Kirsten Schertzing

Kirsten Schertzing is the hospital social worker who evaluates Brett Bohlinger’s effort to take responsibility for Sanquita Bell’s newborn daughter, Austin Elizabeth. Her role brings the custody question out of the realm of private grief and into institutional scrutiny: Kirsten listens to Brett’s account, checks it against Sanquita’s medical record, and warns that Tia Robinson is likely to prevail. The novel presents her not as a villain but as a professional whose conclusions carry immediate force for a grieving prospective parent.

Role and First Appearance

Kirsten enters the story when Brett seeks help understanding how to keep Austin. Another hospital worker directs Brett toward the social worker, explaining that taking in a child is not simply a relative’s choice and recommending that Brett speak with Kirsten. The exchange punctures Brett’s assumption that Sanquita’s final request will by itself settle the matter. Brett has been occupied caring for the baby and has not yet contacted the hospital social worker; the referral makes clear that Austin’s future will depend on a process she has not fully understood.

The appointment is arranged with unusual specificity: Kirsten is about to enter a meeting, but can see Brett the next day at four, on the second floor in room 214. The worker writes the time and location on a Post-it note for Brett. Along with the warning that Tia is determined to claim her granddaughter, this practical direction turns a vague threat into an imminent task. Kirsten is not yet present, but her name becomes the point toward which Brett’s urgent efforts must move.

The Office and the Interview

When Brett and Brad Midar meet Kirsten, the setting gives the first impression of a person more complicated than Brett’s wary expectations. Her modest office is decorated with photographs of smiling children and families, older people in wheelchairs, and amputees waving at the camera. Brett sees a contrast between those warm images and Kirsten’s officious manner and penetrating gaze. That contrast does not prove what Kirsten feels; it shows how Brett reads her while entering a high-stakes conversation in which she fears losing Austin.

Kirsten seats Brett and Brad on a loveseat and takes the chair opposite them, a plastic clipboard on her lap. As she makes notes, Brett explains her friendship with Sanquita and says that Sanquita wanted her to keep the baby. Kirsten does not treat the request as self-evidently decisive. Instead, she brings the discussion to the medical record, which records that Sanquita entered a coma after her C-section and that nobody reported her conscious during the thirteen hours before her death—except Brett. The discrepancy places Brett’s testimony under pressure: she says Sanquita woke that evening, on the day she delivered Austin, and asked Brett to take the baby.

Assessment and Custody Stakes

Kirsten’s questions make the meeting feel like an interrogation to Brett. The tension comes not from an accusation Kirsten explicitly makes, but from the distance between Brett’s emotionally certain account and the chart’s account of Sanquita’s condition. Kirsten asks whether Sanquita woke only long enough to express the wish that Brett keep Austin. Brett confirms that she did. The interview therefore tests a specific, consequential claim: whether Sanquita was conscious and able to make the request on which Brett’s hope of caring for Austin rests.

Kirsten’s assessment is severe. She advises Brett to control her emotions and says she has every reason to believe the case is open and shut, with Tia receiving custody of her granddaughter. For Brett, the forecast lands as more than a procedural judgment: she immediately believes she is losing the case and letting Sanquita down, and breaks into tears. Brad comforts her. Kirsten’s conclusion does not itself decide custody, but her professional view makes the likely outcome feel close and gives Brett little reason to expect the system to recognize her promise as sufficient.

The Hearing and Narrative Significance

The custody decision remains unresolved in Kirsten’s last reported involvement. After the meeting, she tells Brett by phone that the hearing is scheduled for eight the next morning, before Judge Garcia at Cook County Courthouse. She confirms that nothing has changed and that Tia is back in town; absent a miracle, Kirsten expects Tia to leave court with custody. The specific time and venue convert her earlier prediction into a deadline. Brett must face the hearing almost immediately, with the social worker’s assessment already shaping her expectations.

Kirsten’s narrative significance lies in the friction between intimate knowledge and institutional evidence. Brett’s claim rests on her closeness to Sanquita and her memory of a final request; Kirsten responds with the documented medical timeline and the demands of a custody process. The office photographs complicate Brett’s initial impression of the social worker without erasing the distress her judgment causes. Through Kirsten, the novel shows that care and intention alone do not guarantee authority over a child’s future: Brett’s promise must be evaluated, recorded, and tested against a competing claim. Kirsten is the gatekeeper of that assessment, while the final decision remains with the court.