Stepping-Stone for Mia novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Offer

The obstetrics department held its morbidity and mortality conference on the second Thursday of the month.

It started at seven a.m., in the big lecture hall on two.

In April, the case was Kelly Beal.

And I was summoned to attend.

The email came from Bennett's office.

Dr. S. Harwood is requested to be present to answer questions from the department.

A temporary visitor badge would be waiting at the front desk.

"He wants to make you stand there while he presents it," Tim said. "In front of everybody."

"I know."

"You don't have to go."

"If I don't go, he presents it anyway, and I'm the resident who hid."

I went.

The hall held about a hundred and fifty. It was full.

The residents filled the middle rows, and the attendings sat down front.

The night nurse sat in the very back, in her coat, with her tote bag on her lap.

I came in through the side door with VISITOR stuck to my blouse.

Every head turned.

I sat in the second row, on the aisle, where everyone could see me.

I made sure my hands were steady.

Mia was three rows back, on the far side, in a pink scrub top, next to her fiancé. She didn't look at me.

Tim came in at six fifty-nine, still in his OR cap.

He sat in the front row, directly across the aisle from Bennett's podium.

Bennett presented the case himself.

He was good at it. He'd always been good at it.

He put up the timeline and the hemorrhage protocol in neat bullet points.

Then a slide that said Communication Failure, with the pager log on it.

Six pages. All to my number.

"The covering resident did not respond," Bennett said, "until the nurse escalated directly to the operating room at one forty-nine."

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