18. Beau
The ICU called for her.
A nurse — not Dr. Reyes, a nurse with kind eyes and a clipboard — came to the door of the lounge and said her name. Sabrina was up before the nurse had finished saying it. She was halfway to the door before I'd let her go.
I followed her and walked her through the corridor to the cardiac unit's doors. The doors had a sign on them that said ONLY AUTHORIZED FAMILY ESCORT BEYOND THIS POINT. The nurse stopped at the doors.
Sabrina didn't stop.
She turned at the threshold and looked at me. She’d been crying for an hour.
"Stay, please," she requested.
"I'm not going anywhere," I assured her.
She nodded and went through the doors.
I went back to the lounge.
Mrs. Park was in the chair across from the couch. She had her phone in her hands. She was scrolling so her hands had something to do.
I sat down on the couch.
I couldn’t sit still. I managed ten minutes, stood up, then sat again.
Mrs. Park looked up at me once. "Beau."
"Yeah?"
"You aren't going to throw up, right?”
"No."
"Drink water." She handed me a bottle from her bag.
I drank it. The water was room temperature and tasted like the bottle.
I sat for a long time. I decided for an hour.
Then I wasn't deciding anymore. I'd already decided — on Sabrina's chest in the dark, in my office with my thumb hovering over Aldridge's name, in the car this morning, at my desk, again and again. I just hadn't made the call.
Sabrina was through the doors with a child whose body was making the decision for me.
Mrs. Park's phone rang.
She answered. It was her sister. She got up to take the call. She walked to the corner of the lounge, put her free hand over her other ear, and started to talk in a voice I couldn't understand.
It gave me the idea to make the call too, so I stood up, left the lounge, and went down the corridor.
I came out at the parking garage and pulled my phone out of my pocket.
I scrolled to Aldridge and called her.
It rang three times.
"Hello?"
"Aldridge. It is Beau Cross."
"Mr. Cross."
She said the name with recognition. She hadn't been expecting the call, but she had also, in the saying, not been entirely surprised.
"I'm sorry to call this late."
"It isn't that late."
"I'm at Memorial. I'm invoking the chairman's discretionary review. Tonight."
She paused before answering.
"Alright."
"Bonnie Vela. V-E-L-A. On the cardiac queue for fourteen months.
Dr. Reyes is the cardiologist. There is correspondence from him in the committee inbox dated last week that hasn't been read.
He is filing additional correspondence tonight — she had a seizure on the rhythm an hour ago. She is in the ICU as we speak."
"Mr. Cross — "
"There is a slot in nine days at Memorial. Septal myectomy with Garrison."
"Yes."
"I want her in it."
A pause.
"That slot is occupied, Mr. Cross."
"I know."
A longer pause.
"Mr. Cross."
"Move them, Aldridge. I'll sign whatever paperwork you need. Discretionary review form, medical justification, all of it. It’ll be on your desk by noon. I'll be in the office in the morning."
She went silent for a second. Then responded: "Yes, sir."
She held the line for half a second longer than she had needed to.
I hung up.
I'd done it.
I didn’t know whose slot I'd just taken.
It could be an eight-year-old, a sixty-eight-year-old, a mother of three, or somebody who had been on a list for fourteen months, twenty months, or longer, and who had been bumped tonight by a phone call from a chairman who hadn't opened the database to see who they were.
I put my phone in my pocket and breathed. I wasn’t going to throw up.
I could do this. Walk back into the building. Sit in the lounge until Sabrina came out. Hold her in my arms. I wasn’t going to tell her. Not ever.
I stood up and went back inside.
Mrs. Park was already in the family lounge. The lounge clock was a digital clock above the door. It changed the numbers without me noticing.
I sat on the couch for a long time.
Sabrina came out at midnight.
Her eyes were red, her hair was loose, and her hand was on the doorframe like she needed the doorframe to be standing up. She was wearing my coat. She had taken my coat at some point in the last hour, but I hadn't noticed.
I stood up, and she walked to me.
I held her.
"Mrs. Park is staying."
"Yeah."
"She has the chair. I can't do another night in a chair, Beau. I can't."
"I know."
"She is sedated. They have her on the monitor. Dr. Reyes is — he’s going to be in by morning."
"Let’s go home for a while."
She nodded.
Mrs. Park walked us to the elevator. She had her hand on Sabrina's back. She had her other hand briefly, deliberately, on mine.
"Get her home, Beau. She needs to lie down."
"I'll get her home."
The elevator came.
I called a cab and walked her to it. I opened the passenger door. She sat. I closed the door and got in.
The late traffic had already come and gone, and there were no other cars.
Sabrina leaned her head against the window. The lights changed. The blocks went by.
"I'm scared, Beau."
"I know."
"I'm so scared."
I held her hands, and it was trembling. "Sabrina, it is going to be okay."
She turned her head, opened her eyes, and looked at me.
"Beau. Don't say things like that. You don't know."
I looked at the road.
"I know."