Mercy 6

“Only here at the hospital.” He smiled. “Though you always seem to be here.”

She waited for him to turn to her. She could tell he was about to turn, a waver in his shoulders. When he did, she asked, “What ideas? What ideas did you get?”

“None that I could use. None yet.” Again his last two words smeared into a single foreign sound.

“Why not?”

“Because every time I see something, something I can maybe use, you do something that trumps it.”

“Trumps?”

“Sorry. I play cards.” He curled his hands around an imaginary shuffle. His fingers were long. “But for instance, my main idea. I see that the ER is marred by its very function and space, by the fact that it is a harbor — collecting, assigning, treating, sending all at once. Chaos forms, a sense of chaos. So I think if we somehow divide it into smaller areas, areas that are still connected, we eliminate that sense of chaos. Incoming patients feel more like individuals, people waiting don’t see the turmoil and trauma.

Doctors and staff can focus. We reduce the sense of size, of overwhelm.”

She braced her shoulders, not knowing why. It was almost a shiver.

He held up his hand. “Don’t worry. I rejected this.”

“Why?” she asked. “What was trump?”

“I saw you move from one stretcher to a bed across the bay.

I see you do this once or twice a shift. You start to attend to an incoming emergency, something frantic. Things begin to steady, gather around the stretcher as you make decisions.” He held his hand palm upward and curled his fingers. “Then you suddenly stand straight, freeze momentarily, and hurry to a bed across the bay, to an earlier patient. I see that you catch something, something in your periphery. Your peripheral vision. You figure something out about one case while taking on a new emergence.”

“I had a mentor,” she said. “He trained us to do that.”

He spun the tube of the telescope relic. “The doctor who put this here — he knew. In astronomy it’s called averted vision. In our field of vision, we see farther and stronger on the periphery — more clearly but without center. We can see the Andromeda Galaxy only with averted vision, while gazing directly at Pegasus. Averted vision is a great asset, responsible for many discoveries. It would be very bad to take that asset away from you.”

She felt known. She felt cut. She needed to change the direction if not the subject.

“So it’s back to the drawing board?”

“Yes. Literally. To save you from metaphor. That killer.” He made air circles with an imaginary pencil. “Literally I go back to my drawing board.”

“Are you the one who got rid of the geriatric ward and moved all the nurses’ stations off center?”

“Yes.”

She flexed her brow, considered him.

“You don’t approve?” he asked.

“Oh, I approve. I highly approve. Most times half the hospital is a geriatric ward. And anything that puts nurses in their proper place thrills me. That was cold. That was brilliant. I approve.”

“Thank you.” He held out his hand and began to introduce himself, a dip in his right shoulder.

“No, no,” she said, waving him off. “I know who you are. I remember now. You’re Mullich. Something Mullich.”

He drew his hand to his chest and performed a tiny bow. “Close enough.”

“Can you put the surgeons in the basement?” she asked.

2

A message buzzed against her hip. She kept her eyes on Mullich as she drew the cell to her ear. Her mentor had trained her to respond this way, to stay in the moment, to not let the buzz hurtle her forward. The added benefit of this response was courtesy.

Mullich’s expression changed from friendly to objective. In that transition he was handsome. The city glow cast his face in planes and angles. A night breeze passed over the rooftop.

She held the emergency to her ear. Four traumas just in. The voice was Nurse Pao Pao, which meant Come now, come ready.

Mendenhall moved toward the elevator. Mullich broke with her.

“May I run with you?”

“Suit yourself. But you’re on your own. You fall behind, you won’t get through.”

The elevator stilled things. She slipped her express key into the slot.

Mullich pointed to the slot. He pointed with his entire hand.

“That was my idea. I had those put in.”

“You stole it,” she said. “From luxury hotels.”

“All good ideas are stolen,” he replied. “Yours especially.”

She felt the drop in the elevator taking her to where she wanted to be.

“What are we falling into?” he asked.

“Four traumas. All in at once. Which indicates an event.”

“You like it,” he said. “Most doctors are put out by it. But you like it.”

“I love it more than anything else in this world,” she told him as the doors swooshed open and she began to hurry. She felt the tails of her lab coat tugged by the vacuum of the doors, her contrail forming.

It was easy to spot the call in the bay. EMTs were beelining to it, nurses gathering, causing their usual clutter of concern. Pao Pao, her arms ending in fists, was guarding a space for Mendenhall.