"I'm sorry to call this late."
"It isn't that late."
"I'm at Memorial. I'm invoking the chairman's discretionary review. Tonight."
She paused before answering.
"Alright."
"Bonnie Vela. V-E-L-A. On the cardiac queue for fourteen months. Dr. Reyes is the cardiologist. There is correspondence from him in the committee inbox dated last week that hasn't been read. He is filing additional correspondence tonight — she had a seizure on the rhythm an hour ago. She is in the ICU as we speak."
"Mr. Cross — "
"There is a slot in nine days at Memorial. Septal myectomy with Garrison."
"Yes."
"I want her in it."
A pause.
"That slot is occupied, Mr. Cross."
"I know."
A longer pause.
"Mr. Cross."
"Move them, Aldridge. I'll sign whatever paperwork you need. Discretionary review form, medical justification, all of it. It’ll be on your desk by noon. I'll be in the office in the morning."
She went silent for a second. Then responded: "Yes, sir."
She held the line for half a second longer than she had needed to.
I hung up.
I'd done it.
I didn’t know whose slot I'd just taken.
It could be an eight-year-old, a sixty-eight-year-old, a mother of three, or somebody who had been on a list for fourteen months, twenty months, or longer, and who had been bumpedtonight by a phone call from a chairman who hadn't opened the database to see who they were.
I put my phone in my pocket and breathed. I wasn’t going to throw up.
I could do this. Walk back into the building. Sit in the lounge until Sabrina came out. Hold her in my arms. I wasn’t going to tell her. Not ever.
I stood up and went back inside.
Mrs. Park was already in the family lounge. The lounge clock was a digital clock above the door. It changed the numbers without me noticing.
I sat on the couch for a long time.
Sabrina came out at midnight.
Her eyes were red, her hair was loose, and her hand was on the doorframe like she needed the doorframe to be standing up. She was wearing my coat. She had taken my coat at some point in the last hour, but I hadn't noticed.
I stood up, and she walked to me.
