Despite her annoyance, Janet had to laugh. Still, Earl should have entered the garage directly and not touched Brendan before discarding all clothing immediately into the washing machine and showering. Shortly after the outbreak they'd installed a cubicle in there just for that purpose. She'd felt paranoid doing it- Earl kept reassuring her that the precautions at work should have been enough- but the fear they might have carried the virus home on their skin or clothing stalked her every time either of them went to hug their son.
Earl glanced her way. He must have read trouble, as he just as quickly put Brendan down and said, "Well, isn't that marvelous? You're sure Mommy doesn't have a little choo-choo engine in there?"
"No, come listen yourself." He reached to pull Earl toward her. "She's been making us spaghetti, for a long time."
Earl stepped back, hands in the air. "Daddy has to go shower," and he disappeared down the basement stairs.
Five minutes later he returned dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his dark, wet hair slicked back. He wisely stooped to first say hello to Muffy, their large standard poodle, who still considered herself the family's firstborn and Brendan one of her pups. Now twelve, the dog had taken to sleeping a lot, mainly in doorways near entrances so that any new arrivals would have to step over her rather than she having to run to them. He gave her a kitzfe behind her ears- Janet had taught him the word shortly after they first met sixteen years ago. It meant stroking. Muffy had become an eager recipient when she joined the family, and Brendan had learned early to get his fair share too. Kitzle had appeared in his vocabulary almost at the same time he learned "No!"
After a few seconds with the dog, Earl got Brendan on the other side of him, and attempted a make-Janet-smile maneuver with a show of boy-dad-and-poodle funny faces. When that didn't work he led his co-conspirators in a three-abreast charge to where she stood leaning against the table. Muffy jumped her first, front paws stretched shoulder high. Brendan grabbed a leg, and Earl gently slid his arms around her protruding waist, the smell of soap off him tickling her nose.
Her anger drained away. Fifteen years married, and the man could still disarm her with the old playful charm. She grabbed a nearby ladle and waved them off. "Wash your hands and set the table with knives and forks," she commanded, scowling at Earl. "Supper's late enough as it is."
He winced again. "Sorry. Something came up at the hospital."
"On a Saturday night?"
"I'll tell you when we're alone." Scooping up Brendan-"Come on, chum. You're filthy!"- he ducked out from under her blue searchlight gaze.
By 10:30 the storm had passed and the clouds abated enough for the moon to appear. Its misty light percolated through the canopy of trees in front of their house, and the grass beneath, stirred by a strong breeze, flickered between silver and shadow.
She curled up beside Earl on their living room couch, her back to his front and half listening to his explanations as to why he'd been so late.
"I won't be a widow to out-of-hours political crap on a Saturday," she interrupted, having heard all she cared to. "Not for Jimmy, Peter Wyatt, or showing up doctors who can't cut it, understood?"
"Aye, aye, Captain." He slipped an arm around her and softly nuzzled her hair with the side of his face.
"I'm serious, Earl." She looked up at him. "There are others who deserve your time." She placed his hand on her rounded stomach.
He smiled and explored her pregnant curves with his palm.
His fingers released a craving that caught her by surprise. She felt her face flush.
He continued to caress her, very slowly, in ever widening circles.
She relaxed, first letting her body mold itself against his, then beginning to follow his movements with her hips.
"Do you think your passenger would mind?" he asked after a few more minutes, their gyrations becoming more urgent.
She arched her back and lifted her arms, slipping her hands behind his neck. "Just be gentle," she whispered in his ear, drawing him to her and setting him on fire.
He reached around to the lamp and turned it off, then began to unbutton her blouse.
Afterward, in the darkness, they held each other, and he felt the cool night air flow gently over them through the open windows. Savoring the rise and fall of her breathing against his chest, he thought of all the other times like this when he'd cherished the extraordinary blessings in his life- Janet, Brendan, and now a new son on the way- but always with a glance over his shoulder. He knew from a lifetime in ER how quickly joy and love could be snatched away by fate, bad luck, or raw malice. Working emergency had ingrained it in him. While he could recount victories, the defeats, like permanent toxins in human tissue, embedded themselves the deepest and stayed with him the longest.
"Hey, you have to trust life more," Janet had told him shortly after their first encounter sixteen years ago when she'd gotten her initial glimpse of his dark take on the brutal laws of chance. "For all the victims who end up in your ER, there's thousands more who make it safely home to bed. Besides, people like us, you and me, we'll make our own luck." Such unswerving optimism suited a woman who brought new life into the world for a living. It also counterbalanced his own daily workload of lives lost or torn apart.
Lately his tendency to think the worst had taken a new twist. Although he hadn't said anything to her yet, he worried about Janet giving birth at St. Paul's. Nobody had exposed the OB units to SARS, but it had happened in other hospitals. The culprits were usually residents who came from a ward where they'd unknowingly been around an infected patient who hadn't been diagnosed. The result was that newborns arrived only to be slapped into isolation. Only a matter of time, he kept telling himself whenever she went to work in her own department. But she knew that as well as he did, would be no less worried about it, and didn't need the extra pressure of hearing him lay it out.
He'd started to read up on home deliveries instead.
The breeze from outside picked up slightly, and he savored a sweet fragrance of nicotinia that wafted into the living room. It came from the front garden where she had planted an entire bed of the white, star-shaped flowers. Their pleasing, clean scent made him think of the lonely woman in Palliative Care who had confided how she loved the freshness in the air following a rainstorm. What was her name? Sadie Locke? Tomorrow, weather permitting, he'd have one of the orderlies take her out onto the roof garden in a wheelchair. Maybe maintenance could even spruce the area up a bit, perhaps bring in a few pallets of annuals. Janet would know what varieties might do well up there. Then patients who were strong enough could escape the walls and odors of the hospital.
He smiled and indulged in a rare moment of feeling pleased with himself. Why not? He seemed to have a knack for this VP, medical stuff. It gave him a rush of satisfaction, the prospect of having all that power and using it to do good things.
So there, Jimmy.
Sunday, 6:00 a.m.
Palliative Care Unit, St. Paul's Hospital
Monica Yablonsky dashed for the bedside phone. "Code blue!" she yelled, the standard order to bring a resuscitation team running to the aid of a cardiac arrest victim. "And I want the R-three in ICU or Emergency."
Not just a bunch of beginners, she added to herself, slamming down the receiver and reaching for the gray face with the staring eyes. It felt cold and rubbery. God knew when she'd died. Not recently. But with no DNR order on the chart, and given the stunt Earl Garnet had pulled last night, she'd better play this one by the book. Damn him, sticking his nose in where it didn't belong.