Part 1The Night Caller

The moment my new neighbor found out I was Chief of Obstetrics at City General, the harassment started.

“Dr. Hayes, open up! Something’s wrong—you have to check!”

“Are you dead? This baby is special! If anything happens, can you even pay for it?”

Three in the morning. My door was hammered so hard the walls shook.

It was the sixteenth time this month I’d been woken like this.

At first, I thought it was an emergency. I let her in, examined her—only to find her perfectly healthy, just bloated from overeating.

But to her, she’d found a free, on-call private doctor.

She started demanding nightly check-ups.

Between my demanding job and no sleep, I nearly passed out in the OR more than once.

I began refusing her.

But she was relentless. Every night, without fail, she’d pound on my door—the noise earning complaints from the whole floor.

I was at my wit’s end when a post on the community board caught my eye:

“Seeking new apartment. Severe insomnia, emotionally unstable. Just beat up my neighbor. Need to move ASAP.”

My eyes lit up. I contacted him immediately.

* * *

He replied almost instantly. We settled on a price, and he said he’d move in next month.

I let out a long, slow breath. Finally, someone who could handle my neighbor.

When I continued to ignore her, the pregnant woman, Brenda, became even more unhinged.

She started shrieking in the hallway.

“Lillian Hayes, are you trying to murder me and my baby?”

“They say doctors are supposed to be compassionate. You call yourself a doctor?”

“I am ordering you to come out and examine me right now, or I’m calling the cops and telling them you’re letting a patient die!”

Her screaming was so loud it woke up half the building.

The residents’ group chat started blowing up.

“Seriously? Again? When is this going to end? Why is there always screaming at this hour?”

“Apartments 301 and 302, whatever your issue is, please handle it privately. The rest of us are trying to sleep.”

“To the pregnant woman in 302: Have you ever heard of common decency? My son has his SATs coming up, he needs his rest. Could you please be quiet?”

Brenda, still lurking outside my door, must have seen the message.

Her voice ripped through the hallway again.

“What kind of idiot is your son that he’s not pulling all-nighters to study for his SATs? He probably won’t even get into community college.”

“The baby I’m carrying is a golden child, a once-in-a-generation miracle! A psychic told me he’s destined for greatness, to be a senator or something.”

“If anything happens to him, the worthless lives of everyone in this building couldn’t pay for it!”

Her words were so vicious that the parent who had posted the message was furious. They tagged the building management.

“Are you people going to do anything about this? Do we pay our HOA fees just to be verbally abused?”

The property manager was clearly exasperated. He called me first.

“Ms. Hayes, is there any way you can talk to Ms. Jones? Get her to stop the nightly disturbances.”

“We’ve tried talking to her multiple times, but she just throws a tantrum every time. We’re at a loss.”

I wanted to reason with her, but did Brenda sound like someone who understood reason?

“You’d better come up here. I can’t communicate with her either.”

I rubbed my temples, a migraine pounding behind my eyes.

Just two nights ago, I’d opened the door and told Brenda she needed to go to the hospital for check-ups, not harass me.

She had stormed right into my apartment, shouting indignantly.

“Easy for you to say! Do you know how much a hospital visit costs?”

“The co-pay alone is enough to buy me a week’s worth of groceries. I’m not rich like you.”

“My husband works his fingers to the bone at a construction site out of state. Every penny he earns is precious!”

Then, as if she owned the place, she’d marched to my medical supply cabinet, grabbed my fetal doppler, and shoved it into my hands, demanding I check the baby’s heartbeat.

Before leaving, she’d shamelessly helped herself to a pile of my prenatal supplements.