The Gathering/The Raid

The Gathering/The Raid

Workers of Pathways Part Two

The concrete of the hospital steps was already seeping cold through the knees of her scrubs. The nurse had not moved since she found the bundle. She just held it held her, Baby Sofia, though she did not have a name yet tight against the warmth of her chest, shielding her from the institutional chill.

The automatic doors behind her hissed open. It was not security.

It was Sarah, the night shift social worker, eyes already scanning the shadows of the parking lot for a mother who was not there, her mind already calculating placements and paperwork. She saw the nurse on the steps and stopped, the air leaving her lungs.

A moment later, Elena, a teacher just leaving the long-term pediatric ward schoolroom, stopped dead on the bottom step. Her heavy tote bag, filled with ungraded papers and confiscated toys, slid unnoticed off her shoulder onto the pavement.

Three women. A nurse, a social worker, a teacher. The trifecta of care.

They did not need to speak. The bureaucratic data streams inside the illuminated hospital might have just reclassified their life's work as "downgraded," but out here in the dark, under the buzzing sodium lights, they knew the truth. They were the only wall between this child and the Hollow.

Slowly, instinctively, the social worker and the teacher moved toward the nurse, forming a silent, protective circle around the smallest need on the steps. The gathering had begun.

After the three individual introductions (Nurse, Teacher, Counselor), they converge at the hospital steps where baby Sofia was left by a distraught mom.

The social worker begins with intake, the nurse tends to her vitals, the teacher whispers promise of a future classroom.

They cannot take her home—their shifts demand they leave her in the hospital’s care.

They arrange to meet at Outstages Café, a ceremonial sanctuary where care is spoken as protest.

The evening air carries the metallic scent of ambulance brakes. On the hospital steps, a bundle of soft pink cloth trembles. The Nurse kneels first with steady hands, listening for a rhythm heartbeat. The Social Worker arrives second, eyes scanning, voice gentle but firm. The Teacher stands a few feet away, clutching a folder of forms, whispering names into the dark like prayers she refuses to let go of.

The intake begins where breath begins. Paperwork becomes ceremony: a name for the nameless, a vow for the voiceless. A badge flickers under fluorescent light. Sofia. The name slips between them as if she chose it herself.

The Nurse warms a tiny hand between her palms and counts courage into being. The Social Worker builds a quiet shelter with questions, Where, When, who, and then, softer: How are you breathing, little one? The Teacher lays a folded blanket on the steps, a future she brought just in case. The hospital doors slide open like reluctant guardians; they motion a half blessing.

They set the protocol, they hold the vow, they offer the room key to the world that keeps breaking.

“I have been told care is a weakness,” says the Nurse, eyes on Sofia’s chest.

“But my hands memorize heartbeats. Weakness does not wake a pulse.”

“They have called my pathway not professional,” says the Social Worker.

“But my voice shepherds’ families through the fractures bureaucracies make.”

“They stripped my title,” says the Teacher, placing the blanket down like a flag.

“But classrooms are altars, and I keep the flame for futures.”

Care is the vow,

care is the way,

we carry breath,

through night today.

They cannot take her home; the shift clock drips its cold arithmetic. The Social Worker completes the intake, signing with steady dignity. The Nurse confirms vitals, requests a pediatric crib, orders a warm blanket. The Teacher writes her contact on a sticky note and tucks it into the chart, a small promise with stubborn ink. They leave Sofia in the hospital’s care, not because they choose to, but because the rules have chosen on their behalf.

They agree to meet at Outstages Café, coffee as witness, a table as an altar. They will speak care louder than the cancellations, louder than the letters that deny their names.

The café hums with low voices, ceramic cups clinking like muted bells. The Nurse, the Teacher, and the Social Worker sit together, their bodies heavy with the weight of shifts just ended. They speak of Sofia, of the intake, of the promise of care. Outstages Café becomes a sanctuary of protest, its walls listening like witnesses.

But across town, the hospital doors are forced open. ICE agents move like shadows, boots echoing against sterile floors. Sofia is lifted from her crib, her chart ripped from the counter. The raid is swift, bureaucratic, merciless. The Ice-cold agents carried her into a van, bound for a baby camp in Texas.

The next morning, duty calls them back:

The Nurse reports to pediatrics, her hands trembling as she checks vitals.

The Social Worker returns to the department; her desk piled with fractured families.

The Teacher sits in her LA office, filling out foster parent paperwork for Sofia, each line written like a vow.

Then the emails arrive. The words are knives: “ICE raid. Infant transferred. Baby camp, Texas.”

“They call care weakness,

but weakness does not steal children in the night.

Weakness does not laugh while mothers weep.

This is cruelty disguised as order,

this is erasure disguised as law.”

Taken from arms,

taken from flame,

we vow her name,

we vow her name.

At Outstages Café, the three sat down again, joined by Vicki, Echo, and Sweetie Bird. Tears fall into coffee, staining napkins with grief. The café becomes a ceremonial protest hall. Their voices rise, trembling but unbroken: “We studied, we labored, we earned our degrees to serve humanity. And they cancel care. They cancel us.”

written, created, edited

by Vicki Lawana Trusselli

California

copyright 2025