All Chapters of Guilty By Appearance: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The plastic wheel on the baby bed squeaks three times when I push it toward the window. It is a small sound. A loud metal click that you can still hear in your head after the wheel stops. In Room 412 of the pediatric ward the afternoon sun shines through the thick glass window of the hospital. It makes a bright yellow square of light that has no smell. Everything in Bonifacio Global City smells like nothing, or like strong cleaning liquid. I press the flat round silver of my stethoscope against the boy’s chest.He is three years old. His skin is hot and sweaty, like a wet towel left in the sun. His name is Mateo. His mother sits on a plastic chair in the corner with her feet pulled up under her skirt. She has been awake since yesterday morning. She watches me with her mouth slightly open. She is waiting for me to say something that will make her stop worrying. Inhale. Exhale.Under the silver disc the boy’s heart moves too fast. It sounds like a small bird trapped inside a cardboar

The lavender silk dress is still against my skin It is bunched up under my medical pants now. It feels thick and uncomfortable around my waist. I didn't have time to go back to my condo to change, so I drove straight from the gates of Forbes Park to the hospital's basement parking. My white coat is buttoned all the way up to hide the fancy purple collar—and to hide the fact that I spent my evening at a dinner where rich people eat expensive food and pretend everything is fine. It is midnight.The emergency room smells like wet umbrellas and floors washed too many times with pine cleaner. Outside, the Manila rain is drumming loudly on the metal roof. I am standing by the nurse's station. Looking at the monitor for Bed 3.It's a six-year-old girl with Severe Dengue. Her blood is turning dangerously thick because fluid is leaking into her stomach. "Doktora," Nurse Elena says. She hands me a small cup of hospital coffee. It is lukewarm. It tastes like burnt beans and plastic. "The ch

A week is seven days.In seven days, a person's skin can change color. If you do not sleep, dark circles form under your eyes. You start to look like someone punched you, carrying a bruise that no one else can see. The corporate office of Ford Luxury Hotels called my personal number three times this morning."Dr. Ford," the secretary said. She used a very polite, expensive-sounding voice.  "We cannot reach the Vice President. The board meeting for the Siargao permits started twenty minutes ago. Her phone is off.""She is unwell," I said. I did not use big medical words. I just held the hospital phone tightly against my ear.  "Tell the chairman she is resting."I leave the hospital before my afternoon work is f

Silence in a large house does not just take up space; it changes the feeling of the room. It makes the hallways feel longer, the ceilings higher, and the sound of a closing door feel like an attack. For three days after I broke Scarlet’s bedroom door, we did not speak. We did not look at each other. When we passed each other on the big wooden stairs, we turned our shoulders away so we wouldn't even brush against each other's clothes. We were like two magnets pushing each other away. I spent the next forty-eight hours at the hospital. I worked double shifts in the emergency room just to stay busy. In the bright, clean light of the hospital, the world made sense. A cut was just a cut. A tear could be sewed up. Bleeding could be stopped. I found comfort in fixing normal, physical problems. The patients there didn't have money to hide their blood; they came to us crying for help, not caring about their reputation or their wealth. Every young woman who came through those doors with a la

The Intensive Care Unit does not look like the rest of the hospital.It is a place where time stops. There are no windows to show you if it is day or night. There are no clocks on the walls, only monitors. The air is always cold, chilled by a heavy central air system that smells of rubbing alcohol, bleached sheets, and plastic tubes. In the ICU, every sound is loud. The hum of the ventilators. The click of the IV pumps. The steady, high-pitched beep... of the cardiac monitors keeping track of the lives hanging by a thread.We had been in Private Room 1 for four hours.Scarlet lay in the center of the massive, high-tech bed. The emergency doctors had cut off the beautiful gold dress she wore to the party, throwing it into a grey garbage bag in the corner. Now, she was just wearing a plain white hospital shirt. She looked so small. Without her high heels, her fancy dresses, and her perfect makeup, she looked like a little kid. Her face was still a dull, bruised shade of purple-grey. A