From where she stood, she could see the spirited Mrs. Kelly through the last pair of windows at the end of the ward. Unable to lift her head from the pillow, Mrs. Kelly gestured easily with her right hand as she talked to her grown daughter, a thin and obviously exhausted woman with drooping eyelids who nevertheless nodded repeatedly as she hung upon her mother’s every word.
“She’s good for her mother,” Rowan whispered. “Let her stay as long as she likes.”
The nurse nodded.
“I’m off till Monday, Laurel,” said Rowan. “I don’t know if I like this new schedule.”
The nurse gave a soft laugh. “You deserve the rest, Dr. Mayfair.”
“Do I?” Rowan murmured. “Dr. Simmons will call me if there’s a problem. You can always ask him to call me, Laurel. You understand?”
Rowan went out the double doors, letting them swish shut softly behind her. Yes, a good day it had been.
And there really was no excuse for staying here any longer, except to make a few notes in the private diary she kept in her office and to check her personal machine for calls. Maybe she would rest for a while on the leather couch. It was so much more luxurious, the office of the official Attending, than the cramped and shabby on-call rooms in which she’d dozed for years.
But she ought to go home, she knew it. Ought to let the shades of Graham and Ellie come and go as they pleased.
And what about Michael Curry? Why, she had forgotten again about Michael Curry, and now it was almost ten o’clock. She had to call Dr. Morris as soon as she, could.
Now don’t let your heart skip beats over Curry, she thought, as she took her time padding softly down the linoleumed hallway, choosing the cement stairway again rather than the elevator, and plotting a jagged route through the giant slumbering hospital that would take her only eventually to her office door.
But she was eager to hear what Morris had to say, eager for news of the only man in her life at this moment, a man she didn’t know and had not seen since that violent interlude of desperate effort and crazed, accidental accomplishment on the turbulent sea almost four months before …
She’d been in a near daze that night from exhaustion. A routine shift during the last month of her residency had yielded thirty-six hours of duty on call, during which she’d slept perhaps an hour. But that was fine until she’d spotted a drowned man in the water.
The Sweet Christine had been crawling through the rough ocean under the heavy, leaden sky, the wind roaring against the windows of the wheelhouse. No small-craft warnings mattered to this forty-foot twin-engined Dutch-built steel cruiser, her heavy full-displacement hull moving smoothly though slowly without the slightest rise through the choppy waves. She was, strictly speaking, too much for a singlehander. But Rowan had been operating her alone since she was sixteen.
Getting such a boat in and out of the dock is really the tricky part, where another crew member is required. And Rowan had her own channel, dug deep and wide, beside her home in Tiburon, and her own pier and her own slow and methodic system. Once the Sweet Christine had been backed out and turned towards San Francisco, one woman on the bridge who knew and understood all the boat’s complex electronic whistles and bells was really quite enough.
The Sweet Christine was built not for speed but for endurance. She was equipped that day as she always was, for a voyage around the world.
The overcast sky had been killing the daylight that May afternoon even when Rowan passed under the Golden Gate. By the time she was out of sight of it, the long twilight had faded completely.
Darkness was falling with a pure metallic monotony to it; the ocean was merging with the sky. And so cold it was that Rowan wore her woolen gloves and watch cap even in the wheelhouse, drinking cup after cup of steaming coffee, which never fazed her immense exhaustion. Her eyes were focused as always on the shifting sea.
Then came Michael Curry, that speck out there-could that possibly be a man?
On his face in the waves, his arms out loosely, hands floating near his head, and the black hair a mass against the shining gray water, the rest just clothes ballooning ever so slightly over the limp and shapeless form. A belted raincoat, brown heels. Dead-looking.
All that she could tell in those first few moments was that this was no decomposed corpse. Pale as the hands were, they were not waterlogged. He could have fallen overboard from some large vessel only moments before, or hours. The crucial thing was to signal “Pan Pan” immediately and to give her coordinates, and then to try to get him aboard.
As luck would have it the Coast Guard boats were miles from her location; the helicopter rescue teams were completely engaged. There were virtually no small craft in the area on account of the warnings. And the fog was rolling in. Assistance would come as soon as possible and no one could say when that was.
“I’m going to try to get him up out of the water,” she said. “I’m alone out here. Just get here as fast as you can.”
There was no need to tell them she was a doctor, or to remind them of what they already knew-in these cold waters, drowning victims could survive for incredibly long periods, because the drop in temperature slows the metabolism; the brain slumbers, demanding only a fraction of the usual oxygen and blood. The important thing was to bring him in and start resuscitation.
And that was the tough part because she had never done such a thing alone. She had the equipment for it, however, the harnesses connected to powerful nylon line running through the gasoline-driven winch on the top of the wheelhouse-in other words, sufficient means to get him on board if she could get to him, and that was where she might fail.
At once, she pulled on her rubber gloves and her life jacket, then fastened her own harness, and gathered up the second one for him. She checked the rigging, including the line connected to the dinghy, and found it secure; then she dropped the dinghy over the side of the Sweet Christine and headed down the swim ladder towards it, ignoring the tossing sea and the swaying of the ladder and the spray of the cold water in her face.
He was floating towards her as she paddled towards him; but the water was almost swamping the dinghy. For one second, she thought clearly: this is impossible. But she refused to give up. At last, nearly falling out of the small craft, she reached for his hand and caught it, and brought his body head first towards her. Now, how to get the damned harness properly around his chest.
Again the water nearly swamped the dinghy; she nearly flipped it herself. Then a wave lifted her and carried her over the man’s body. She lost his hand. She lost him. But he came bobbing up like a cork. She caught his left arm this time and forced the harness over his head and left shoulder, bringing the left arm through it. But it was crucial to get the right arm through as well. The harness had to be well on him if she was to pull him up, heavy as he was, with wet clothing.
And all the while, the diagnostic sense was working as she kept her eyes on the half-submerged face, as she felt the cold flesh of his outstretched hand. Yes, he’s in there, he can come back. Get him on deck.
One violent wave after another prevented her from doing anything, except holding onto him. Then finally she was able to grasp the right sleeve and tug the arm forward and through the harness, and at once she pulled the harness tight.
The dinghy capsized, pitching her into the sea with him. She swallowed water, then shot to the surface, the breath gone out of her as the freezing cold penetrated her clothes. How many minutes did she have at this temperature before she lost consciousness? But she had him harnessed to the boat now as surely as she was harnessed. If she could make it back to the swim ladder without passing out, she could reel him in. Letting his line go, she pulled herself in hand over hand, refusing to believe she could fail, the broad starboard side of the Sweet Christine a white blur disappearing and reappearing as the waves washed over her.