Valerie frowned. 'Yes.'
'Were you also involved in the fertility program?'
Valerie stiffened, almost popping the needle out of place. 'You mean Dr. Fletcher's involved in fertility programs, too?'
A sinking feeling of embarrassment overcame the young technologist. His brown eyes glanced down at her arm. 'I'm sorry. I didn't know that you'd been... I mean, some people think it's strange for her to be working both sides of the street...' That's not right. 'I mean, I can understand her trying to maximize women's choices, no matter what they...' He taped the tubes to her arm, squeezed the blood bag a few times to distribute the anticoagulant, and let it hang below the cot.
'There,' he said with relief, grasping the sample vial in his suddenly sweaty hand. 'Just lie down, relax, and squeeze this every few seconds.' He handed her a rubber cylinder. 'I'll be back in a few minutes.'
He made for the water cooler at the far end of the room and took a stiff drink of Sparkletts. A candy striper noticed his flus-tered expression and wandered over to him.
'What's up, Mark?'
'Nothing,' he said quietly. 'I just have all the bedside man-ner of a meat packer.' He handed the blood sample to the technologist behind the counter, then quickly returned to Valerie's side.
Valerie squeezed and released, squeezed and released. It was the queasiest feeling to know that each contraction sent an extra squirt of blood into the bag. The plastic tube lay draped across her arm. It felt warm and sickening, like a snake that had slithered out of the desert sun to rest on her flesh. A wave of unease bordering on nausea washed over her when she dared to glance at where the tube of dark red blood disap-peared under white adhesive tape at the inside of her elbow.
Some people did this every six weeks. Her boss, Mr. Sewell, was a member of the Rare Blood Club and kept arranging bloodmobile visits for the office. She never donated. Now she knew why. Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release.
She reminded herself that this was for a little baby whose life was in far greater peril than hers. She thought about how strange it was that blood-something spilled so easily from cuts, in fights, in wars-could, if gathered carefully, be so valu-able to another.
Squeeze. Release. It really wasn't all that difficult.
After what seemed to be hours of uncomfortable silence, Landry said, 'There we go, that's enough.' He pressed the bag a couple of times, causing the tube along her arm to creep warmly across her flesh. It made her shudder.
'Do I keep squeezing?' she asked.
He shook his head, busying himself with removing the needle, putting a piece of cotton over the puncture, and fold-ing her arm back. 'Don't sit up. Just hold it like this and press,' he said. He took the bag over to the sealing unit, and stamped the blood-filled tubing at regular intervals to create almost a dozen sample blisters. He labeled the bag with stickers that read Directed Donation Baby Girl Renata Chandler, adhering a similar tear-away portion of the bar-coded sticker to Valerie's file. That done, he brought a cup of orange juice and two choco-late chip cookies to her.
'Here's the payoff.'
Valerie accepted them with a grateful smile.
'Just relax,' he told her. 'I have to deliver the lab results to Dr. Fletcher.' He gazed at her with a troubled expression, then rose and walked away.
Valerie wondered if something was wrong.
'
Landry found Dr. Fletcher in the infant intensive care unit. It looked like any other ICU except that the tubes and wires from all the equipment streamed into a clear bassinet not much larger than a bread box.
Evelyn stood beside the instruments, watching the beat of Renata's heart.
'When did you transfer to pediatrics, Doc?'
Fletcher looked up at the intruder. 'Mark, did you get the printout?'
'She's still O positive,' he said deadpan. 'HLA and serolo-gies will take until six o'clock and Debbie said you'll be lucky to get them that fast.' He handed her a manila folder. She opened it up to scan the contents. He took the
