lost guy with dementia?” the dispatcher asked.
“Negative, we got Sully from the store. Chest pains, diaphoretic, BP 190 over 120, pulse rapid and thready. His daughter is with us. Dr. Maggie Sullivan. She wants us to draw an epi and administer nitro. She stuck an aspirin in his mouth.”
“Is he conscious?”
“I’m conscious,” Sully whispered. “Maggie. I ain’t quite ready.”
“Easy, Dad, easy. I’m right here for you,” Maggie said. “Let’s start some Ringer’s, TKO.”
“Not you,” Sully said. “You’re shaking!”
“You want me to do it, Sully?” the young EMT asked.
“Better you than her. Look at her.” Then he moaned.
“We need morphine,” Maggie said. “Get an order for the morphine and ask for airlift to Denver. We have to transport to Denver stat. Gimme that IV setup.”
She got the IV started immediately, so fast the EMT said, “Wow!”
A few years ago Walter, her stepfather, had suffered a small stroke. Stroke. That was her territory and she handled him with calm and ease. He was treated immediately, the recovery was swift, his disability minor and addressed in physical therapy in a matter of weeks. A textbook case.
This felt entirely different.
“Gimme your cell phone,” she said to the EMT. She didn’t have hers, of course, because it was back at Sully’s in her purse. The young man handed it over without question and she called Municipal Hospital. “This is Dr. Maggie Sullivan. I’m in an ambulance with my father, en route to you. I don’t have my cell. Can you connect me with Dr. Rob Hollis? It’s an emergency. Thank you.”
It took only a moment. “What have you got, Maggie?” her friend Rob asked.
“My dad—seventy-year-old male,” she said, running through his symptoms. “The EMT is running an EKG and we can send it.” She looked at the EMT. “We can send it, right?”
“Right.”
“If we get medical airlift from Timberlake, we’ll be there in no time. Will you meet me?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Try to stay calm.”
“I’m good,” she said.
“She’s a wreck,” Sully muttered. “Airlift. Gonna cost a goddamn fortune.”
“I gave him nitro, oxygen and morphine. He seems to be comfortable. EKG coming to the ER for you.”
It was not like this with Walter. With Walter, whom she’d become close to once she’d passed through adolescence, she was able to be a physician—objective, cool, confident. With Sully, she was a daughter clinging to her medical training with an internal fear that if anything terrible happened to him she would be forever lost.
Sully was not experiencing terrible pain once the morphine kicked in; his breathing was slightly labored and his blood pressure remained high. Maggie watched over him through the transfer into a medical transport helicopter and stayed with him while he was taken into the emergency room where Dr. Hollis waited.
“Jesus, Maggie,” Rob said, his stethoscope going immediately to Sully’s chest. “Nothing like making an entrance.”
“Who are you?” Sully asked.
“Rob Hollis, cardiac surgeon. And you must be Sully.” He picked up a section of the EKG tape, glancing at it almost casually. “We’re going to run a few tests, draw some blood, bring down that blood pressure if possible and then, very probably, depending on the test results, go to the OR and perform a bypass surgery. Do you know what that is?”
“Sure I do,” Sully said, his voice tired and soft. “I’m the last one on my block to get one.”
“Maggie, this is going to take a while even though we’ll push it through with stat orders. Maybe you should go to the doctor’s lounge and rest.”
“She should go grab a beer and find a poker game but she don’t need no rest,” Sully said. “She’s plenty rested.”
“I’ll stay with my dad,” she said. “I’ll keep out of your way.”
“You’re going to be bored,” Rob said.
Not as long as he’s breathing, she thought. “I’ll manage.”
* * *
Maggie knew almost everyone in the hospital, in the ER and the OR. Because of her stature as a surgeon, she was given many updates on the tests, the results, the surgery. She even thought to ask one of her friends, an operating room charge nurse, for the loan of her car once Sully was out of recovery, out of danger, and resting comfortably in the coronary care unit. Here she was in Denver with no vehicle, no purse, credit cards, phone, nothing, but there was a spare key to her house under the flowerpot on the back patio and she could write a counter check at her bank for cash. There might even be a duplicate or extra credit or debit card she didn’t keep in her purse. In her closet there would be something to wear. In fact, there were drawers full of scrubs, if it came to that.
She wasn’t bored and she’d had plenty of sleep before Sully’s medical emergency, but by the time she stood at his bedside in the CCU at five in the morning she was so exhausted she could hardly stand up. She had the wiggles from too much caffeine, looked like bloody hell and hadn’t had a shower since leaving Denver for Sullivan’s Crossing. It reminded her of some of those days in residency when she stayed at the hospital for over forty-eight hours with only a catnap here and there. This time it was all stress.
She went home in her borrowed car to freshen up. She located an old wallet and purse, found a credit card she didn’t often use in her file cabinet and was back at the hospital by eight. By nine they were rousing Sully.
“Maggie, you gotta get me out of here,” he rasped. “They won’t leave me alone.”
“There’s nothing you can do but be your charming self,” she said.
“They got some breathing thing they force on me every hour,” he complained. “And I’m starving to death. And it feels like they opened my chest with a Black & Decker saw.”
“I’ll ask for more pain meds,” she offered. She lifted a hand toward the nurse and got a nod in return.
“Maggie, you gotta go run the store...”
“The store is fine. I called Enid an hour ago, gave her a progress report and checked on them. Frank stayed with her yesterday till closing, they took Beau home with them and they should be opening up about now. She’s going to call Tom Canaday and see if he has any extra time to help out. It’s all taken care of.”
He just groaned and closed his eyes. “’Bout time Frank worked off some of that coffee he’s been freeloading. What about you?” he asked.
“What about me? I’m here with you.”
He opened
