1
NIA
The operating room felt like a chapel to Nia South—bright, spare, full of quiet expectation. Light washed across steel, monitors hummed in steady rhythm, and a circle of masked faces waited for her cue. She lifted her hands to the sterile field and felt the familiar click as a scrub nurse settled the scalpel into her palm.
“Ready,” Nia said. Her voice was calm, cool water over smooth stones. “Let’s begin.”
The pediatric patient’s chart was tucked into the back of her mind like a hymn she’d memorized—age six, tumor abutting critical pathways, delicate margins. She had flown in for this case because no one else within two hundred miles had the steady hands and ruthless focus the neurosurgical team wanted. That was what she did best: make impossible problems solvable. Cut clean. Leave no mess.
“Retraction,” she murmured. “Suction. Good.”
The scrub tech moved with her as if they’d practiced together for years. They hadn’t. It didn’t matter. In the OR, Nia made a new orchestra every time and still expected symphony. Her green eyes tracked tiny movements. Her dark hair, braided andpinned, tugged faintly at her scalp under the cap. Her shoulders were straight inside the lead apron, posture perfect, a portrait of control.
She kept her attention where it belonged—on pathways, on vessels, on breath and pulse and the quiet curve of the saw’s edge. The tumor’s texture told her what the imaging had only suggested. She adjusted her plan by half a millimeter and felt the room lean toward her choice like iron to a magnet.
“Clamp. Thank you. And… pause,” she said softly.
The pleural wave on the monitor dipped and rose. The anesthesiologist gave her a nod. Steady. Nia let air out slowly and stepped into the final, dangerous angle. She didn’t think about the storm gathering outside the hospital windows or the text message she still hadn’t read. She didn’t let her mind flash to a sunlit kitchen in Phoenix Ridge where a woman (her wife) with glossy hair and a flawless suit jacket had said, I didn’t mean to fall in love with her, Nia.
Not here. Not now.
The tumor let go like a stubborn knot loosening. A bead of sweat slid down Nia’s temple and caught on her mask. The suction cleared the field. The tiny space looked clean and safe. Her shoulders lowered a half inch.
“Gross total resection,” she said, quiet satisfaction threading through her tone. “Let’s close.”
The team moved into the practiced choreography of finishing well. Nia’s movements stayed spare and elegant, her hands speaking for her. When the final suture tied, the monitors still steady, she let herself look up. Around the table, eyes crinkled with relief. Someone exhaled audibly. The charge nurse’s gaze warmed.
“Beautiful work, Dr. South.”
Nia nodded once, the smallest smile ghosting at the corners of her eyes. “Good job, everyone.”
Outside the OR, she stripped off gloves, peeled back her cap, and shook out the braid. Her hair fell glossy and smooth over her shoulders, the only softness she allowed herself at work. In the locker room mirror, a composed stranger stared back: tailored lines even in scrubs, cheekbones angled, mouth set. She washed her hands longer than needed, chasing the faint tremor hiding in her wrists.
Her phone lit the metal bench with cold light. THREE MISSED CALLS. One new message from her wife—ex-wife, she corrected herself in the privacy of her skull, though the paperwork wasn’t finished. For a moment Nia just looked at her own reflection, green eyes sharp, face still. She could open the message. Or she could put the phone down and breathe.
She set it face down.
In the corridor, the surgical fellow caught up. “Dr. South? The parents asked if they could meet you. Just to say thank you.”
Parents. Nia pictured a woman with a winter-roughened face and a man wringing his hands, both trying not to beg a stranger to love their child halfway as much as they did. The thought landed in the hollow place inside her chest and echoed. She adjusted her posture and made her voice warm, professional. “Of course.”
The consult room was small, with a fake wreath taped to the window and a coffee machine that burbled like a creek. The mother’s relief cracked into tears when Nia explained the resection had gone as planned, that the next few days would be careful watching and cautious hope. The father choked out a thank-you and gripped Nia’s hand with both of his.
“You saved her,” he said.
Nia didn’t contradict him, though she knew better. “She’s a fighter,” she answered, gentle, and held their gaze long enough to ground them. She accepted their gratitude like a coat shrugged over bare shoulders: necessary, but not warming.
When she stepped back into the hall, the hospital felt colder. Snow pressed against the long window like a white hand. Staff moved in hurried, quiet lines; a garland sagged a little over the nurses’ station, a strand of lights dead in the middle.
“Doctor?” the fellow asked, hopeful. “Would you like to present at debrief?”
“Send me the notes,” she said. “I’ll review them from the hotel.”
He hid his surprise well. Phoenix Ridge’s prodigy never skipped a debrief. Nia didn’t flinch. She walked to the elevator, spine straight, steps precise, and rode down with a surgical tray and a stack of chart folders as company. The elevator music was some thin, bright version of a carol she couldn’t name. It pricked at her skin like cold air.
In the lobby, families clustered around the café, all wool scarves and red noses. A child tugged at a paper snowflake hung too low and laughed when it spun. Nia’s mouth tightened, then softened. She moved through the smell of coffee and antiseptic and winter. The sliding doors opened and a blade of December air cut straight through her coat.
Outside, Hawthorne Lake’s mountains hunched under thick clouds. The hospital parking lot wore a skin of ice and the streetlamps had halos. The wind licked her cheeks and made her eyes water. She could blame the weather for that.
