Page 106 of Just One Look

Wild Sister Chase

Elizabeth finishedher last scheduled surgery of the day, miraculously, before four-thirty. When Nils saw her studying the board, he asked, “Was that glioblastoma unresectable, then, that you’re out already? Pity.”

“No,” she said, still checking the board. “The whole thing was pretty straightforward. I got it all, at least for this time, and the patient tolerated the surgery well, too. Being young helps. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if he has any neurological deficits from the surgery, but I’m optimistic for now.”

Which was one thing, at least. The patient was only thirty-six, a young guy with an easy smile. When she’d checked in with him pre-surgery, a woman had been sitting in the chair beside the bed, holding his hand. A noticeably pregnant young woman, which made Elizabeth’s heart sink a little. Glioblastoma was a killer no matter what you threw at it, and this woman looked like she knew it.

The patient was going through a stack of papers when she appeared, but he bundled them together with a grin at sight of her.

“Not my will, no worries,” he said. “From my kids. I’m a teacher. Year Two. This is one of my favorites.” He held up a computer-paper-and-marker creation featuring a man with hair sticking up on one side of his head and no hair at all on the other, and something that was either a cat or a dog beside him, eating something red. The speech bubble said, in jagged seven-year-old printing, “Yum my dog loves tumours.” The patient, whose name was Rob, told Elizabeth, “They’re a bit fixated on the shaved head and the circle of skull bone. I promised I’d show them the scar. Make it a good one, will you? Big and jagged, maybe.”

She laughed. “Sorry. I’m going for small and smooth. Do you have any other questions before we head in there?”

“No,” he said. “I’m ready. Holding the good thought, thinking about pushing my daughters in the swings.”

“Daughters?” the wife said. “This is our only one.”

“So far,” Rob said. “Let’s do it, doc. Get me ready to relieve this one of nappy duty, would you?”

“I’ll do my very best,” she said, and she had. She’d bought him some time, anyway, and that was going to have to do. Why did it seem like the people who were actually out there living their lives in three dimensions were the ones who had those lives cut short? A question impossible to answer.

Now, Nils raised his sandy eyebrows at her and said, “Excellent news.”

“Yes,” she said. “His wife is pregnant, and anyway, I liked him. He deserves more time.” The sort of thing she normally didn’t say. When you were among the eight percent of neurosurgeons who were female, not to mention thezeropercent of Auckland neurosurgeons who were, you kept your softer side under wraps. “Anyway,” she went on briskly, “that means I’m free. If you’d like me to stay for a while tonight, if you need the extra help, I’m available.”

Nils looked at her like she was three puppies short of a pet store and said, “No need. You’re not on call. Go home now, before the next trauma comes in and you decide you need to stay and do it.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I haven’t even been here ten hours. I’m completely fresh.”

He closed the chart he’d been studying. “If this is because you want to visit Darkovic, why not just visit him?”

“What? No. Of course not.” She knew she was blushing. She hated blushing. “I’m not actually stalking rugby players on my New Zealand adventure,” she decided to say, because what must he think, to have led with that?

“I didn’t get that impression, no,” Nils said. “More the other way around, if anything.”

“Oh,” she said. “No. Not that, either. Fully … fully consensual.” Oh, wonderful. Now it sounded like they were having kinky sex! “I mean,” she went on, “we’ve been seeing each other, yes. He’s very … he’s an interesting man.”

She was talking about herself. About herdatingself. At work. To the head ofneuro.This wasn’t a reboot. This was just stupid. She had to stop.

Nils looked at her speculatively, and she said, “Anyway. Thanks. I’ll go on, then. See you tomorrow. Oh,” she added, because she needed to, “I’ve put my number on Luka’s board as his contact. Not surgically, obviously, but in case there’s anything they want to run by me more, uh, informally. As a …”

Oh, boy. What did she fill this blank with?

Nils said, “As a loved one.”

Oh, great. He’d heard the gossip. She didn’t know what to say about that, but she didn’t have to, because Nils went on. “Fascinating group, elite rugby players. As it happens, the coach of the Blues, a former All Black himself, is married to the daughter of good friends, and we’ve had a chance to chat a bit. He’ll be unusually gifted, perhaps, but I suspect that the game requires some special mental abilities, played at that level. Not always verbal ability, in my experience, but in terms of spatial awareness, I imagine the players would test very highly indeed, and I’d be interested to see the results of an examination of mathematical ability and executive function, too. Processing speed and so forth. Interesting subject for study. Pity I can’t think of how you’d fund it.”

“Not in New Zealand, probably,” Elizabeth said. “It has many good points, but I don’t imagine cutting-edge research is one of them.” Good. It was a technical discussion now. She could do technical. “They don’t know they know it, but they do know it, is that the idea?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Particularly, I suspect, in the highly skilled positions like Luka’s, responsible for so much rapid decision-making.”

It was a weird thing to get a warm glow about. “Is his an especially skilled position?”

“The No. 8? Yes. Carrying the decision-making duties, along with a few of the other positions.”

“Is everybody here such a rugby fan, then?”

“Not everybody,” Nils said. “It’s an interesting game, though. A mixture of tactics and strategy, much like chess, and with very little margin for error.”