“Okay!” I call back, then make a break for the elevator and try to tell myself that the flush in my cheeks is all exertion.
My patient is not yet prepped when I burst into the cath lab control room.
“Oops,” Pamela says. She’s dressed like me in scrubs except for a face that looks like it’s been given the star treatment in a makeup artist’s chair. “Probably could’ve given you a bit more time. Just didn’t want us to leave the patient waiting.”
She’s right, of course. If she applied that principle more evenly, I probably wouldn’t resent her for it, but I know she wouldn’t dare call Krause a second before he was needed. Sighing, I collapse onto a chair and log on to a computer, taking a long draw of my ill-gotten coffee.
“Who’s on call again today?” I ask. “Because it better not be me.”
“Pendersen,” she says.
“Brandon?” I repeat, stunned. “Isn’t he on his honeymoon?”
Pamela screws up her mouth like she’s hiding a secret. Which, well, she probably is. She’s a veritable vault of cath lab secrets, if a vault could be reliably cracked opened with two tequila sunrises and five minutes of hopeful nudging.
“He canceled it,” she says. “And he signed up for, like, all themoonlighting slots this month. Methinks wife number two is a littleexpensive.”
I pull up the schedule, and lo and behold, there he is: B. Pendersen, signed up for half the shifts. Between clinic, his intensive care blocks, and lab days, he’s left himself three days off this month.
“He’s going to die,” I mutter, just as the door to the control room opens and Brandon storms in.
He looks harried. Whatever glow he had in the ballroom of Edison Mansion is gone, replaced by the gray, wan expression he’d worn during much of his divorce proceedings.
“Where is my patient?” he says to Larry, the nurse manning Cath Lab 2. It’s a tone that would earn me serious side-eye and a feature in the group chat as the bitch of the week, but Larry looks up at Brandon, nonplussed.
“Still in preop,” Larry supplies. “Ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” Brandon says. He makes a show of looking at the board. “It says up there that this case was supposed to start at seven thirty. It’s eight fifteen. What’s wrong with the picture here?”
Pamela turns to give me a look, both perfectly shaped eyebrows arched high. There’s a loud screech; Larry, scooting back in his chair. He’s been working in the cath lab since Brandon first learned his ABCs and is known to take very little shit.
“Things run late sometimes,” he drawls, with the patience of a saint. “Don’t know what to tell you.”
Whatever bluster Brandon had been sporting seconds ago blows out. He scratches the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish.
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s been a long week.”
“I was about to ask whether we needed to go get you a Snickers bar,” Larry huffs. “Coming in here like a diva.”
“Just trying to see what I can get away with,” Brandon quips.
They both laugh, and the cath lab warms back up to its normal temperature. I turn back to my computer screen, pulling up my patient’s chart to prepare for my next case. I’m so immersed that I don’t notice the presence behind me until I hear someone clear his throat.
“Thanks for making it out Saturday, Sean,” Brandon says. He looks a bit hopeful, a bit guarded, and I refrain from rolling my eyes. “And for taking care of Sophie. I really appreciated it.”
“Don’t mention it,” I say. I turn back to my computer screen, scrolling through the results of my patient’s last stress test. Behind me, Brandon doesn’t budge.
“And for getting her home after,” he continues. Then after a pause, “How’s, um, Winny doing?”
My fingers still over my keyboard. I want to snatch Winona’s name out of his mouth, cut out his tongue like a vengeful medieval king might his impudent subject.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s the mother of your child. You talk every week.” I push away from my desk and make to stand. I can practically feel Pamela’s drama-seeking antennas extend toward us with interest.
“O-Of course,” Brandon stammers, and I tamp down the part of me that still sympathizes with him. He’s always been like this: capable of feeling shame, but also of blowing through the discomfort of it to get exactly what he wants and then expecting absolution afterward. Maybe if circumstances had been different. If he’d gone about things the proper way—informed Winona that he was developing feelings for someone else, moved out, done the administrative work of filing for divorce—I could have given it to him. As it stands, the most I can offer him is tolerance.
I peek through the window that separates the control room from my cath lab. My patient is ready. Stepping around Brandon, I strap on my lead skirt and apron, then step outside to wash my hands.
Our late start means that I work through lunch, which would be more tolerable if I’d remembered to eat breakfast this morning; I make it through all my morning cases on nothing but Julian’s coffee and two of the donut holes Larry brought in from the shop next to his house. I feel like Superwoman. I am also in grave danger of passing out.