It was just after one and he would be waiting downstairs. She was suddenly very impatient to see him, and had to remind herself that it would not fill patients or staff with confidence to see a doctor skipping down the hall. She thought in passing of Maura Kingsolver, the surgeon coming on shift. Fortunately there were no pending surgeries that she had to be informed about. It seemed as if Anna might really get out of the hospital on time.
Jack was talking to Mr. Abernathy in the lobby. He stood with his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, his chin lowered to his chest. A powerfully built man at ease in his own skin, listening closely to an old man’s story. He had been raised in a household that valued stories and the people who told them. It was one part of what made him good at his work.
He was wearing a beautifully cut suit that fit him perfectly. A summer-weight wool of a deep buff color, his jacket was open to reveal a checked vest buttoned over a soft white shirt and a copper-colored silk tie in a loose bow around a standing collar. His sisters’ influence, and one way in which Anna could never compete; she paid little attention to fashion and was satisfied to let her aunt and cousin choose for her. As they had today, because it wouldn’t have occurred to her that the clothes she wore at the hospital were not right for an afternoon on the river. Or not until it was too late to go home and change.
Jack looked up and caught her eye. His whole face came alive as he broke into a smile. He was here for her. That odd and wondrous thought was in her mind still when the wide front doors flew open with a tremendous crash that made Anna jump in place.
An ambulance driver appeared holding up one end of a stretcher, backing through the door carefully. Jack and Mr. Abernathy were there before Anna even realized they were moving, blocking her view while they helped maneuver the stretcher all the way in and then carrying it through to the examination room.
A young woman wrapped in bloody sheets was struggling and writhing to free herself while the ambulance doctor tried to put three fingers to her throat to time her pulse. The driver stood back, arms crossed over his chest, looking studiously bored. To Anna he said, “This one’s asking for a Dr. Savard.” Ambulance drivers were notoriously hard to shock and often simply rude, but Anna had no time to teach him manners.
“You’re in the way,” Anna said. “Step outside.”
? ? ?
AMBULANCE DOCTORS WERE employees of the police department, generally men newly out of medical college and in need of practical experience. Jack knew most of them at least by sight, but this one he had never met before.
“I’m an intern at Bellevue, Neill Graham. You’re Dr. Savard?”
“I’m one of two Dr. Savards at this hospital. This lady is a stranger to me. She must be my cousin’s patient.”
“You’ll have to do,” said Graham. “She can’t wait.”
Anna’s expression cleared, all her questions and confusion leaving her face to be replaced by a focused calm. She looked over her shoulder at Mr. Abernathy. “Is Dr. Kingsolver available?”
“Already in surgery,” he said. “Room two is free.”
Orderlies appeared out of a side door to scoop up the stretcher.
To Neill Graham Anna said, “It’s the first operating room on the right. Please stay with her until I get there, I’ll just be a moment.”
Then she turned to Jack.
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded, adding a half shrug. He understood very well the regret, and knew too that it would last only until she stood in front of her patient. The woman’s condition would drive all other thoughts out of her mind. He said, “I’ll go to the ferry dock to explain.”
“I’m sorry about your day too.”
She was already moving away, but she changed direction and dashed toward him, stopping short to go up on tiptoe and press a kiss to his mouth, a fleeting touch he might have imagined if not for the scent of her skin. Then she was gone, flying down the hall to the operating rooms.
Jack had almost reached the cab waiting for him when another pulled up and a man leapt down before the horses came to a halt. He wore a black wool suit despite the warm weather and a matching bowler pulled down over frizzled red hair.
“Hold on!” the cabby bellowed. “Hold on there, what about my fare?”
The man yelled over his shoulder. “Archer Campbell, postal inspector. You’ll get your fare.”
“I’ll get double my fare if you make me chase you down for it,” the cabby shouted even as the man disappeared into the hospital. “Or I’ll get the police after you, postal inspector or not!”
? ? ?
WHEN ANNA CAME in, three nurses were already going about the business of preparing the operating room and the patient, who was still struggling despite firm hands and calm words. The nurses talked to her in a studiously attentive but calm tone as they had been taught to do. As Anna herself had once learned when she was a medical student and new to this world that was now her own.
They provided Anna with information without prompting: pulse 150 and thready, temperature 104. Anna was still trying to attach the name Mrs. Campbell to a memory, a patient of Sophie’s she had been worried about—when the woman shouted.
“Dr. Savard!” And again: “Please, Dr. Savard!”