Was Vivian stronger than himself, her character finer, her courage higher? The question had come to him last night and had remained with him since. He had gone to see her, knowing the decision had been made to amputate and aware that Vivian knew it too. He had found her, not in tears, but smiling. “Come in, Mike darling,” she had said, “and please don’t look so glum. Dr. Grainger’s told me, and I’ve done my crying, and it’s over now—or at least it will be in the morning.”
At the words he had felt his love for her deepen, and he had held her and kissed her passionately. Afterward she had twisted his hair affectionately and, holding his head back, had looked directly into his eyes.
“I’m going to have just one leg, Mike,” she had said, “for all the rest of my life. I won’t be the girl you met—not as you met me, and not as you know me now. If you want out, I’ll understand.”
He had answered emphatically, “Don’t talk like that!”
“Why?” she had said. “Are you afraid to talk about it?”
“No!” It was a loud, firm protest, but even as he made it he had known it to be a lie. He was afraid, just as he sensed that Vivian was not—not now, not any more.
It was a reflection of Vivian, he realized, that he could see now in her mother—or, he supposed, the other way around. The sense of strength was there, unmistakable, in both. Could he match it with his own? For the first time a feeling of uneasy doubt assailed him.
Mr. Loburton had broken his routine. He had stopped halfway between the window and the chair. “Michael,” he said, “it’s been an hour and a half. Can they be very much longer?”
Seddons found Vivian’s mother looking at him too. He shook his head. “I don’t believe so. Dr. Grainger said she’d come here . . . immediately after.” He paused, then added, “We should all know something—very soon.”
Nineteen
Reaching into the incubator through the two porthole-like apertures in its side, Dr. Dornberger carefully examined the Alexander baby. Three and a half days had gone by since birth, a fact which, of itself, might normally be taken as a hopeful sign. But there were other symptoms, increasingly apparent, which Dornberger knew must be looked on with disquiet.
He took his time about completing the examination, then stood back thoughtfully, weighing the available evidence in his mind, filtering it through his long years of experience and the countless other cases now behind him. At the end his reasoning confirmed what instinct had already told him; the prognosis was extremely poor. “You know,” he said, “I thought for a while he was going to make it.”
The young nurse in charge of the premature nursery—the same nurse whom John Alexander had seen a few days before—had been looking at Dornberger expectantly. She said, “His breathing was quite steady until an hour ago, then it became weak. That was when I called you.”
A student nurse around the other side of the incubator was following the conversation closely, her eyes above her gauze mask darting from Dornberger to the charge nurse and back again.
“No, he’s not breathing well,” Dornberger said slowly. He went on, thinking out loud, trying to be sure there was nothing he had missed, “There’s more jaundice than there should be, and the feet seem swollen. Tell me again—what was the blood count?”
The charge nurse consulted her clip board. “R.B.C. four point nine million. Seven nucleated red cells per hundred white.”
There was another pause, the two nurses watching while Dornberger digested the information. He was thinking: There’s altogether too much anemia, though of course it might be an exaggerated normal-type reaction. Aloud he said, “You know, if it weren’t for that sensitivity report I’d suspect this child had erythroblastosis.”
The charge nurse looked surprised. She said, “But surely, Doctor,” then checked herself.
“I know—it couldn’t happen.” He motioned to the clip board. “All the same, let me see that lab report—the original one on the mother’s blood.”
Turning over several sheets, the charge nurse found the form and extracted it. It was the report which Dr. Pearson had signed following the altercation with David Coleman. Dornberger studied it carefully, then handed it back. “Well, that’s definite enough—negative sensitivity.”
It should be definite, of course; but at the back of his mind was a nagging thought: Could the report be wrong? Impossible, he told himself; the pathology department would never make a mistake like that. All the same, he decided, he would drop in and talk with Joe Pearson after rounds.
To the charge nurse Dornberger said, “There’s nothing more we can do at the moment. Call me again, please, if there’s any change.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
When Dornberger had gone the student nurse asked, “What was it the doctor said—erythro . . . ?” She stumbled on the word.
“Erythroblastosis—it’s a blood disease in babies. It happens sometimes when the mother’s blood is Rh negative and the father’s Rh positive.” The young charge nurse with the red hair answered the question carefully but confidently, as she always did. The students liked being assigned to her; as well as having a reputation for being one of the most able nurses on staff, she was little more than twelve months away from her own student days, having graduated at the top of the senior class the year before. Knowing this, the student had no hesitation in extending her questioning.
“I thought when that happened they changed the baby’s blood at birth.”
“You mean by an exchange transfusion?”
“Yes.”
“That only happens in some cases.” The charge nurse went on patiently, “It may depend on the sensitization report on the mother’s blood. If the report is positive, it usually means the baby will be born with erythroblastosis and must be given an exchange transfusion immediately after birth. In this case the lab report was negative, so an exchange transfusion wasn’t necessary.” The charge nurse stopped. Then she added, thoughtfully, half to herself, “It’s strange, though, about those symptoms.”
Since their argument of several days ago on the subject of laboratory checks the senior pathologist had made no reference to David Coleman’s activities in the serology lab. Coleman had no idea what this silence implied—whether he had achieved his point and was to have direct charge of Serology, or if Pearson intended to return to the attack later. Meanwhile, though, the younger pathologist had fallen into the habit of dropping into the lab regularly and reviewing the work being done. As a result he had already formulated several ideas for changes in procedure, and some of the minor ones had been put into effect during the last day or two.
Between himself and Carl Bannister, the elderly lab technician, there was something with might be considered close to an armed truce. John Alexander, on the other hand, had made it plain that he welcomed Coleman’s attention to the lab and in the last two days already had made a few suggestions which Coleman had approved.
Alexander had returned to work the day after his wife had been brought to the hospital, despite a gruff but kindly suggestion from Pearson that he could take time off if he wished. Coleman had heard Alexander tell the old pathologist, “Thank you all the same, Doctor; but if I don’t work I’ll think too much, and it wouldn’t help.” Pearson had nodded and said that Alexander could do as he pleased and leave the lab to go upstairs and see his wife and baby whenever he wished.
Now David Coleman opened the door of the serology lab and went in.
He found John Alexander at the center lab bench, looking up from a microscope, and, facing him, a white-coated woman with extremely large breasts whom Coleman recalled vaguely having seen around the hospital several times since his own arrival.
As he entered Alexander was saying, “I think perhaps you should ask Dr. Pearson or Dr. Coleman. I’ll be making my report to them.”