Simon called, and then jumped into his jeans while he was still wet, pulled on a T-shirt, and ran to Salima’s room with wet hair and bare feet. Blaise was sitting with her, alternately touching her cheeks and stroking her hair, and shaking her and trying to revive her. Salima was deathly pale, and her lips were blue, as tears ran down Blaise’s cheeks and she talked to her. Salima showed no sign of life, but Blaise had made sure that she was breathing. She was wracked with guilt as she looked at her. It was the first time in years that she hadn’t checked on her when she was home. And within five minutes, the paramedics were there. They gave her insulin immediately, put her on a stretcher, and rushed her to the ambulance waiting downstairs. Blaise literally tore off her nightgown, hastily put on the slacks and sweater she’d worn the day before, pulled on boots, and was out the door with her handbag and uncombed hair. They were taking her to Columbia Presbyterian, and Simon shouted that he would meet her there, as the door closed. He could hear the siren screaming as the ambulance drove away, and he could just imagine what was going through her mind. It was going through his as well. They had been making love the night before when Salima almost died.
The doorman hailed a cab for him, as soon as Simon got downstairs, and after promising to pay him double, the cab driver got him there in twelve minutes, which was heroic. Simon gave him two twenty-dollar bills and ran into the emergency room and asked for Salima Stern. She used her father’s name. He was told she had just been taken to the ICU. He followed the nurse’s directions, and looked for Blaise in the maze of hallways and treatment rooms. And he found her finally in a cubicle with two doctors and three nurses. Salima was still unconscious, and Blaise was sobbing in the corner as Simon put an arm around her and she shook him off. There were tears in his eyes too. And a moment later the doctor asked them to wait in the waiting room. Simon followed her in silence, and they were alone in the ICU waiting room. Blaise was grateful that no one else was there when she turned to look at Simon with a combination of guilt, anguish, and hatred. The hatred was for herself.
“Do you realize what we did? We made love last night, and I never got up to check her. I was too goddamn tired from having sex and I went to sleep. Her pump failed, the catheter disconnected under her skin, and she had no insulin all night.” They had told her that Salima had diabetic ketoacidosis, which could be fatal, although it was a very rare occurrence. “She could have been dead by the time we found her. And she could still die,” Blaise said, sobbing. “She was dying and we were screwing.”
“We weren’t screwing,” he said in an equally anguished tone, and he felt guilty too. “We were making love. Christ, Blaise, we’re human. You’re allowed to fall asleep once in a while. It could have happened even if we didn’t make love. It can happen. I saw it with a kid with a pump at school. You take better care of her than I’ve ever seen.”
“Not last night.” She looked daggers at him, and then collapsed onto the couch. He didn’t dare approach her, and sat down across the room.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, gently. “I will if you want me to.” She shook her head in answer, and burst into tears again, and Simon went to comfort her, and she melted into his arms in grief.
“Simon, we killed her,” she said sobbing. “What if she dies?” He was praying she wouldn’t, and he just sat there and held Blaise for the next hour until the chief resident walked in. He took off his mask and peeled off his gloves, and he smiled at them both.
“She’s going to be okay. She’s conscious. She gave us a hell of a scare, but she’s a strong girl. And don’t blame yourselves, these things happen. For a kid with type 1, she’s in remarkably good health. I can tell you’re doing a great job with her. You can’t watch everything, or predict this kind of problem, even if you watched her all the time. The catheter just slipped out. Once in a blue moon it happens.”
“I always check her at night before I go to bed,” Blaise said, sobbing from relief now, and Simon was crying too. It had been a nightmarish morning, and it was only noon.
“Judging from her levels, my guess is that she lost the catheter delivering insulin early this morning, so even if you’d checked her, say, at midnight, it wouldn’t have made a difference. But you definitely found her just in time. I wouldn’t have liked to see her go without much longer than she did. You did all the right things,” he reassured them both, and Simon looked even more relieved than Blaise. He had been feeling terrible about what had happened and his part in it.
“Can we see her?” Simon asked even before Blaise.
“Of course. I’d like to keep her overnight just till we get all her levels straightened out. She’s going to be fine,” he said again, and Blaise hurried to see Salima, with Simon right behind her. Salima was pale, and she looked like she’d been hit by a bus, but she was smiling when they entered the cubicle again. The worst was over. But they all knew that slipping into a diabetic coma or winding up in insulin shock were risks she’d have to manage all her life. It was why Blaise had put her at Caldwell, because she couldn’t face worrying about her all the time and living at the edge of a cliff, especially if she was away. And Salima was so young then. Now at least if something went wrong when she was awake, Salima was able to recognize the signs and tell someone if she didn’t feel right. But this time it had all happened while she was asleep, so she didn’t know herself.