Perfect rivalry, p.19
Perfect Rivalry, page 19
“We still might have to.” Ren glanced at the ICU nurse next to her. “Load up a four-oh vascular suture, and keep the suctions ready.”
“You got it.” The nurse shook her head. “What a ride, and no thank you, not again.”
Zoey and Ren stood motionless at the patient’s side, Ren watching the chest cavity, waiting for the dressings to suddenly bloom and overflow with blood, Zoey staring at the monitors.
“So, what do we have,” a brisk voice said after what felt like a week.
Ren glanced at Zoey and signaled for her to go ahead. Her patient, her case.
Zoey half turned to the cardiothoracic surgeon, an impressively large man with a florid complexion, cobalt-blue eyes, and a surprisingly relaxed expression.
“We lost his pressure after the chest tubes clotted. We couldn’t get it up again. We…” Zoey glanced at Ren. “We opened his chest.”
“How much blood had he lost by then?”
“Almost everything. We’ve given him ten units so far.”
“Huh.” As he spoke, he pulled on gloves, asked for suction, and carefully removed the dressings. The clamp was still in place.
“That’s one way of handling it,” he said. “Who put the clamp on?”
Before Zoey could speak, Ren said, “I made that call.”
He glanced at Zoey. “You put it on?”
“Yes.”
“Nice job. Tricky, though. If you’d torn the valve out, we would’ve had a hell of a mess.”
Zoey kept her gaze steady. “I didn’t think suturing—”
“Trickier still.” He straightened. “Call the OR, tell them we’re on our way. We need the pump tech to prime the pump to go on bypass. Send all the blood to the OR.”
“I’ll call,” the nurse said.
Harkins looked from Zoey to Ren. “So which one of you wants to come?”
“Both of us,” Ren said.
He made a sound that might’ve been a chuckle.
“There’s a surprise. All right, bring him over. I’m going to get a cup of coffee.” And with that he was gone.
Zoey looked at Ren. “Oh my God. I can’t believe we did that.”
“Well, we did.” Ren almost wanted to laugh. The relief made her dizzy. And the high—she couldn’t think of any other word to describe it—was incredible.
“I’ve never even seen it done before.”
Ren grinned. “Neither have I.”
* * *
They finished in the OR at four a.m.
“You might as well go home,” Ren told Zoey after they got the patient settled in the intensive care unit. “You’ll be off today anyway, and there’s no point staying for morning rounds.”
“I’m staying,” Zoey said. “I’ve got patients on the floor to see.”
“I can do that.”
Zoey fixed her with a stare as she pulled off her cap. Her hair fell down around her shoulders in a tangle that somehow looked artful as opposed to just messy. Ren ran a hand through her much shorter, wavy hair and had no doubt it was standing out in unappealing clumps. From Zoey’s expression, there was no point arguing about her leaving.
“All right, but after that you’re out of here.”
“I would’ve been screwed if you weren’t in the house last night,” Zoey said.
“Thanks,” Ren said, “but you would’ve been fine. You would’ve figured it out.”
“Yeah, maybe, but what if I hadn’t figured it out in time, or I’d made the wrong call.”
“Then you would’ve figured out it was the wrong call, and then you would’ve made the right one.”
“I’m trying to thank you here, Ren,” Zoey said with an edge.
“I know. That’s nice.” She paused. “I’d only read about it, and in the largest studies, they clamped if possible. There are other cases where suturing was recommended, but the outcome was at least eighteen percent poorer. I made an educated guess.”
Zoey gaped at her. “Tell me you thought that out during the case.”
“Well, not all of it,” Ren said. “I didn’t have time to actually go through all the conclusions.”
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Um, no?”
“It’s some photographic memory thing, right?” Zoey said.
Ren nodded, her stomach sinking. They were getting along really well. And maybe they might’ve been friends.
Zoey laughed. “Oh, well, lucky me that I called you. Jeez, Ren, don’t keep that thing a secret.”
“What?” Ren couldn’t quite decipher what Zoey meant. She never told anyone things like that—not when it always produced the same result. Suspicious uncertainty. As if she was somehow dangerous.
“Are you kidding me?” Zoey rolled her eyes. “If you want to save everybody on the service a lot of time, just tell us the facts when we need them. Then we can skip looking up all the studies.”
“Who’s looking up studies?” Ren scoffed. “We’re surgeons. You know, see one, do one, teach one.”
“Yeah, but sometimes, you know, we actually have to know things.”
Ren started to laugh, and Zoey did too.
“I can’t wait to tell Dani all about this when she gets back,” Zoey said.
Ren grew still. “She’s gone?”
Zoey grimaced. “Yeah. I guess she probably didn’t even have time to tell anyone. She had to go home. Some kind of a family emergency.”
“Oh, is it something serious?” Ren bit at her lip. Was Dani somewhere by herself, hurting? The idea made her ache.
“I don’t know any details. I guess it must be, if she left like that.”
“I hope she’s all right,” Ren murmured almost to herself.
“Well,” Zoey said with suspicious nonchalance, “you can always text her.”
“I…” She shouldn’t, should she? But they were friends. They’d agreed to that—or at least, she’d given Dani no other choice. “I’m not sure—”
“I am. I’m positive.”
Zoey’s intensity convinced her not to argue. Especially when she wanted to believe.
“I could do that,” Ren said.
“She’s in California.” At Ren’s look Zoey added, “You know, the time difference.”
In the morning, Dani’s morning, Ren thought. In the morning, I’ll text her.
Chapter Eighteen
West Mt. Airy, very early the next morning
Honor sensed Quinn stirring and slowly begin easing to the far side of the bed. In all the years they’d been together, Quinn still apparently hoped she could get up and leave in the morning without waking her. She smiled at her persistence. Whenever she lay beside Quinn, some part of her was always conscious of Quinn’s breathing, of her heart beating, of the very miraculous reality of her presence. They lived every day, both of them, with the undeniable truth that life was often too brief, always unpredictable, and eternally precious. She knew that even better than most.
“You’ve got ten minutes before the alarm,” she murmured.
Quinn settled back beside her, pulled her close, and kissed her. “Morning.”
Honor curled into the curve of Quinn’s body and rested her cheek on Quinn’s shoulder. “Busy day ahead?”
“The usual.” Quinn stroked her hair. “And the schedule’s tight now that we’re two senior residents down with Dani Chan out.”
“Have you heard when she’ll be back?”
“Not yet. We’ll manage. The rest of the seniors will just need to take more call for a few days.”
“What about Ren—is she doing okay?”
Quinn half turned to face her. “She’s doing fine now. I think when the boy with the transplant—Leo Marcoux—was re-admitted, it shook her confidence, even though there’s no indication she was at fault. Some residents take everything like it’s their personal responsibility.”
Honor huffed and thumped her lightly on her very sexy middle. “Just the residents?”
Laughing, Quinn caught her hand and held it. “Yeah, well. As to Ren, I watched her during the case, and she worked through it. That call from Tom Harkins a couple of hours ago was to tell me he wanted her as a fellow next year.”
Honor laughed. “How did that come about?”
When Quinn filled her in on the late-night emergency surgery, Honor said, “Next thing you know, he’ll want Zoey too. You have to admire his optimism, though.”
“Well, Zoey has another year, and as of now, she’s still saying transplant. Ren will have her pick of places when she gets ready to decide where to go. But I’m with Tom. We should try to keep her here.” Quinn kissed her and moved her hand away from where it had somehow strayed lower as they’d talked. “And I’d better get up—you’re starting to give me ideas.”
Honor laughed and sat up. “Something to look forward to tonight, then.”
When Quinn headed to the shower, Honor pulled on an old T-shirt and a loose pair of cotton pajama bottoms and made her way to the kitchen to start coffee. On her way down the hall, she peeked into Arly’s room. The bed had been slept in, but her daughter was not in it. Generally, Arly was not an early riser.
She spied her on the back porch, sitting on the top step in a tank top and shorts, barefoot, holding a mug of what she guessed was tea in both hands. Arly still eschewed coffee. Taking her own cup outside, she said, “Looking for solitude or do you care for some company?”
Arly glanced over her shoulder, tossing her hair out of her eyes with a practiced flick of her head. Somewhere in the last year she had gone from typical angular, loose-limbed teen to very close to the person she would someday become. Someday way too soon. Honor felt a stab of loss mixed with wonder.
“What?” Arly said.
Honor shook her head, knowing she would only embarrass her. “I was just wondering when you’d get the morning coffee bug.”
Arly wrinkled her nose. “When it stops tasting like boiled dirt?”
Honor laughed. “All things in time.”
Arly returned to gazing out into the backyard. “Yeah. No kidding.”
“Hmm. Should I ask?”
Arly lifted a shoulder and said nothing. Honor settled beside her on the top step and sipped her decidedly un-dirt-like coffee.
“How old were you when you first had sex?” Arly said.
Honor inwardly grimaced. Of all the questions she might have been asked about sex, that was the one she really wished she didn’t have to answer honestly. But she really did.
“Almost sixteen.”
“Terry was your first, right?”
“Yes, she was. My only,” Honor said softly.
“How did you know?”
“Oh,” Honor said, remembering all the reasons because she’d never forgotten and had never wanted to, “if I had to pick the one, out of all the ways that I knew, it would be that I could always talk to her about anything, and I knew, no matter what I said, she would love me.”
Arly half turned. “Couldn’t that just have meant she was a best friend?”
Honor smiled. “There were other reasons.”
She laughed when Arly made a face and said, “No kidding, Mom.”
“But I know what you mean. I’m not exactly sure how to describe the difference, but it’s about feeling—knowing—that someone can see you all the way through, and they love you for that. All the pieces of you, even the ones you never show anyone else.”
“I understand.” Arly went back to perusing whatever she’d been looking at, which Honor suspected wasn’t anything at all, so she waited.
“I’m not having sex with anyone.”
“Okay. Is that a problem for you?”
“Sort of.”
Honor put her cup down beside her. “Is someone pressuring you?”
Arly shook her head. More silence.
Without looking at her, Arly said, “No, at least not pressure, exactly. But I’m practically the only one who isn’t or doesn’t want to. And it’s like…there’s a timetable or something.”
“Arly,” Honor said gently. “You’ve got lots of time to be comfortable about having sex. You can wait as long as you want. It’s your choice, and you should feel ready, when you really want to.”
“What if I’m not in love, like you were with Terry? Or Quinn.”
“Everyone is different, honey. For me, well, after Terry died, I didn’t want to be with anyone that way, and I didn’t think that I ever would. But luckily, I was wrong. At first, though, I was afraid, when I started having feelings for Quinn. Really afraid.”
Arly shifted to her look at her again. “Because you were afraid something would happen to her too?”
Honor took a slow breath. “Partly. Mostly I was afraid to feel that much of anything again, and somehow lose it. Even the wonderful parts.” She brushed her fingers through Arly’s hair and tucked a strand behind her ear. “But I finally saw I was more afraid of not having Quinn, of not having her in my life in every way that I possibly could. With us as a family, with her as my wife.”
“I’m not sure I want to wait that long,” Arly said pointedly, but she was smiling.
Honor laughed again. “Fair enough. But if I had my druthers, you’d wait a few more years. There’s no rush, and being physical with someone is complicated. It complicates relationships no matter how old you are. There’s a lot of things going on in your life right now, and maybe taking one thing at a time is the best way to do it.”
“I guess I’m just gonna have to be the weird one.”
Honor slid an arm around Arly’s shoulders and squeezed. “No one is going to think that. In fact, I’m willing to bet, even if they don’t say so, they’re going to think you’re pretty amazing for not being afraid to do what feels right for you.”
“I guess I’ll find out,” Arly said. “Thanks, Mom.”
Honor gave her one more hug and reluctantly let her go. “All set for the weekend?”
Arly’s face brightened. “Totally, we’ve all got our tickets, and it’s going to be so cool.”
Yes, indeed. Twenty thousand people converging on Center City, Philadelphia, on the first night of one of the biggest weekends of the summer. Major party time. Honor promised she wasn’t going to go over the rules and safety issues with Arly and her friends again. They’d done it at least three times already.
“Absolutely. It’s going to be amazing.” Honor grabbed her cup and stood. “Quinn’s up, and we’ll probably be leaving soon. Are you all set for the day?”
Arly rose. “I’m good. I’ll go see if Jack is awake.”
“Thanks.” Honor followed her in. Quinn, with a cup of coffee in her hand and looking ridiculously desirable in plain black pants and a charcoal shirt, leaned against the counter.
Arly said, “Hi, Quinn,” and disappeared back upstairs.
Quinn raised an eyebrow and said, “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s good. Did you catch any of it?”
“Some. She sounds like she’s okay.”
“She is for now.” Honor wrapped her arms around Quinn’s waist. “She’s a teenager. Next week, who knows.”
Quinn rested her cheek against Honor’s hair. “I’m pretty lucky you wanted me enough to take a chance.”
“I’m feeling pretty lucky myself,” Honor said, and kissed her.
* * *
Southern California, 4:30 a.m.
Dani couldn’t sleep in her childhood bed. Just something about being home seemed to strip away all the defenses she’d acquired over the years, making her feel like the vulnerable teenager she’d been before she’d left home. Her bedroom was now a guest room, but as soon as she’d entered it, she’d seen the room as it had been when she’d occupied it, and she was catapulted back fifteen years to a time when she’d felt like a stranger even when surrounded by the people who said they loved her. She’d been coming out and coming to realize she was not going to be the person everyone expected her to be. The one everyone insisted on seeing. Catching her reflection in the mirror, a wave of relief came over her that she wasn’t who she’d been back then. She just needed to keep reminding herself of that. Even when the reality others insisted upon was a fantasy.
Her siblings had descended en masse soon after she’d arrived from the airport, but everyone had been more concerned with what was happening at the hospital than with her. Her mother had been, if anything, more distant and unapproachable than usual. Dani recognized the defense mechanism. She’d seen it often in the families of patients who coped with fear and anxiety by walling themselves off from an unimaginable truth. Her chest constricted when she considered that in many ways her life—as far as her family was concerned—was one of those truths.
But none of that really mattered now. Now she was part of one of those families and faced with more immediate challenges. She was worried, of course, and scared too. All normal reactions, even for someone as informed as she was. When the patient was family, the coping mechanisms her training had instilled dissolved, leaving her helpless and frustrated. She ought to be part of the decision-making processes. She was, after all, the best qualified member of the family to communicate with the medical professionals, but so far she’d been kept at a distance—not by them, but by her mother. She needed to talk with her, alone, and finally make her see that she had something to offer. Not for pride, or vindication. But because she loved her family. If only her mother would listen.
Frustrated with the circular thoughts that chased their own tail through her mind, she abruptly sat up on the side of the bed and grabbed her phone. Everyone back home would either be just getting to the OR or in the middle of rounds.
She’d have to wait until later to try Zoey. Or Ren. She really wanted to talk to Ren. She’d had an excuse, sort of, not to contact her when she’d had to leave so suddenly, but even then she’d known it was an excuse. She hadn’t reached out because she was still struggling with Ren’s reluctance to even consider a relationship. Dealing with her hurt. And her anger. And her guilt over both. She really did understand Ren’s concerns—she knew how hard Ren was working and how much was at stake. For her too. But she had something with her, something rare and exciting that she didn’t want to lose. And probably the quickest way to lose it would be to pressure her.
