Chapter 5
VICTORIA
Victoria smoothed her hair back, bundling the honey-gold waves into a thick ponytail at the nape of her neck.
With practiced fingers, she coiled the mass into a large chignon and pinned it in place.
A bit of water and a comb had any bold wisps tamed.
She turned her head from side to side, examining it closely in the large mirror in her gleaming, spotlessly clean bathroom.
She’d spent hours just last night scrubbing the floor tiles with a fresh new toothbrush. Why not? It wasn’t like she was sleeping.
It had been three days since she’d gotten up and walked out on Anna Monroe after recounting David Jennings’ disastrous surgery. Her memory of that hour was incredibly foggy. She had the nagging feeling that somehow, despite her carefully chosen words, she had revealed too much of something.
Neither Anna nor Elaine Martin had reached out to her to set up another appointment, which only fueled her paranoia. The silence was deafening, and they had to be plotting something. I said something. I gave something away. But what? What? What did I say? What could I have possibly said?
She had to shake this off. Today she had an extremely critical surgery scheduled, a full pneumonectomy.
The removal of an entire adult lung wasn’t a task Victoria took lightly.
She’d only done it a few times in her career, because it was rather a drastic step to take in one’s cancer journey.
It was a procedure that would radically affect her patient’s entire remaining life.
This patient, a middle-aged woman named Gina Cuthbert, was a marathon-running, sourdough-baking, fiery little dynamo of a home health nurse who just had the bad luck to contract lung cancer.
She was looking forward to getting back to her life as near to normal as she could manage it, and Victoria was determined to help her on that journey.
It was the biggest surgery she’d been allowed to schedule since the day she had frozen in the OR and Ashley had had to take over. Today was a day that could not go wrong.
What the fuck had she said to Anna Monroe?
Closing her eyes, Victoria took a long, deep breath in through her nose and held it, willing herself to set this one specific nagging fear aside.
“Now is not the time,” she said aloud, squeezing her eyes more tightly shut, her hands wrapping around the white porcelain rim of her sink. “Not now. Not today.”
Not ever, if she had her way about it. Victoria opened her eyes and pointed at her reflection. “Do not fuck this up, Victoria.”
She needed steady hands and a cool head today.
And her best armor. Clad only in a red La Perla bra and panty set, she pushed away from the sink and headed into her bedroom, making a beeline for the closet.
Her fingers flipped nimbly through the hangers, over plastic dry-cleaning bags that crinkled under her touch.
Today was a day for something tailored, for clean lines, sharp enough to cut.
A pair of black wool trousers she’d had specially tailored for a close fit at Knatchbull in London went on first, the side zip moving as though it had been buttered.
Then a Givenchy blouse, stark white and starched within an inch of its life.
It, too, had been tailored to nip in at her waistline, though she noticed that as Anna had pointed out the other day, all of her clothing was a touch too large now.
It spoiled the line, but there was nothing Victoria could do about it other than move on.
She tucked the blouse into the trousers and wrapped an extra-wide leather belt around her waist.
Hermès ankle boots went over thin cashmere socks, and then Victoria put on her jewelry.
Her jade pendant, and the delicate gold watch her mother had given her when she graduated from medical school.
She’d finally gone to a jeweler to have a few links removed, so now there was no risk she would lose it to a rogue handwave.
Victoria looked in her bedroom mirror. Smoothly polished perfection, there was no other way to put it. She looked sharp, cool, wholly inaccessible, an iceberg in human form. Woe betide any passing ship.
Armor complete, she picked up her bag and coat and strode confidently out to her car. Today was going to be an incredible day.
Ashley entered the scrub room as Victoria was really getting under her fingernails with a stiff brush. Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Hello. Haven’t you got a valve replacement in an hour?”
“I did…” Her friend looked deeply ill at ease as she joined her at the sinks. She was moving slowly to turn on the water, to pump soap into her hands. “Elaine asked me to hand it off and join you on this one.”
Victoria froze, the sound of the running taps roaring through her ears to join the roar that kicked off inside her brain. “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice robotic.
She did understand, though. She understood perfectly.
“This wasn’t my idea, Vic.” Ashley turned, and Victoria could see from the corner of her eye that her friend was trying to get her to look at her. “Victoria, please.”
“They really do think I’m cracking up.” The laugh that escaped her was short, bitter, a small explosion of fury. If she’d eaten anything that morning, she would have brought it up into the sink, so much acid was beginning to roil in her stomach. “Christ.”
“I’m here to support you, Vic.” Ashley’s voice sounded so far away. “That’s all. Please, look at me. Tell me you understand.”
She did understand. None of this was Ashley’s fault. In fact, Victoria hated that Elaine had put her friend in this position at all. That didn’t mean that Victoria could look at her without wanting to let the scream trapped in her chest burst out and bleed all over both of them.
All of the confident optimism she’d felt this morning was gone in a heartbeat, splattered on the tiles at her feet like the soap and water dripping from her hands.
Mechanically, Victoria resumed scrubbing, getting into each fold and knuckle of her fingers with concentrated precision.
Without another word to Ashley, she moved towards the scrub nurse holding up a gown for her to wear over her surgical scrubs, allowing the woman to wrap her in the gauzy blue material and tie the laces in the back.
A cap was tugged over her hair, gloves slid onto her immaculately clean hands.
Moving briskly, she strode towards the doors that would allow her into the sterile operating theater.
Only when she had turned her back to the doors, just before backing into them to enter the room, did she look at Ashley. Ashley was still soaping up her forearms, staring at Victoria with troubled brown eyes. Victoria forced a smile onto her face. “See you in there, Dr. Proctor.”
“See you,” Ashley replied quietly, her gaze never leaving Victoria as she bumped her way into the OR and began her last steps of mental preparation for Gina Cuthbert’s life-changing pneumonectomy.
She had things well in hand, at first.
Gina lay on her side before her, draped in blue surgical sheets and deep under her anesthetic. The room was quiet but for the beeps and hisses of the monitors and other machines. Victoria requested tools and gave instructions in a quiet, firm tone. She was pleased when her voice didn’t shake.
Her vision blurred very slightly a couple of times, and she felt exhaustion lurking behind her like a weighted blanket, ready to fall on her shoulders and take her down.
I must have a nap. Perhaps a protein shake.
She inhaled deeply, wrinkling her nose at the antiseptic smell that her paper mask couldn’t keep out. It seemed unusually sharp, today.
Carefully, methodically, she cut through skin, fat, and muscle to get to Gina’s ribcage.
“Rib spreader,” she requested, and felt the weight of it in her hand.
Step by step, she opened up her pathway to the damaged lung.
Step by step, she cut the airway and blood vessels, deflated the lung, withdrew it.
Her tools clattered against the metal basin held out by one of the nurses as she deposited the lung into it.
It was going well.
Then it came time to close.
At once, a rush of panicked memories crowded her mind and vision. Gina became Daniel became… no. Victoria pushed that memory away, deep back into the vault she kept it locked in. But she couldn’t stop thinking of Daniel, of how everything had gone so perfectly and then…
She froze, waiting for the alarms to burst into horrible shrieking life.
Around her, a murmur arose. Ashley, at her left, leaned over. “Vic?” she whispered low, a note of urgency in her voice.
She had to close Gina up. She knew this.
Or she could hand it over to one of the residents.
That was an option. This was a teaching hospital, that was part of teaching.
That would be a normal thing for her to do.
All right, I’ll do that. Victoria opened her mouth to call the nearest observing resident over to begin the closure process.
And then, “Yeah, she’s been off, lately.”
Victoria jerked her head around to fully face the resident who’d whispered. She couldn’t remember his name, he was some third year from Topeka who often got caught out saying the quiet parts out loud. He usually had the good grace to blush.
Not today. His gaze met hers, directly, challengingly. Victoria felt her own cheeks flush hot with anger. To hell with you. Abandoning the idea of handing off the closure, she held out a hand. “Sutures.”
Her hands trembled slightly with her anger as she stitched. She was grateful that only Ashley seemed to notice, and didn’t say anything. Gritting her teeth, Victoria got herself under control and finished up.