Kate reached out and touched the fine creases that had, overnight it seemed, materialized at the corners of her husband's eyes. "A year, Jared? " she asked silently. "Would a year make all that much difference? You understand your own needs so well. Can you understand mine?"
Almost instantly another, far more disturbing question arose in her thoughts. Did she, in fact, understand them herself?
Silently, she rose and walked to the picture window overlooking their wooded backyard. Superimposed on the smooth waves of drifted snow was the reflection of her naked body, kept thin and toned by constant dieting and almost obsessive exercise. On an impulse, she turned sideways and forced her abdomen out as far as it would go. Six months, she guessed, maybe seven. Not too bad looking for an old pregnant lady.
Fifteen minutes later, when the phone rang, Kate was ricocheting around the kitchen preparing brunch. The edge of her terry-cloth robe narrowly missed toppling a pan of sweet sausages as she leapt for the receiver, answering it before the first ring ended. Nevertheless, through the door to the living room, she saw Jared stir from the fetal tuck in which he had been sleeping and begin to stretch. "Hello, " she answered, mentally discarding the exotic plans she had made for awakening her husband. "Dr.
Bennett, it's Tom Engleson. I'm a senior resident on the Ashburton Service at Metro. Do you remember me?"
"Of course, Tom. You saw me at the Omnicenter once. Saved my life when Dr. Zimmermann was away."
"I did? " There was a hint of embarrassment in his voice. "What was the matter?"
"Well, actually, I just needed a refill of my birth control pills. But I remember you just the same. What can I do for you? " Her mental picture of Engleson was of a loose, gangly man, thirty or thirty-one, with angular features and a youthful face, slightly aged by a Teddy Roosevelt moustache. "Please forgive me for phoning you at home on Sunday."
"Nonsense."
"Thank you. The reason I'm calling is to get your advice on handling a surgical specimen. It's one you'll be seeing tomorrow, a wedge section of a patient's left ovary, taken during a hypogastric artery ligation for menorrhagia."
"How old a woman? " Reflexively, Kate took up a pen to begin scratching data on the back of an envelope. So doing, she noticed that Jared was now huddled by the wood stove with Roscoe, their four-year-old almost-terrier and the marriage's declared neutral love object. "Thirty,
" Engleson answered. "No deliveries, no pregnancies, and in fact, no ovaries."
"What?"
"Oh, they're there. But they're unlike any ovaries I've ever seen before. Dr. Bartholomew was with me-the woman is his patient-and he has never seen pathology like this either."
Kate pulled a high stool from beneath the counter and wrapped one foot around its leg. "Explain, " she said. "Well, whatever this is is uniform and symmetrical. We took a slice from the left ovary, but it could just as well have been the right. Shrunken, the consistency of… of a squash ball-sort of hard but rubbery. The surface is pockmarked, dimpled."
"What color? " Kate had written down almost every word. "Gray. Grayish brown, maybe."
"Interesting, " she said. "Does what I've described ring any bells?"
"No. At least not right off. However, there are a number of possibilities. Any idea as to why this woman was having menorrhagia?"
"Two reasons. One is a platelet count of just forty-five thousand, and the other is a fibrinogen level that is fifteen percent of normal."
"An autoimmune phenomenon? " Kate searched her thoughts for a single disease entity characterized by the two blood abnormalities.
An autoimmune phenomenon, the body making antibodies against certain of its own tissues, seemed likely. "So far, that's number one on the list,
" Engleson said. "The hematology people have started her on steroids."
"Was she on any medications?"
"Hey, Kate." It was Jared calling from the living room. "Do you smell something burning?"
"Nothing but vitamins, " Engleson answered. Kate did not respond.
Receiver tucked under her ear, she was at the oven, pulling out a tray of four blackened lumps that had once been shirred eggs-Jared's favorite. "Shit, " she said. "What? " Both Jared and Tom Engleson said the word simultaneously. "Oh, sorry. I wasn't talking to you." A miniature cumulonimbus cloud puffed from the oven. "Jared, it's all right, " she called out, this time covering the mouthpiece. "It's just … our meal. That's all."
"Dr. Bennett, if you'd rather I called back…"
"No, Tom, no. Listen, there's a histology technician on call. The lab tech on duty knows who it is. Have whoever it is come in and begin running the specimen through the Technichron. That way it will be ready for examination tomorrow rather than Tuesday. Better still, ask them to come into the lab and call me at home. I'll give the instructions myself. Okay?", Sure. Thanks."
"No problem, " she said, staring at the lumps. "I'll speak to you later."
"Shirred eggs? " Jared, wrapped in the cashmere blanket, leaned against the doorway. Roscoe peered at her from between his knees. Kate nodded sheepishly. "I sort of smelled the smoke, but my one track brain was focused on what this resident from the hospital was saying, and somehow, it dismissed the smoke as coming from the wood stove. I… I never was too great at doing more than one thing at once."
"Too bad you couldn't have chosen to let the resident burn to a crisp and save the eggs, " he said. "Next time."
"Good. Any possibilities for replacements"
"Howard Johnson's?"
"Thanks, but I'll take my chances with some coffee and whatever's in that frying pan. You sure that wasn't Yoda on the phone?"
"Jared…"
He held up his hands against her ire. "Just checking, just checking," he said. "Come on, Roscoe. Let's go set the table." Kate noted the absence of an apology, but decided that two in one day was too much to ask. More difficult to accept, however, was Jared's apparent lack of interest in what the call was about. It was as if by not talking about her career, her life outside of their marriage, he was somehow diminishing its importance. In public, he took special pride in her professionalism and her degree. Privately, he accepted it as long as it didn't burn his eggs. Almost against her will, she felt frustration begin to dilute the warmth and closeness generated by their lovemaking. She walked to where her clothes were piled in the living room and dressed, silently vowing to do whatever she could to avoid another blowup that day. Minutes later, the crunch of tires on their gravel driveway heralded a test of her resolve. Roscoe heard the arrival first and bounded from his place by the stove to the front door. Jared, now in denims and a flannel work shirt, followed. "Hey, Kate, it's Sandy, " he called out, opening the inside door. "Sandy? " Dick Sandler, Jared's roommate at Dartmouth, had been best man at their wedding. A TWA pilot, he lived on the South Shore and hadn't been in touch with them for several months. "Is Ellen with him?"