money and no family support.'
'I'll get social services on her case as soon as possible.'
'You might consider a psych consult, too. She hasn't spoken a word to anyone since she heard about the baby.'
'I know. Thanks, Alma. That's an excellent suggestion.'
She moved over to the bedside. Lisa lay motionless, staring up at the ceiling. Her lips, still dotted by a few obstinate flecks of dried blood, were cracked and puffy. Her bandaged, shortened right arm protruded from beneath the starched sheet. As she talked, Sarah examined the site of the cesarean. Not once did Lisa respond.
'Hi, Lisa, welcome to the ICU… Are you having much pain?… Well, just be sure to tell the nurses if you do. You don't have to talk to me or anyone else until you're ready… I'll just say a few things for now, then I'll leave. The bleeding and clotting problems seem to be gone. That means no more transfusions…' Sarah looked for some spark of understanding in the woman's eyes but saw none. 'Lisa,' she went on finally, 'you know we all feel terrible about what's happened to you and…' She took a calming breath. '… and to Brian. We're going to do everything in the world to help you deal with all this, and to find out why it happened. Please try to be strong…'
Sarah waited half a minute for a response. Then she brushed Lisa's cheek with the back of her hand. 'I'll be back to check on you a little later.'
She turned away, thinking that somewhere there had to be an explanation for all of this. Two such similar cases in one hospital in just a few months. Somewhere there was an answer. And, she promised herself, whatever she had to do to find that answer, she would do.
She glanced back at the young artist lying in bay eight and tried, with little success, to fathom what it must be like to endure such sudden, inexplicable tragedy. Then she headed out of the SICU. There were forty-five minutes remaining before she was to meet Andrew, and she had a dozen patients to see on morning rounds.
'Where are you going?'
'Just out.'
'Just out has never been an acceptable answer to that question, and it is not an acceptable answer tonight.'
'Daddy, I'm eighteen years old. The other kids don't-'
'You are not like the other kids. You are not supposed to be like the other kids.'
'But-'
'You are an eighteen-year-old who plays polo, vacations in Europe, and will be attending Harvard in the fall and, most of all, who has a twenty-million-dollar trust fund waiting for her when she turns twenty-five. That is not like the other kids, and it never will be. Now, who were you going to see tonight?'
'Daddy, please…'
'Who? That… that greaseball, low-life Chuck you think likes you for your spirit and your soul? He was voted best-looking boy in his high school class, he expects to make it as a model and isn't even planning on going to college. Did you ever stop to wonder why such a boy would suddenly become attracted to a Stanhope Academy girl who not only has absolutely nothing in common with him but is forty pounds overweight to boot?'
'Daddy, stop. Please stop.'
'I will not. These are things you've got to hear. Things you've got to know. Your wonderful Chuckie is dirt. He spends almost every night when you're not sneaking off to be with him shacked up with a cheerleader named Marcie Kunkle. The pictures my man took of the happy couple are right upstairs in my desk. Would you like to see them?'
'You had someone follow him?'
'Of course I did. I'm your father. It's my job to protect you until you have enough sense and experience in the world to be able to protect yourself.'
'How could you?'
'Honey, listen. You know that I love you. That man is interested in one thing and one thing only. Money. That's the name of the game. And the sooner you learn that, the better. You are who you are. And the only way you're ever going to be sure a man really cares for you is when he has more money than you do.'
'You bastard.'
'Don't you dare speak to me like that!'
'You bastard! You fucking bastard! You ruin everything for me. Everything!.. Don't touch me… You touch me, and I swear you'll never see me again.'
'Go to your room.'
'Go to hell.'
'Come back here. Right now.'
'Go to hell… Let me go! I told you not to touch me! Dammit, let me go!.. I hate you!.. I hate you!'
'Lisa, wake up. It's the nurse. Lisa, you're all right. You've got to stop screaming… That's it. That's better now. Much better.'
Lisa Summer's eyes fluttered open. Everything was blurred. Gradually the concerned face of the nurse came into focus.
'You were having a nightmare,' Alma Young said. 'Anesthesia does that to some people.'
Lisa averted her eyes and once again stared at the ceiling.
'Can I get you anything? Some ice chips? Something for pain?… Okay. I'll be here if you need me.'
Alma Young partially closed the curtains on each side of the bed and returned to the nurses' station.
Behind her, softly, Lisa began to cry.
'Daddy,' she said. 'Oh, Daddy.'
CHAPTER 7
Sarah bought a sticky bun and coffee and took them to the corner of the expansive cafeteria reserved for physicians. Two staff internists were chatting at one Formica-topped table, but the other four tables were unoccupied-no surprise, given that this was the busiest time of day in the hospital. Andrew was already five minutes late, but Sarah had long ago learned that most surgeons showed up late for everything, assuming they showed up at all.
She had been able to make rounds on three of her patients, one of whom had already heard about her performance the previous day. And as Alma Young had predicted, her dramatic and successful use of nontraditional therapy did seem to be the talk of the hospital. In the few minutes she'd spent on the OB/Gyn floor, she had gotten calls from the director of medical education asking her to present grand rounds and from Glenn Paris's secretary, requesting that she stop by his office later in the afternoon. Nurses shook her hand or pumped their fists as she came by, and the chief resident on the OB/Gyn service asked her to lunch so that he might hear the details of the 'save' firsthand.
Just as Sarah was wondering whether it would be gauche to sit somewhere other than with the two internists, they gathered their things and stood up. One of them, a scholarly endocrinologist named Wittenberg, came over and shook her hand.
'George Wittenberg,' he said.
'I know. We met at Glenn Paris's reception last year. Calcium metabolism and parathyroid disease, yes?'
'You have an excellent memory.'
'I read some of your papers for a research project when I was in medical school. They were very interesting.'
'Why, thank you. I came over to congratulate you, but I'll take the compliment just the same. From what I hear, you pulled off a miracle yesterday.'
'Lisa had a number of people working on her. What I did was only one of the reasons she made it.'
Sarah felt relieved that she sensed only a passing urge to point out the negative aspects of the
