Chapter Thirty-Eight

Trapper stood at the nurse’s station laughing with Ernie and Gloria about the fishing trip when they heard him paged, “Dr. McIntyre call pediatrics. Dr. McIntyre call pediatrics.”

Ernie dialed and handed the receiver to Trapper. “This is Dr. McIntyre. I was paged. Damn!” he swore under his breath. Trapper handed the receiver back to Ernie and turned toward the elevator.

“Who is it?” asked Gloria.

“It’s the Sanchez girl,” he said when he turned around after stepping into the elevator.

When he arrived in pediatrics, a nurse directed him straight to Maria’s room where her mother and father stood in a corner, obviously upset. Dr. Davies was already there examining the child. “Trapper, feel this,” he said, referring to her abdomen. As Trapper palpated her abdomen, Dr. Davies continued. “When the nurse came in, her temperature was already elevated, so this started between about eleven last night and around five this morning.”

Feeling the rigidity, Trapper responded, “We can’t wait. She’s got urine spilling into her abdomen, and if we don’t get in there and stop it, we’ll be dealing with sepsis.”

“I’ll get it scheduled on an emergency basis,” said Dr. Davies.

Turning to leave, Trapper said, “I’ll go change. Call Ernie and let her know which OR.”

Howard nodded, and turned to Maria’s parents for their consent.

As Trapper came out of his private bathroom wearing his scrubs, Ernie walked into his office. “Dr. Davies called. He’s having trouble getting Maria’s surgery scheduled because it’s a restricted surgery.”

“True. We don’t do oophorectomies on a six-year-olds. Tell him to call Arnold to approve it.”

“Arnold is on a yacht somewhere in the Pacific Ocean with a group of his cronies.”

“Well, can we contact him?”

“His secretary is trying, but so far, no luck.”

“Tell Howard to send someone to all the departments to get what he needs.”

“The department’s procedures don’t allow them to accept anything anymore without the proper authorization codes. I’m sure you can go to all of them, but that could take hours, Trapper.”

Grabbing his receiver, he dialed Mark Hansen’s extension. “Mark. Dr. McIntyre. I need your help.”

“You need my help,” said Mark contemptuously.

Hearing the disdain in Mark’s voice, Trapper breathed in heavily through his nose. “Your system is preventing us from saving a little girl’s life. Knock that chip off your shoulder and get your ass up here. Now!” He slammed the phone down and glared toward Ernie.

Ernie turned to leave. “Remember, Trapper. You catch more flies with honey.”

Mark was there in a matter of minutes. “Mark, I don’t have time for chest-thumping over a woman. Right now, I have a little girl who is going to die soon if we can’t get her into surgery. It’s a restricted surgery, and Slocum isn’t available to authorize it, so I need you to tell me how to get around your system.”

Glowering for a moment, Mark decided that, indeed, a child’s life was more important right now than his dislike for one of Leah’s surgeons. “Let me think for a minute.” Pacing back and forth in front of Trapper’s desk, he thought aloud. “I have access to Slocum’s authorization codes. But it has to be accompanied by his ID, and I don’t have his password and his passkey. I could reset his password, but I have no way of knowing his passkey. So what in the system triggers a surgery restriction? An edit between the surgery codes and the patient’s age. Can’t change the codes, but can I change the age? The age comes from the eligibility files from the fed or the insurance company and gets stored on the database. The upload occurs every night…” he raised his head and went to Trapper’s computer, sitting in Trapper’s chair.

Trapper had watched and listened as Mark went through his thought process; a process that seemed logical and productive to Trapper, so he didn’t interrupt. Now he stood behind Mark, watching over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I think if I can edit the age in the database and resubmit the request, it will bypass the surgical restriction logic. It’s not working though. It won’t let me change the date of birth to something older.” He stopped and thought again. “I can’t space it out, because it’s a numeric field. But…we have zeros on the database now for patients who have just been entered, but haven’t been in the system long enough to retrieve the eligibility in the nightly batch cycle. Trapper watched him enter zeros in the date of birth field, and resubmit the request. Forgetting his anger at Trapper for a moment, he turned wearing a triumphant smile. “It worked. It’s scheduled.”

Trapper squeezed both of Mark’s shoulders and said, “Good work, Mark,” before he flew out of his office.

***

Reaching over for the flowers and bottle of wine in the passenger seat, Trapper checked himself in the rearview mirror of his car, stepped out and straightened his jacket. When Leah opened her apartment door at his knock, he was standing there cradling the bottle of wine in one arm, the flowers in his other arm, wearing one of the most charming smiles she had seen on him, and looking every bit the dashing, handsome Chief of Surgery of a major San Francisco hospital.

“Good evening, Dr. McIntyre. Won’t you come in?”

“Formality?”

“You’re the one wearing a suit jacket.”

“These are for you,” he said with a dimpled grin, handing her the flowers. “Where can I put my jacket?”

Heading for the kitchen to retrieve a vase, she said over her shoulder, “Hang it in the closet by the door.”

She watched him remove the jacket as she arranged the flowers in the vase on the kitchen counter, admiring how he looked in his light blue, knit, v-neck shirt and gray slacks. The shirt clung to him, showing the muscle definition in his arms and chest and more of his tanned skin than she had previously seen. Smiling, she made herself blush at her next thought; how fit he looked for a fifty-one year old man.

He went into the kitchen and kissed her cheek. “Where’s your corkscrew?”

“Top drawer next to the frig,” she said as she took the flowers to the table on the patio.

Looking across the cabinet as she turned on a stove burner and poured olive oil into a pan, he saw she had onion already julienned next to raw spinach and some kind of lightly floured meat sliced into strips. A pan was already simmering on a back burner, and when he brought her a glass of wine, he peeked over and found new potatoes boiling in the pot. “I see you have lots of iron here, but what’s this?” he asked, pointing to the meat.

“Calves liver. I hope you like liver. I didn’t think to ask.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” he said with a tentative smile.

With wide eyes, she said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I can fix something else.”

But when she started to take the pan off the burner, he put a hand on her arm and stopped her, smiling. “I’m willing to try it. I don’t believe I’ve ever had liver prepared this way. Besides that, with the amount of iron in liver, it’s just what the doctor ordered.” He edged closer. “Ah…listen. I don’t mean to be indelicate, especially while you’re cooking dinner, but are you having any other…problems…since you’ve been getting more iron?”

She chuckled quietly while moving the onions to the pan. “I won’t be embarrassed if you won’t. Yes, earlier in the week. But I started drinking more water and that seems to have done the trick.”

“Good. Now, what are you doing this weekend?”

“Well, I thought I’d look for another car. I’m going to sell the Mustang.”

Setting his wine glass on the counter, he took the spatula she was using to stir the onions out of her hand, then took both hands in his and turned her to face him. “Are you sure you want to do that? Besides being John’s baby, that car…” he chuckled and shook his head, “…is a really nice car.”

She turned up the corner of her mouth. “You interested?”

Looking away for a moment, he wore an engrossed smile and a furrowed brow as he entertained the idea, but laughed as he shook his head. “No. Maybe when I was younger, but not now.”

“Oh, come on. It is fun to drive.”

“I have a motorcycle when I want to have that kind of fun.”

She huffed and turned back to her pan. “What was that remark about being younger?”

Changing the subject, he said, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go with you to look at cars…” Stepping behind her, moving his arms under hers and clasping his hands in front, he finished, “…if you’ll accompany me to the symphony Saturday evening.” Propping his chin on her shoulder, he cocked his head so he could see her face from the side. “You’re eyes are smiling. Does that mean ‘yes’?”

***

Leaning with his arm on the half-wall of the deck, Trapper watched as Leah looked up to the night sky. “That was the best liver I’ve ever had.”

She snorted. “I would be inclined to think you were lying if you hadn’t had seconds.” She turned to face him. “Thank you. Thank you for the whole week. I just hope it works.” Closing her eyes, she said, “I would love to hear Dr. Gates tell me I could go back to work on Monday.”

“Do you feel any different?”

She nodded. “Oh yes. I’m not as tired, and I’m not dragging myself to bed at nine o’clock at night.”

“That’s good. The symphony doesn’t end their performance until around ten.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and this time Leah closed the gap, stepping closer, but not stepping into him. He moved his hand around her waist and drew her the rest of the way in. Studying her eyes; eyes that didn’t move away, he couldn’t find the reluctance he had seen before, but rather cautious acceptance.

As if reading his thoughts, she leaned against him. “It’s not that I don’t think about John when we’re close. I do in a sad sort of way. But I don’t feel guilty anymore. I don’t feel like I’m cheating.”

Moving closer, so that his nose was beside hers, he gave her a small kiss. When he felt her hands move up his arms, he kissed her lightly again, and again, staying close, waiting for her to grant him access, and when she did, he took full advantage.