked like she had been given powerful sedatives. Megan felt sorry for her, but at the same time, Megan had enough problems without worrying about a stranger.