room and, seeing the couple together, turned around and walked out again. In minutes, he straightened up, wiping his face with his holey shirt.
“I’m going to tear that shirt up and make rags out of it,” Alison said, and he sputtered, laughing.
“I could have changed it, I guess.”
“No, I’m glad you didn’t. It gave me something to focus on.”
The nurse returned with the bag of packed cells. “You’re going to get two of these bad boys, but they’ll go in fast, about an hour apiece, so you’ll be outta here in no time.”
“Wonderful,” she said, lying back again. “All I want to do is go home.”
After she left, Alison addressed her concerns. “If I don’t have the baby until Thursday, that’s three wasted days I can be here, working.”
“Alison, no way.”
“I’ll ask Beth, but there’s no reason I can’t work, is there? I worked yesterday. Work isn’t making me bleed. Work’s not hurting the baby. As long as my hemoglobin is normal, the baby will be fine.”
“What’s your hurry? Stay home and chill for once.”
“I don’t want to screw up my residency, and as long as I’m not risking my health, I’m going to work. I just thought you should know so that when Monday morning rolls around, you don’t try to pull any shutting the alarm off bull crap.”
“Who, me? I’d never do that,” he said sheepishly.
While she waited for the units to infuse, she called the mothers back again to announce the plan: she’d be having the baby on Thursday.
But Lisa had the answer to that. She quickly called Roberta.
“Do you think you can get a baby shower together by tomorrow?”
Chapter 11
The excitement in the room paralleled nothing Rich had ever experienced, not even Mike’s birth, although he’d never admit that to anyone. Two sets of grandparents were waiting near the scrub sinks outside the room where Alison’s C-section was taking place. They had asked Barry to give her anesthesia. In spite of her misery and the horrible nausea from the epidural—“I’ll take my chances and have general for the next birth”—Alison glowed.
After little Lisa Suzette Saint-Mortimer was delivered, shouts of joy echoed through the room. Dr. Collins held her up for the parents looking in the window to get a glimpse before holding her over the drapes so Alison could see how good she looked.
“Definitely a nine Apgar,” Beth said. “She’d be a ten, but those feet are still a little blue. Good job, mother!”
Alison closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. Another bag of packed cells infused, and Barry Lemon adjusted the oxygen canula in her nose while Rich stayed with the baby as she got her once-over from the pediatrician, who was Alison’s cousin Joey’s wife, Candy Saint. Listening to the dictation about the perfect baby, Rich didn’t even notice Charlie Baker enter the room. Pulling up a step stool, he stood over Beth’s shoulder as she examined Alison’s uterus.
“Take a piece of that and send it for a frozen section,” Charlie said, pointing, concerned. “She’s here now, with her belly open, there’s no point in putting her through this again if it comes back positive.”
“She didn’t sign for a hysterectomy, Charlie,” Beth said. “You’d better talk to her husband.”
“We talked to her though. I know I did. I told her that if a gross exam done at the time of the delivery showed a progression of disease, we should do a hysterectomy at that time.”
“Go talk to Rich,” Beth said. “You can’t do it without consent.”
They glanced over at the father animatedly chatting with Candy. Charlie got down from the stool and approached Rich.
“You know why I’m here, right?” he asked.
“No. What’d she find?”
Quickly losing the euphoria, Rich looked up at the OR scene: his wife lying on a table, covered with blue paper drapes, surrounded by a variety of surgeons and residents.
“It looks like the cancer has grown up into her uterus. We’re sending a specimen to pathology. Somehow, getting lost in the chaos, Alison didn’t sign a consent for a hysterectomy. You can give the consent if you will.”
“Ah, no. I don’t think so,” he said, anger mounting. “You obviously don’t know my wife. That isn’t a decision I would ever make for her. And that’s fucked up that one of you didn’t think to get a consent for more surgery if it was necessary. I should report your resident.”
“I’m truly sorry that happened,” Charlie said sincerely. “We’ll wait of course, but it will only make it more difficult for Alison.”
“Save it. It’s your