by Barbara Ebel
“Miss Hendersen,” Danny said to Rachel, “I didn’t know you were working today.”
“Three to eleven, Dr. Tilson. Nurse Ratchett here and I are going to pull equipment for your case.”
Linda, the circulator, thumped Rachel with a magazine.
“Then I won’t disturb you and Miss Linda,” Danny said, turning to leave.
“He’s so awesome,” Linda said after he left.
“Tell me about it,” Rachel commented under her breath.
________
The time on the wall clock gave Danny an extra level of comfort for Pauline Macke. He’d be getting the job done within three hours of her injury. Dr. Lucas was up and down in his anesthesia chair, making notes, adjusting tubes, and taping things while Linda still scattered around the room doing her paperwork and retrieving items for Rachel and Danny. Danny worked on a large craniotomy flap and wondered how tricky it would be to remove the thick coagulum. After removing it, he would be able to gain access to the actual site responsible for the bleeding.
“Suction,” Danny said, darting his eyes toward Rachel, who closely monitored him and handed him the catheter.
“Linda, did your boy go on the camping trip this weekend?” Dr. Lucas asked.
Linda stopped at the foot of the blue draped OR table. “He did. I bet they’re knee deep in ghost stories right now.”
“I doubt that,” Rachel said. “They’re probably downloading porn on a laptop.”
“I disagree with both of you,” Dr. Lucas said. “They’re bragging to each other about things they’ve never done. And Rachel, you wouldn’t know about kids anyway.”
The noise from Danny’s drill interrupted them. Dr. Lucas took an empty plastic container from Linda and drained the patient’s Foley bag.
“I will know someday,” Rachel finally said.
“You? Who bashes the institution of marriage?” Linda asked.
Rachel handed Danny a lap sponge and aligned her steel instruments in a straight line. Conversation waned as Danny removed the blood causing pressure on the brain and suctioned the active bleeding site. After a few harrowing minutes, he repaired the vascular tear while Dr. Lucas transfused a unit of blood, monitoring vital signs closely, and keeping ahead of serious hypotension.
After his closure, Danny peeled his latex gloves and surgical gown off while Linda counted lap sponges with Rachel, and Dr. Lucas peered at the patient’s pupils after un-taping her eyes. The anesthesiologist’s plan was to keep the patient intubated, breathing on a ventilator overnight. He decreased the inhalational agent and administered a trace more of a neuromuscular blocker.
“Dr. Tilson, you look tired,” Rachel said as he retrieved his pager.
“Nothing another cup of coffee won’t cure.”
________
A short time later, Danny sat at the long recovery room desk, coffee and snack in tow. His patient looked stable with all monitors attached and still under the remaining spell of the anesthesiologist. The smell of microwave popcorn lightly wafted in the air, coming from the nurse’s lounge, as he left for the back corridor a few minutes after eleven. He slipped off his sneakers and turned on the television in the call room. Sipping coffee and munching on peanut butter crackers seemed more appealing than being in his usual rush to get home.
He heard a knock. “Hello? Who is it?” he asked, getting off the bed. He padded to the door without shoes.
He opened the door and stepped aside. Rachel stood there, took a step in, and closed the door before he knew it. She held a list of patients. “You forgot this.”
“It’s not mine,” he said, glancing at it. “Maybe it belongs to Dr. Lucas.” A TV sportscaster in the background was recapping the golf game Danny missed earlier.
“Nice room.” Rachel took another step, deeper into the room. A silence swallowed the distance between them. Danny moved to the side but she leaned towards him slowly, testing his approachability. She closed her eyes and kissed him.
Danny tasted the kettle corn she had previously eaten, salty and sweet; better yet, she had the fullest, moistest lips. That’s all, he thought. But the soft kiss was a precursor, a forerunner to her voracious appetite. She pressed into him; thin scrubs couldn’t mask the fleshy contour of her body. She felt as exciting as she looked enticing. She dropped the paper on the dresser and they landed on the bed. As she straddled him, they deeply kissed, sinking further into the submissive bed. He had to stop now. Maybe in a moment.
She untied his scrubs. Danny’s mind spun. Where did she learn that? If he had been standing, he would’ve reeled from ecstasy. And it was unbelievable. What a talented mouth.
________
Except for faint solar lantern lighting in front, the house was shrouded in darkness when Danny arrived home. After going in, he went straight upstairs, took off his shoes, and got into bed wearing his scrubs. Anything to not wake Sara.
“That you?” she said. “You don’t have to be that quiet, my husband isn’t home.”
She giggled and turned over.
Danny’s heart pounded. That wasn’t funny. It added to the uncomfortable feeling that he’d crossed the line.
“Sorry, I had an ASDH. Been working all day, except for the peanut butter crackers I just stayed to eat.”
“That’s weird, I smell popcorn,” she said, and closed her eyes.
________
Casey hadn’t used a chain saw since last summer. He had to admit … satisfaction came from the roar of the motor. Revving a power tool was simply a guy thing. Toppling the dead trees helped Mary with the endless care of the property and made him shine at the same time. He cut a long spindly deadwood into eight pieces and assembled a woodpile nearby.
Casey waved to Mary to let her know he’d finished, so she stepped back inside and packed a duffle bag with clean clothes to bring Greg. Everyone had agreed to meet at Wellington’s for a Sunday family visit after Greg’s nap.
________
Mary and Casey rounded Greg’s doorway to the smell of floor disinfectant. Her father sat in his rocking chair, wearing a fresh, open collared shirt. His eyebrows slid upward when they entered, his furry brows a more dominant feature of his face since he’d become so gaunt.
“Dad, you look wonderful,” Mary said. She crouched and gave him a kiss. “Look who I brought. Casey removed some dead trees today in your old backyard.”
Greg focused on Casey. His head bobbed enthusiastically. “Good man,” he said.
Mary put her father’s laundry into his drawers and replaced a toothbrush in the bathroom with a new one. She slid on his absent shoe, pulling the Velcro strap taut. “If your leg gets any skinnier, Dad, it’ll be a walking stick.”
“Grandpa, we’re here, too,” Annabel said, buoyantly coming in. Greg patted her hand, studying it.
“It’s me Grandpa. Nancy, too.”
Sara took a tissue and wiped Greg’s nose. “Dad, do you have a cold?”
“He does look a little flushed,” Danny said.
“Grandpa, we brought you oatmeal cookies.” Nancy took one out of a plastic bag and handed it to him.
“Casey,” Annabel said, “would you like one? We made them yesterday.”
“Absolutely. And let me see those teeth. Aligning properly so soon?”
“Absolutely,” she echoed, displaying a wide smile.
“How’s our acute subdural from last night?” Casey asked Danny. “Any word today?”
“Harold rounded today. He never called, so she must be fine.” Danny nodded. “How was the rest of your night?”
“We had a few more runs. A sleeping pill overdose. A meth overdose. And two smoke inhalation patients from a small blaze in a downtown bar. How about you?”
“Fine. I mean, things simmered.” Danny grew uncomfortable. He had not given it any thought, but it would be awkward if Rachel strolled through Wellington’s on a volunteer visit with her dog.
Danny heard voices in the hallway. A quick stepping twenty-something year old woman walked
in, her white shoes as spotless as Greg’s floor. “Dr. Tilson, anything I can bring your father before I leave?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I have to hurry. I have another part-time job,” she said reaching near Greg for an empty juice container.
“I worked part-time once,” Greg stuttered. “I was a Chippendale.”
The woman stared stupefied at Greg, but continued without dropping a beat. “Why Mr. Tilson, I bet that’s how you became a wealthy man. From the dollar bills the women slipped you.”
“Except their fingernails hurt.” Greg’s eyes diverted to follow a cardinal outside his window.
“What on earth?” Sara whispered to Mary. Danny and Casey shook their heads while the young woman left stifling her chuckles.
Greg glanced back into the room. He rose from the rocker with Nancy stabilizing him. He walked along as they cleared a path, wobbly, to the door. His back arched forward, there was no flesh left on his rear end.
“Mary, has he been getting his Ensure?” Sara asked, shaking her head.
“As far as I know. The doctor even wrote it as an order. One with lunch, one with dinner.”
Greg stopped at the doorway. Two silver haired women scuffled along the corridor, their heads huddled together, in chatty conversation.
“Turn that phonograph off,” Greg said, glancing back to Danny.
“Dad, what are you talking about?”
Greg mimicked bird beak movements with his hand. “Yack-yack. Somebody needs to change the record.” He gestured toward the two women residents.
“Dad, you are in rare form today.”
Greg settled again into his rocker, his energy spent, and quieted.
Subdued family conversation continued, and after an hour, Annabel was the first to get up. “Bye Grandpa. We love you.”
Mary watched the goodbyes, memorizing the details. Greg might not have known for sure who they all were, but she liked to think he still understood the concept of family, that the people in his room cherished him and respected him. She loved the values he had passed to her and Danny and how her parents had raised them, showering them with attention and strict discipline.
As Annabel and Nancy left, lagging behind their parents, Annabel turned to her sister. “What’s a Chippendale, anyway?”
“I thought you’d know. Must be something old people know about.”
Chapter 14
Danny’s week dragged like a thick mist that wouldn’t blow away. Rachel recuperated his spirit every time she scrubbed for one of his cases, especially the morning she invited him to her place on Sunday, smoothly dropping the remark from beneath her mask. Danny carried his pager on Sunday while he was on call. After late morning rounds he detoured to the address she had given him, which was southeast of the hospital, and almost fifteen miles south of home. Her townhouse resided in the middle of three buildings with six units each. Woods flanked the structures, and behind, the lawn sloped to a picturesque pond.
Danny stopped on the first floor deck. If he rang the bell to her townhouse, he’d be bridging a river, crossing another line. But hadn’t he done that already? He pressed the doorbell and scanned the crowded cars jamming the street. Two doors down, flashy real estate banners hung on railings announcing an “open house.”
The gray wood door opened to Rachel’s smile and she parted the screen door. She wore a loose fitting T-shirt, khaki Capri pants, and sandals. Danny began entering, but plastered himself against the screen door when he saw what barreled toward him. A sorrel, eighty-pound Chesapeake Bay retriever came galloping to the entrance and bolted past.
Down the steps the dog ran. Within seconds, he zipped up the front steps to the neighbor’s extravaganza, whizzing past a shocked man holding a wine glass on the deck and sporting a cigarette.
Rachel shrugged her shoulders. “I guess that’s why they call it an ‘open house.’” She walked down the steps, her sandals flip-flopping underneath, as Danny followed at a respectable distance. She reached the bottom of the neighbor’s stairs. “Did my dog just go in there?” she shouted.
“Yeah, he sure did,” said a realtor.
Rachel held the handrail to go up just in case her dog rushed past her. She shook her head, acknowledging to the realtor that she would reprimand her best friend.
Another man, an inside greeter, stood in the foyer. His eyes bulged and he gripped his glass because the dog had zoomed past him and up the second flight of stairs. He pointed upstairs to the bedrooms.
Rachel followed the upheaval to disappear inside. When the Chessie exited while ignoring her, she reversed her path. “Home,” she yelled, “and don’t do that again.”
________
“I guess introductions are in order,” Rachel said, offering Danny a cushioned wicker chair after they had gone inside. Danny planted himself into the bowl shaped seat. Rachel sat on the matching ottoman and grabbed her dog by his green collar. “This is Dakota.”
“Hey, Dakota.” The dog nuzzled him, turned sideways, and swiped his tail.
“Sorry. Mostly, he likes his butt to be petted.”
“Are therapy dogs always that precocious?”
“His inquiring mind sometimes overshadows his good manners. In any case, it’s his job to tour novel places.”
Danny rubbed his fingers into Dakota’s curly top coat. The dog peered around, giving Danny a look of approval with bright amber-colored eyes.
“What can I get you? A Coke?”
“Sure.”
Rachel went to the small kitchen while Danny looked around. Dozens of CD’s and DVD’s lined shelves in the wall unit next to him and old bottles lined the top shelf.
Dakota sat erect, his eyes glued to his master. Rachel poured Danny’s soda into a clear plastic glass and came back. She sipped Danny’s Coke, and then handed it to him.
“Danny, you did a spectacular job this week,” she said. “Saving lives by drilling into people’s heads. Such responsibility.” She moved to the ottoman cushion next to an end table with several medical field pamphlets and a visitor guide to Knoxville. Dakota lay alongside her, exhaling a sigh. “Do you ever get frightened by what you have to do?”
“Actually, what seems easy to others may terrify me the most,” Danny said and paused. Rachel sat engrossed with every word. “Like a brain biopsy. To insert a thin, exceptionally long needle into a nail-size hole in a skull, deep into the brain or even the brain stem can require nerves of steel.” Rachel’s left hand rested on the dog’s head.
“All it takes,” Danny continued, “is misjudging a major vessel or not accurately identifying the specimen needed for the pathologist. What if I send him a noncancerous specimen that’s adjacent to the cells wreaking havoc? What if the patient dies eight months later? After all, the specimen I send is extremely small. And sometimes the pathologist wants me to probe around more, increasing the patient’s risk, and get more samples.”
Rachel grimaced at the thought and leaned back. She took her foot out of a sandal and smoothly slid it into Danny’s crotch. Her toes massaged his conceding manhood.
“I’m beginning to enjoy my scrub nurse.” Danny said quietly. “Is she taking any days off next week?”
“No. I’m too enamored by the hospital’s neurosurgeon, so I’ll be in his OR.”
In a short while, the growing bulge in Danny’s pants couldn’t be restrained. Rachel led him to the bedroom, shutting the door on Dakota.
________
Danny’s pager stayed quiet the remainder of the day. When he went to bed that night with Sara, he said good night but she didn’t hear him. She fell asleep quickly; with no novel, no newspaper. She’s a good mother to the girls, he thought, but their relationship wasn’t the same since Melissa’s death. After a short time, Rachel infiltrated his thoughts … her body, her scent, and the things they had done that afternoon.
Danny fell asleep for only a few hours, and then monitored the long black minute hand of his bedside clock. He finally got up at five and showe
red, uncluttered a coffee cup and newspaper in his car, and went to the office early. To the amazement of staff, a pot of steaming coffee awaited them when they arrived. Danny wasn’t the normal early bird to start the coffee machine.
Danny took a quick look at his first patient’s MRI on the view box. He knocked on the door of the exam room and entered for the second appointment with a thirty-eight year old female who had complained vehemently two weeks ago about a multitude of symptoms. Susan Dexter’s problems “reappear whenever they want to,” she had said. “Last week my arm could barely lift a mug, and two months ago I had stabbing pain in my feet and weakness in my legs.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Dexter.” Danny shook her hand to evaluate her reach and purpose of grip. “How have you been?”
“You know, I don’t mean to be a whiner, but I just don’t sleep these days. And I swear my eyes did something weird the other day. And you know, I’ve got a damn headache today. Do I have brain cancer?”
Not the most compelling case to start the day with, Danny thought. Maybe she needs a shrink, not a neurosurgeon. “Mrs. Dexter, the lab work we did is negative and more importantly, your MRI is clean. You don’t have to worry about cancer in your brain.”
Mrs. Dexter stopped swinging her legs. “Oh. Well, that’s good. But then it doesn’t explain what’s wrong with me.”
Danny wrote a short note in the chart. “A nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory may alleviate your headache. Do you have a favorite that is over-the-counter, such as ibuprofen, or would you like a prescription?”
“Is Advil the same thing?”
“That will do.”
Danny smiled and handed the office slip to her for the front desk. “You call if you ever need us again.”
