“No, it's fine. You picked a good time. I think everyone's asleep. I shouldn't say it out loud, but we haven't had a crisis all day. Where are you?” She was happy to hear him, she had enjoyed their most recent chat. He was such a nice guy, and he'd had such rotten luck. It always troubled her. If nothing else, he needed good friends, and she was more than willing to volunteer, if he needed a shoulder from time to time. And he and Mark had become good friends.
“I'm in the main lab.” He sounded kind of lost, and she wondered what was happening with his health. Stress probably. And grief.
“Do you want to come up? I can't leave the floor, but I can offer you a cup of our undrinkable coffee, if your stomach's up to it.”
“I'd like that,” he said. It was what he'd been hoping for when he took the chance and called. He'd felt a little guilty disturbing her. She told him where to go, and he said he'd be right up.
She was watching for him when he got off the elevator, and waved to him from the desk. She was on the phone, talking to a mom who had just taken her baby home, and everything seemed fine. The baby was doing great. It had taken them five months to get her home. She was one of Alex's stars.
“So this is where you do your thing,” he said admiringly as he looked around. There was a glass wall behind the desk, where he could see a maze of equipment and incubators and lights and people milling around in scrubs and masks. Alex had one around her neck too, with her stethoscope at a jaunty angle, and the same green scrubs she'd been wearing all day. He was impressed. It was impossible not to be. She was in her element here, and a star in her own right.
“It's good to see you, Jimmy,” she said comfortably as she walked him into her tiny office, with the unmade cot she slept on. She only saw parents in the waiting room. “What kind of work were you having done, if it's not rude to ask?” She was concerned about him, particularly here, in her official guise.
“It's just routine. I have to get checked out pretty thoroughly for work every year. Chest X-ray, TB, that kind of thing. I was overdue. They kept sending me notices, and I never had time to come in. They finally told me I couldn't report for work next week unless I did. So here I am. I had to take the afternoon off to do it, because you never know how long it'll take, which is why I've been putting it off. I'll probably have to work Saturday to make up for it.”
“Sounds like me,” she said, smiling at him. She was relieved to hear that there was nothing seriously wrong with him. And she found herself looking into his dark brown eyes, and as always her heart went out to him. You could still see how much he'd been through. “What exactly do you do?” she asked with interest as she handed him a Styrofoam cup filled with the poisonous brew. He took a sip and grinned instantly.
“You serve the same rat poison we do, I see. We put sand in ours, it gives it that little extra something.” She laughed. She was used to it, but she hated their coffee too. “What do I do? Haul kids out of homes where they're having the shit kicked out of them, or being sodomized by their father, uncle, and two older brothers I put kids in hospitals with cigarette burns all over them I listen to moms who are basically decent and scared to death they'll freak out and hurt their kids because they've got seven of them and not enough food to go around even with food stamps, and their old man is beating them up I put eleven-year-old kids in programs who're shooting up, or sometimes nine-year-olds… sometimes I just listen… or I kick a ball around with a bunch of kids. Same thing you do, I guess, trying to make a difference when I can, and a lot of the time, not making any difference and wishing I could.” It was amazing stuff, and she was as impressed with him as he was with her.
“I don't think I could do what you do. It would depress the hell out of me, seeing that every day. I'm dealing with tiny little people who come into this world with a couple of strikes against them, and we do the best we can to level the playing field for them. But I think your job would turn me off the human race forever.”
“The funny thing is it doesn't,” he said, sipping the coffee, and then winced. It was actually worse than what he drank at work, which was hard to believe. “It gives you hope sometimes. You always believe something's going to change, and once in a while it does. That's enough to keep you going till next time. And no matter how you feel about it, you still have to be there. Because if you aren't, things will get worse for sure. And if it gets much worse for any of them…” His voice drifted off and their eyes met, and she had an idea.
“Do you want a tour?” She thought it might be interesting for him.
“Of the ICU?” He looked shocked, as she nodded. “Is that okay?”
“If anyone asks, I'll tell them you're a visiting doc. Just if someone codes, don't step up to the plate.” She handed him a white coat. He was medium sized, but powerful, and he barely got his shoulders into it, which made the arms a little short, but no one would notice. They all looked like hell. What mattered there was what they did, not how they looked.
“Not to worry, if someone codes, I'll run like hell.” But nothing untoward happened, they didn't even need her, as she walked him around, and explained what was happening in each case, what the situation was, and what they were doing for the tiny patients who lay in incubators, so small most of them didn't wear diapers. He had never seen as many tubes and machines, or babies so small. Their smallest patient on their service weighed in at just over a pound and a half, but was not expected to live. She'd had babies at less, she explained to Jimmy. Their chances increased exponentially the bigger they were, but the larger babies were in grave danger too. It tore his heart out to see the moms sitting there, touching tiny fingers or toes, and just waiting for something to change. The happiest event had turned into something terrifying, and sometimes they had to live with it for months before they knew how it would unfold. It seemed like inconceivable stress to him, and he was in awe when they came out again.
“My God, Alex, that's incredible. How do you stand the pressure?” If they did anything wrong, even for a split second, or failed to do something they should, someone's life was at stake, and the course of a family's history was forever changed. It was a burden he couldn't have borne, and he admired her tremendously for what she did. “I think I'd be scared to death to come to work every day.”
“No, you wouldn't. What you do is just as hard. If you miss something, or don't spot what's happening, or move fast enough, some poor kid could die, or be killed, or be damaged forever. You have to have the same kind of instincts I do. Same idea, different place.”
“You have to have a big heart to do this too,” he said gently, and she did. He had already figured out that much, which was why he couldn't understand what she was doing with Coop. It was all about him, and Alex was about everyone else. Maybe that was why it worked.
They stood chatting near the desk for a little while, and then they needed her to evaluate a patient and consult with an attending, so he said he'd leave.
“Thank you for letting me come up,” he said, still in awe of her. “I'm incredibly impressed.”
“It's all about the team,” she said fairly, “I'm only a tiny part of it. A very tiny part,” she said with humility, as he hugged her, and then left. He waved as the elevator doors closed, and she went back to work.
She didn't see him again until the following Saturday afternoon. Miraculously, she'd gotten another Saturday off, but she had to work on Sunday. And she and Taryn were at the pool with Coop, Mark, and his kids, when Jimmy wandered down from the gatehouse. Taryn was wearing an enormous hat, and as usual, Coop was sitting in the shade of his favorite tree. He attributed his flawless skin and youthful look to never sitting in the sun. And he was pleased to see that Taryn followed suit. He nagged Alex constantly about all the sun she took.