Chapter 9: Operating Room Six

Dolores opened the roof door at 6:12 in the morning with a tray cart and a flat look.

"I got a text from the Chief of Surgery," she said, "that said, and I'm quoting, 'Help.'"

"We were admiring the sunrise," said Kurt.

"In your socks?"

I looked down.

I had lost a clog somewhere between the rail and the door.

"It's a long story," I said.

"I'm sure it's a beautiful one." She held out two of her own badges on lanyards. "Put these on. You're delivering breakfast trays."

"Dolores..."

"I have seen both of you do stranger things in the last two weeks than carry a tray."

We rode down in the service elevator behind a stack of oatmeal and Jell-O.

Kurt stood at one end with a tray of toast, wearing a lanyard that said NURSING ASSISTANT, and I had to look at the floor.

Two nights later we got a quiet one.

The last case of the evening ended at ten, an appendix on a man who snored through the whole thing.

By eleven the floor was empty, the scrub nurses were gone, and the cleaning crew had not yet started.

Kurt stood at the sink in OR 6, taking off his mask.

I leaned in the doorway.

"You know that nobody uses this room after nine," I said.

"I know."

"Dolores says the crew does the corridor first. Twenty minutes before they get to the doors."

"Dolores says a lot of things."

"She's been right so far."

Half the overhead lights were on, a warm, dim, golden half-light over the empty table.

The big surgical lamp hung dark and heavy over the middle of the room.

There was a single rolling stool by the table.

I walked over, took hold of his shirt front, and pulled him with me.

He came without a word.

"Sit," I said.

He looked down at the stool, and then at me.

"Fairweather."

"Sit down, Chief."

His brows rose, but he sat.

The stool creaked and rolled back an inch under his weight.

He looked up at me with his big hands on his knees, waiting.