Chapter 24: The Oath

The donor heart arrived at 3:40 in the morning.

A courier carried it in a blue cooler, out of breath.

Norma took it from him herself.

"Cardiac OR, room two," she said. "Everyone in their places."

I scrubbed at the long steel sink with the water running hot.

Through the window of the scrub room I could see the patient on the table, the thirty-eight-year-old mother of two, already under.

Her husband was in the waiting room down the hall. He had been in it for four months, off and on.

Someone came in beside me and turned on the next tap.

It was Janelle.

She was back on probation, holding the retractor and nothing else.

I had not said I forgave her. I had said I would see her work.

"Dr. Falkland," she said now, to the sink.

"Dr. Penhall."

That was the whole conversation, and it was the right size.

In the operating room the lights were already on.

The team stood where they belonged.

The anesthesiologist, the two nurses and the perfusionist were at their stations.

Norma stood at the tray in her reading glasses.

The patient lay open to the light.

I took my place across from the monitor, and held up my gloved hands.

"One minute before we start," I said.

Nobody moved. They knew this part. I had been doing it for seven years.

"Her name is on the board. She has two children. Before I cut, I'd like each of us to say one promise out loud, to her."

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