Deanna Roy

Six-Time USA Today Bestselling Author

Jan 25, 2007

Flashbacks

Deanna / Poignancy, Writing /

Today, having sent Baby Dust to be copied for a few readers to take a look at, I decided to focus on the rest of my to-do list and get my 2006 receipts entered for taxes.

On top was a pile of medical things. I went to the file cabinet to see what folders already existed. Under medical, I found a packet rather unusually titled “old stuff.”

So I pulled out this folder to see what might be inside.

A medical bill. No surprise. Several, in fact. I scanned the list to see what they were for.

Prenatal 1-3
Antepartum Care
Mycoplasma Culture
Prolactin
TSH

Right about here I realized what I was looking at but read on, much as someone might rubber-neck a car accident.

Lupus Anticoagulant
Prothrombine time
Thromboplastin

I knew the date I would see. May 1998. These were the tests they ran to try and figure out why my baby had died. They didn’t figure it out then; I’d be pregnant with Emily before we understood the reason. If there should ever be a reason for something like that.

Strange I would come across this bill the same day I set Baby Dust aside, the first draft done, a whole trove of stories just like mine contained within its pages. Maybe Casey needed me to remember that they were little people, not just graphic incidents, or maybe he wanted to remind me why I was qualified to write it at all. Or maybe he just wanted to drop in, to show me he knew it was a big day, and to sprinkle me with luck as I start to send it out to agents.

Doesn’t matter. I can make it anything I want to be. And I choose to get dusted with hope.

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