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Delivery: Special Delivery ⭐

(The Delivery System)

Dear Readers,

I didn’t close this book feeling hurt. I closed it feeling aware.

Awareness that lingers in a way that shock ever could.

What left the biggest impression on me wasn’t one character, one moment, or one betrayal. It was the weight of understanding—of seeing everyone clearly. Mace, doing what he thought was right as a father trying to hold his family together after loss. Civil, a Black nurse who believed in her work and stood in the tension between obedience and doing what was right. Erica and India… little Black girls, simply trusting the adults around them, the way children are taught to do.

There was no villain I could isolate and blame without also acknowledging the system that shaped them all.

And maybe that’s what unsettled me most.

This story didn’t feel distant. It didn’t feel like “history.” It felt familiar.

I’ve been to Mothers of Gynecology Monument. I’ve sat with the names—Anarcha, Lucy, Betsey—and understood what it means to be part of a history where Black women’s bodies were used, studied, and dismissed all at once. So reading this wasn’t about learning something new. It was about being reminded of something I already knew… something I wish wasn’t true.

That trust has always come at a cost.

And still does.

The book quietly exposes something people don’t always want to say out loud: the mistrust between Black communities and healthcare systems didn’t come from nowhere. It was built. It was earned. It was reinforced through moments just like these—where care and control were blurred, where consent was taken instead of given, where understanding was never required.

Even now, that feeling hasn’t fully left.

It hovers.

Like a cloud that never quite clears—always a chance of rain.

Healthcare has come a long way since the 1970s, yes. But progress doesn’t erase memory. And for many, trust is still not automatic, especially when the person across from you doesn’t look like you, doesn’t know your history, or doesn’t carry your fear.

Civil didn’t frustrate me. If anything, she felt real. A woman trying to do her job, trying to do good, and then realizing that good intentions don’t protect people from harmful systems. There was courage in her. Not perfect courage, but the kind that shows up when it matters.

And that matters more.

Because this story isn’t just about what happened.

It’s about what lingers.

If someone tried to say this is just historical fiction, something from the past, I wouldn’t argue—I’d just say this:
The past doesn’t stay where you put it. It finds its way into the present, into decisions, into hesitation, into silence.

Into the way people still question:
Can I trust you with my body?

And that question… it’s not simple.

Because the cost of trust [for Black women especially] isn’t small.
It’s tied to dignity. To respect. To truth.

And those things?

They’re priceless.
And still, somehow, never guaranteed.

From Love,

The Letters

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