Open Heart One Shots (Choices)

Becoming Sienna

Summary: Sienna Trinh had alwayswanted to be a doctor, to help people. But are the realities of becoming Dr.Sienna Trinh more than she can handle? Set during Book 1, chapter 7.

When Sienna Trinh was a little girl, she watched her grandfather deliver a baby boy to a couple that had been childless for so long that they had given up hope. The joy on their faces made her determined to bring happiness to others the way he did.

As the only doctor in their small town in rural Louisiana, her grandfather was often called out at all hours of the day or night to help someone that had been injured in the bayou, gotten too sick to come to the clinic or, more times than not, to deliver babies.

"Babies don't know how to tell time, Mèo," he would say. "They come when they come."

That fateful night she was having a sleepover at his place while her parents went to the city for "a night out on the town." She had been looking forward to it all day as her grandfather always had the best stories.

He would tell her of his life back in Vietnam when he was a little boy, how he'd play in the rice paddies and swim in the river with his friends. Sometimes he would get sad remembering, but then he'd smile, and they would bake cookies with extra chocolate chips.

"It's all in the chocolate," he'd say with a laugh. "That's how your grandmother got me to marry her."

They had just finished taking the first batch out of the oven when the phone on the kitchen wall started ringing. He removed the thick oven mitts, cast her a stern look as her fingers itched toward the hot baking sheet, before answering.

Ten minutes later, he was buckling her into the car seat before checking his big black bag. The shiny instruments in the bag fascinated Sienna and she wondered what each one was called.

Before she knew it, they were heading down the gravelled path away from the pretty blue front door and the quiet sounds of the stream that ran behind the white clapboard house.

He stopped at the fork in the road ─right would take them to town and left to the shanties in the bayou─ and turned back to smile at her in the dim light of the moon.

"Are you ready to see a miracle, Mèo?"

She nodded, clutching the little toy rabbit that was her friend. She didn't know what a miracle was, but her grandfather's smile told her it was something good and she couldn't wait to see it.

Hours later, she woke up with the rabbit in her arms and rubbed sleep from her eyes as she took in the unfamiliar surroundings. She was lying on a couch in a tiny room with moonlight shining through the large window and sounds of crickets and other critters in the bayou loud in the otherwise silent house.

She cried out for her grandfather, afraid of the shadows that danced on the wooden walls. The door opened and she ran into his arms.

His shirt sleeves were rolled up and he looked tired. But his smile was huge as he picked her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck, burrowing her face in his chest, her tears making his shirt wet.

"It's okay, Sienna," his quiet voice soothed her fears. "I'm here now, Mèo. Come. Let's go see a baby."

Her grandfather led her to another tiny room where a couple sat on the bed with a bundle in their arms. He walked closer and she looked down from her vantage point in his arms. Her grandfather said it was a baby, but to Sienna it looked like a fish with its scrunched face and closed eyes.

She watched as the mommy ran a finger down the baby's face, crooning a lullaby while the daddy wrapped his arms around both mommy and baby, tears running down a face that was the color of chocolate chips. They were smiling like it was Christmas and they had received the best present from Santa.