“Yes, I thought I’d be through much earlier, but I got tied up at a meeting until a few minutes ago. I’d ordered these flowers this afternoon and wanted to be sure you got them.”
Cassi smiled. “That was so kind of you.”
“I heard you were to be operated on in the morning. I hope everything goes well.” He suddenly seemed to realize she was sitting up in her nightgown. He reddened, whispered a fast goodnight, and beat a hasty retreat.
Cassi smiled in spite of herself. The vision of him knocking her wine into her lap came back to her. She detached the envelope from the roses and slipped out the card. “All the best from a secret admirer.” Cassi laughed. George could be so corny. At the same time she could understand his reluctance to sign his name after the scene Thomas had pulled at Ballantine’s.
Two hours later Cassi was still wide awake. In desperation she threw back the covers and slid out of the bed. Her robe was draped over the chair, and she pulled it on, thinking maybe she’d see if Robert was awake.
Talking to him might finally calm her down enough to sleep.
If Cassi had felt out of place walking the hospital dressed as a patient that afternoon, now she felt positively delinquent. The corridors were deserted, and within the stairwell there wasn’t a sound. Cassi hurried up to Robert’s room hoping no one in authority would spot her and send her back to seventeen.
She ducked inside the darkened room. The only light came from the bathroom whose door was slightly open.
Cassi could not see Robert but she could hear his regular breathing. Silently moving over next to the bed, she got a glimpse of his face; he was still fast asleep.
She was about to leave when she again noticed the computer printout on the night stand. As quietly as possible she picked it up. Then she moved her hand blindly over the surface of the table to search for the pencil she’d seen that afternoon. Her fingers found a water glass, then a wristwatch, and finally a pen.
Retreating to the bathroom, Cassi tore a blank sheet from the printout. Pressing against the edge of the sink she wrote: “Couldn’t fall asleep. Borrowed the SSD material. Statistics always knock me out. Love, Cassi.”
When she came out of the lighted bathroom, Cassi found it even harder to see as she made her way back to the night stand. Feeling her way, she propped her note on the water glass and was about to leave when the door slowly swung open.
Suppressing a cry of fright, Cassi nearly collided with a figure coming into the room. “My God, what are you doing here?” she whispered. Some of the computer papers slipped from her hands.
Thomas, still holding the door, motioned for Cassi to be quiet. Light from the corridor fell on Robert’s face, but he did not stir. Convinced he was not going to wake up, Thomas bent to help Cassi gather her papers.
As they stood up, Cassi whispered again, “What on earth are you doing here?”
In answer, Thomas silently guided her out into the hall, pulling the door shut behind them. “Why aren’t you asleep?” he said crossly. “You’ve got surgery in the morning! I stopped by your room to make sure everything was in order only to find an empty bed. It wasn’t hard to guess where you might be.”
“I’m flattered you came to see me,” whispered Cassi with a smile.
“This is not a joking matter,” said Thomas sternly.
“You’re supposed to be asleep. What are you doing up here at two A.M.?”
Cassi held up the computer sheets. “I couldn’t fall asleep so I thought I’d be industrious.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Thomas, taking Cassi’s arm and leading her back to the stairs. “You should have been asleep hours ago!”
“The sleeping pill didn’t work,” explained Cassi as they went downstairs.
“Then you’re supposed to ask for another. My word, Cassi. You should know that.”
Outside her room, Cassi stopped and looked up at Thomas. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”
“What’s done is done,” said Thomas. “You get into bed. I’ll get you another pill.”
For a moment Cassi watched Thomas resolutely walk down the corridor toward the nurses’ station. Then she turned into her room. Putting the SSD data on her night table, she tossed her robe onto the chair and kicked off her slippers. With Thomas in charge she felt more secure.
When he returned with the pill, he stood by the bed watching as she swallowed it. Then, half-teasing, he opened her mouth and pretended to search inside to see if it was gone.
“That’s a violation of privacy,” said Cassi, pulling her face away.
“Children must be treated like children,” he laughed.
He picked up the printout, carried it over to the bureau, and dumped it into a lower drawer. “No more of this stuff tonight. You’re going to sleep.”
Thomas pulled the chair over to the bed, switched off the reading light, and took Cassi’s hand.
He told Cassi he wanted her to relax and think about their upcoming vacation. Quietly he described the untouched sands, the crystal water, and the warm tropical sunshine.
Cassi listened, enjoying the images. Soon she felt a peace settle over her. With Thomas there she could relax. Consciously she could feel the sleeping pill begin to work, and she realized that she was falling asleep.
Robert was caught in the netherworld between sleep and consciousness. He’d been having a terrifying dream: he was imprisoned between two walls that were relentlessly closing in on him. The space where he stood became smaller and smaller. He could no longer breathe.
Desperately he pulled himself awake. The entrapping walls were gone. The dream was over, but the awful sense of suffocation was still there. It was as if the room had been sucked dry of its air.
In panic he tried to sit up, but his body would not obey. Flailing his arms in terror, he thrashed around looking for the call button. Then his hand touched someone standing silently in the dark. He had help!
“Thank God,” he gasped, recognizing his visitor. “Something’s wrong. Help me. I need air! Help me, I’m suffocating!”
Robert’s visitor pushed Robert back onto the bed so roughly the empty syringe in his hand almost dropped to the floor. Robert again reached out, grabbing the man’s jacket. His legs kicked at the bed rails setting up a metallic clamor. He tried to scream, but his voice came out muffled and incoherent. Hoping to silence Robert before anyone came to investigate, the man leaned over to cover his mouth. Robert’s knee flew up and thumped the man on the chin, snapping his teeth on the tip of his tongue.
Enraged by the pain, the man leaned his entire weight on the hand clamped over Robert’s face, pushing his head deep into the pillow. For a few minutes more Robert’s legs jerked and twitched. Then he lay still. The man straightened up, removing his hand slowly as if he expected the boy to struggle anew. But Robert was no longer breathing; his face was almost black in the dim light.
The man felt drained. Trying not to think, he went into the bathroom and rinsed the blood out of his mouth. Always before when he dispatched a patient, he had known he was doing the right thing. He gave life; he took life. But death was only administered to further the larger good.
The man remembered the first time he had been responsible for a patient’s death. He had never doubted it was the right thing to do. It had been many years ago, back when he was a junior resident on thoracic surgery. A crisis had arisen in the intensive care unit.
All the patients had developed complications. None could be discharged, and all elective cardiac surgery in the hospital had come to a halt. Every day at rounds the chief resident Barney Kaufman went from bed to bed to see if anyone was ready to be transferred, but no one was. And each day, they stopped last by a patient Barney had labeled Frank Gork. A shower of emboli from a calcified heart valve had been loosed during surgery and Frank Gork, formally Frank Segelman, had been left brain-dead. He’d been on the unit for over a month. The fact that he was still alive, in the sense that his heart was beating and his kidneys were making urine, was a tribute to the nursing staff.