Anna knew better than to try to encourage Victoria to eat with words. Instead, she picked up her croissant and took a hearty bite of it, trusting it to work the same annoying magic it had the other day.
And indeed, Victoria did briefly close her eyes and even appeared to shudder… but then, she picked up the croissant. Her bite contained considerably less gusto, but a bite she did take, and a faint smile actually crossed her lips. “This is really rather nice.”
“I like them a lot myself. I was happy to see they made them today.” Anna smiled back, but otherwise restrained herself from any further quips. She didn’t want to break the spell, especially after Victoria went back for another nibble, and then a third.
Anna had finished her croissant and was licking her fingers when Victoria put down the second half of hers and bent down to pull a packet of wet wipes out of her bag. Daintily, she cleaned her hands and dropped the soiled wipe into a nearby trash can.Then she folded those strong, graceful hands together into her lap and directed a steady, silent stare at Anna.
Anna smiled sunnily and sipped at her apple chai latte.
Eventually, Victoria spoke up. “I genuinely detest when you do this.”
“Oh, but it’s part of what makes our time spent together sofun.” Anna could not help but play the dangerous game of provoking Victoria, at least a little, before she settled into something more gentle. At the first sign of anger, of course she would back off.
To her surprise, instead of the expected anger, there was a glint of something that might have been interest in those steely blue eyes. “You are not a very conventional sort of therapist, Dr. Monroe.”
“I’dloveto know what you think makes for a conventional therapist,” Anna replied. “Have you seen so very many?”
Unbelievably, this seemed to fluster Victoria. “Well.”
“Are you basing this opinion on a TV therapist?” Anna wondered if the woman even had a TV. She had no idea what Victoria did like to do, but somehow she felt very strongly that watching TV was not something on her hobbies list.
“Of course not.” Victoria huffed. She actuallyhuffed. Anna had never been so entertained, and by such a complicated, difficult patient to boot.
Still, she did have a job to do, here. Shaking her head, Anna tried to refocus. This was not a game. A career was at stake. A life, possibly. A touch of shame burned a tiny hole in her heart. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to tease.”
“Oh, I…” Victoria looked surprised at the admission, and seemed to need a moment to reset herself. Anna felt bad for getting the two of them so off course. She decided to fix the issue.
“Dr. Ellis,” she began, and something even in just those two words must have alerted Victoria to her serious intent. Thesurgeon stiffened on her perch at the edge of the couch cushion, a beautiful bird poised for flight. “We’ve gotten off on a pair of particularly bad feet, I think. I know you don’t want to be here.”
“I don’tneedto be here,” Victoria corrected.
Anna let that hang in the air for a moment, then decided not to directly argue the point.See, I can be taught! “The fact remains, we are both here. I know you feel I have overstepped, frequently—and I apologize. But I would like to talk to you only about one thing.”
Victoria didn’t relax one iota. “And that would be?”
“The Jennings surgery.” Anna held up a hand as Victoria, impossibly, tensed further. “I won’t ask you about your feelings, your past, what happened later, or anything but that specific surgery itself. All I want is for you to take me through those hours that you were in the OR with David Jennings.”
The icy blue gaze remained steady, but a slight hectic pink hue tinted Victoria’s cheeks, and one of the hands in her lap twitched. She pinned it down with her other hand. “I wrote a complete incident report on the entire procedure. Dr. Proctor did as well. We were very thorough. We had to be.”
“Of course. I’m sure you were.” Anna kept her voice light. She really wanted to get through their whole hour today. If they could manage it once, odds were good that it could happen again. “I just think it could be useful to hear it as if you were, I don’t know. Teaching me.”
Victoria shifted slightly, sitting the tiniest bit further back on the sofa cushion. She picked up her tea and held it, not sipping from it, just cradling the mug in her hands. “Shall I cover Dr. Proctor’s portion of the procedure as well?”
“Everything that happened once you were in the room,” Anna said. “Start to finish.”
Taking a deep breath, Victoria sat up very, very straight and began. “To preface, after discussion with Mr. Jennings regarding his heart health, we elected to do a CABG surgery…”
“Cabbage?” Anna asked, unsure she’d heard correctly.
“C-A-B-G,” Victoria spelled out. “A coronary artery bypass graft. We harvest healthy blood vessels from other parts of the body to replace the function of blocked coronary arteries. The surgery takes place in two stages; one, the healthy vessels are harvested. Two, these vessels are transplanted into the chest.”
“And you elected to divide these stages between yourself and Dr. Proctor.” Anna wanted to be clear.
“Yes. Typically one surgeon performs both stages. However, I…” Victoria hesitated, and something dark flashed behind her eyes, so briefly that Anna wasn’t sure she’d seen anything at all. “I wanted to be very fresh and focused for the actual grafting, and Dr. Proctor is an excellent and very precise surgeon herself. She rather enjoys harvest surgeries and has a particular knack for them. For me, it made sense to provide Mr. Jennings with the very best possible care to ensure the best possible outcome.”
Anna could see the logic, though she was fairly certain the patient’s insurance company might have cost concerns. And she was interested in the fact that Victoria volunteered the information that the two surgeon approach was atypical. She would have to check with Dr. Martin to see if Victoria did this often, was it a new behavior, how far back did it go... that little hesitation and flash of dark doubt she’d seen flicker across Victoria’s face told her it was not something to touch on right now, with her.
All she said now was, “I can understand that.”
