Harvest

also know there were papers. They came in this brown envelope.'

'I remember seeing it.'

'All right. Then we saw the same thing.'

'Where's the envelope now?'

'Hey, I was the one operating, OK? I'm up to my elbows in blood. I can't keep track of some goddamn envelope.'

'Why is there all this secrecy about the donor, anyway?We don't have records. We don't know his name.'

'That's standard procedure. Donor records are confidential. They're always kept separate from the recipient's chart. Otherwise you'd have families contacting each other. The donor side would expect undying gratitude, the recipient side would either resent it or feel guilty. It leads to one giant emotional mess.' He sank back in his chair. 'We're wasting time on this issue. It'll all be resolved in a few hours. So let's concentrate on the fever.'

'All right. But if there's any question about this, New England Organ Bank wants to discuss it with you.'

'How did NEOB get involved?'

'I called them. They have this twenty-four-hour line. I told them you or Archer would get back to them.'

'Archer can handle it. He'll be here any minute.'

'He's coming in?'

'He's worried about the fever. And we can't seem to get hold of Aaron. Have you paged him again?'

'Three times. No answer. Elaine told me he was driving in.'

'Well, I know he got here. I just saw his car down in the parking lot. Maybe he got busy on the medical floor.' Mark flipped through Nina Voss's chart to the order sheets. 'I'm going to move on this without him.'

Abby glanced towards NinaVoss's cubicle.The patient's eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling with the gentle rhythm of sleep. 'I'm starting antibiotics,' said Mark. 'Broad spectrum.'

'What infection are you treating?'

'I don't know. It's just a temporary bridge until the cultures come back. As immunosuppressed as she is, we can't take a chance she's infected somewhere.' In frustration, Mark rose from the chair and walked over to the cubicle window. He stood there a moment, staring in at NinaVoss. The sight of her seemed to calm him. Abby came to stand beside him. They were very close, almost touching each other, and yet separated by the gulf of this crisis. On the other side of the window, Nina Voss slept peacefully.

'It could be a drug reaction,' said Abby. 'She's on so many things. Any one of them could cause a fever.'

'That's a possibility. But not likely on steroids and cyclosporine.'

'I couldn't find any source of infection. Anywhere.'

'She's immunosuppressed. We miss something, she's dead.' He turned to pick up the chart. 'I'm starting the bug juice.'

At 6 a.m. the first dose of IV Azactam was dripping into Nina's vein. A STAT infectious disease consult was requested, and at seven-fifteen the consultant, Dr. Moore, arrived. He concurred with Mark's decision. A fever in an immunosuppressed patient was too dangerous to go untreated.

At eight o'clock, a second antibiotic, Piperacillin, was infused. By then Abby was making morning SICU rounds, her wheeled cart piled six-deep with charts. It had been a bad call night — just one hour of sleep before that 2 a.m. phone call, and not a moment's rest since then. Fuelled by two cups of coffee and a view of the end in sight, she pushed her cart along the row of cubicles, thinking: Four hours and I'm out of here. Only four more hours until noon. She passed by Bed 15, and she glanced through the cubicle window.

Nina was awake. She saw Abby and weakly managed a beckoning wave.

Abby left her charts by the door, donned an isolation gown, and stepped into the cubicle.

'Good morning, Dr. DiMatteo,' murmured Nina. 'I'm afraid you didn't get much sleep because of me.'

Abby smiled. 'That's OK. I slept last week. How are you feeling?'

'Like quite the centre of attention.' Nina glanced up at the bottle of IV antibiotics hanging over the bed. 'Is that the cure?'

'We hope so. You're getting a combination of Piperacillin and Azactam. Broad spectrum antibiotics. If you have an infection, that should take care of it.'

'And if this isn't an infection?'

'Then the fever won't respond. And we'll try something else.'

'So you don't really know what's causing this.'

Abby paused. 'No,' she admitted. 'We don't. It's more of an educated shot in the dark.'

Nina nodded. 'I thought you'd tell the truth. Dr. Archer wouldn't, you know. He was here this morning, and he kept telling me not to worry. That everything was taken care of. He never admitted he didn't know.' Nina gave a soft laugh, as though the fever, the antibiotics, all these tubes and machines were part of some whimsical illusion.

'I'm sure he didn't want to worry you,' said Abby.

'But the truth doesn't scare me. Really it doesn't. Doctors don't tell the truth often enough.' She looked straight at Abby. 'We both know that.'

Abby found her gaze shifting automatically to the monitors. She saw that all the lines tracing across the screen were in the normal ranges. Pulse. Blood pressure. Right atrial pressure. It was pure habit, that focus on the numbers. Machines didn't pose difficult questions, didn't expect painfully truthful answers.

She heard Nina say, softly: 'Victor.'

Abby turned. Only then, as she faced the doorway, did she realize Victor Voss had just stepped into the cubicle.

'Get out,' he said. 'Get out of my wife's room.'

'I was only checking on her.'

'I said, get out!' He took a step towards her and grabbed a handful of the isolation gown.

Reflexively Abby resisted, pulling free. The cubicle was so tiny there was no more room to back away, no space to retreat to.

He lunged at her. This time he caught hold of her arm with a grip that was meant to hurt.

'Victor, don't!' said Nina.

Abby gave a cry of pain as she was wrenched forward. He thrust her out of the cubicle. The force of his shove sent her backwards against the wheeled cart. She felt herself falling as the cart slid away. She landed hard on her buttocks. The cart, still rolling, slammed against a counter and charts thudded to the floor. Abby, stunned by the impact, looked up to see Victor Voss standing over her. He was breathing hard, not from exertion but from fury.

'Don't you go near my wife again,' he said. 'Do you hear me, doctor? Do you hear me?' Voss turned his gaze to the shocked personnel standing around the SICU. 'I don't want this woman near my wife. I want that written in the chart and posted on the door. I want it done now.' He gave Abby one last look of disgust, then he walked into his wife's cubicle and yanked the curtain across the window.

Two of the nurses hurried over to help Abby to her feet.

'I'm OK,' said Abby, waving them away. 'I'm fine.'

'He's crazy,' one of the nurses whispered. 'We should report him to security.'

'No, don't,' said Abby. 'Let's not make things worse.'

'But that was assault! You could press charges.'

'I just want to forget about it, OK?' Abby went over to the cart. Her charts were on the floor, loose pages and lab slips scattered everywhere. Face burning, she gathered up all the papers and set them back on the cart. By then she was fighting to hold back tears.

I can't cry, she thought. Not here. I won't cry. She looked up. Everyone was watching her.

She left the cart right where it was and walked out of the SICU. Mark found her three hours later, in the cafeteria. She was sitting at a corner table, hunched over a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin. The muffin had only one bite taken out of it, and the teabag had been left soaking so long the water was black as coffee.

Mark pulled out a chair across from her and sat down. 'Voss was the one who threw the tantrum, Abby. Not