Sonya commenced rapping at the door of the examination room. “Dr. Gaines!” she said. “Dr. Gaines, we have a problem.”
Bria stepped away from the exam table, whispering an apology to the little boy’s mother as she carefully set her otoscope on the instrument table. She held herself together, walking to the door with an appearance of equanimity.
When she opened it and saw the uniformed deputy standing close behind her frightened employee, Bria didn’t let them see how shaken she was. She put on a brave face. Poised, professional.
Sonya sounded breathless when she said, “Dr. Gaines, I told the officer I’m not supposed to interrupt your appointments. Deputy Simmons said I had to.”
The young deputy wasn’t one of Bria’s patients, but he was familiar. She had seen him around town. He was generally affable and courteous with her.
But not today. “Bria Gaines, I have a warrant for your arrest.”
A pair of handcuffs dangled from his belt. Bria’s eyes followed the movement as he unlocked the cuffs.
“Hands behind your back,” he said. The deputy’s manner was abrupt, rude. He’d never addressed Bria in that tone, ever.
He sounded like he was giving an order to a criminal.
The waiting room was crowded with people, patients with appointments on her busy afternoon schedule. They had watched the eventsunfold, shocked into silence. But as the deputy handcuffed Bria’s wrists, they started to whisper among themselves. Some of the patients even ventured a protest.
An elderly woman Bria was treating for diabetes struggled to rise with the assistance of her walker. “What’s happening here? Deputy Simmons! Where you taking my doctor?”
The deputy ignored the woman. He grasped Bria’s arm and pulled her toward the door.
A shout of alarm followed, and a young mother holding an infant launched out of her seat in the waiting room. She rushed up behind them and snatched at the hem of Bria’s white coat. “My baby’s sick! Ran a fever all night! I don’t know what he’s got. What am I supposed to do?”
The deputy scowled down at the mother. “Are you trying to interfere with an arrest? You want to go to jail, too, Della?”
The woman let go of the coat and backed away. Clutching the baby tightly, she said, “But what do I do?”
“Take it to the ER,” the deputy said.
The woman cried out in frustration. “Officer, that hospital gonna make me wait for hours until they look at him! Some days, the doctor ain’t even there, or they want money up front. This baby sick. How am I supposed to take care of my baby?”
Bria knew that Della wasn’t overstating the circumstances. The baby needed to be examined. Bria tried to reason with the officer. “Let me see the baby. Just for a minute, Deputy. I won’t take long.”
Deputy Simmons behaved as if he hadn’t heard her speak. He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Bria Gaines, you’re under arrest for the Class A felony of performing an abortion. A Class A felony carries a minimum sentence of ten years, a maximum imprisonment of ninety-nine years to life.”
Bria was aware of the law. She’d read the penalty before, multiple times. Hearing the range of punishment stated aloud, though, gave it a different weight. It conjured up the image of that vast stretch of prison time, swallowing up the remaining years of her life.
The deputy pulled her into the vestibule and rapped on the glass of the front door. The sheriff of Bullock County, Mick Owens, was standing guard outside. He pulled the door open and stepped into the vestibule with them.
Owens glanced at Bria, checked to see that her handcuffs were secure. Then the sheriff said to the deputy, “Read her her rights yet?”
The deputy’s face reddened under the brim of his hat. “I was about to, but some of the patients started getting disorderly.”
Sheriff Owens cast a withering look at his deputy. Then he cleared his throat. “Bria Gaines, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have a lawyer present during questioning. If you can’t afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you.”
When the sheriff recited the words of the Miranda warning, the language was a wake-up call, like someone had doused her with a glass of ice water.
“I have an attorney.” Her throat was tight, but her speech was audible, perfectly clear.
The sheriff didn’t acknowledge her announcement. He studied his own reflection in the glass door. He was a tall Black man, just over fifty, with an athletic build. He straightened his hat, adjusted his sunglasses, and then spoke to the deputy. “Let’s go.”
Deputy Simmons slipped through the door of the clinic and held it wide open. Bria saw people gathered outside, heard voices rise in a shout. But she persisted, saying to the sheriff, “I have anattorney. Chuck Rich, he has an office across the street from the courthouse. I want to contact him immediately. It’s my constitutional right.”
The sheriff grabbed her upper arm in a tight hold. “You don’t sound like a doctor to me. More like a professional agitator, all that talk about lawyers and rights.” He pulled her across the threshold.
One news van was parked outside her office, with a cameraman waiting to film the perp walk. But a handful of local people had also gathered, drawn by the patrol car. Handheld phones were raised in the air as Bria was marched to the waiting vehicle, with its light bar already flashing red and blue.
