If I Don't Ask, page 5
toe. We rarely had steady flows of trauma events; it was either
so busy it would have been stressful if we weren’t trained for
such things, or so quiet it was almost boring.
While walking back from the post-op recovery ward, I
heard a male Texan drawl float from around the corner. The
moment I realized what he’d said, I stopped dead. Mitch Boyd
had asked quietly, “Whaddya think of our new boss?”
I honestly didn’t make a habit of eavesdropping, but I often
overheard a conversation simply because people hadn’t
realized I was there. Continuing around the corner now would
cause Mitch and whoever he was talking to—given his
question and his friend circle, it had to be Sabine—
embarrassment, so I decided to wait and do some unofficial
reconnaissance in the name of unit morale. If I didn’t know
there was a problem, I couldn’t fix it, right?
Sabine answered, almost as quietly as Mitch had asked his
question, “I think she’s brilliant. Not an asshole, which is a
bonus. And she’s just got this… vibe about her, like she knows
exactly what she’s doing and that you can trust her to make the
right calls, to keep you safe. I think it’s her voice. She’s so
calm and confident, intelligent and cultured-sounding.”
He laughed. “Oh, really?” The words were drawn out
teasingly.
The sound of a slap on flesh was Sabine’s answer.
Mitch’s laughter was louder this time. “Just because
someone sounds intelligent and cultured, that doesn’t mean
they are.”
“Well, that’s not a problem with you, is it, Mitch?”
A low chuckle. “I only pretend to sound like a dumb hick
so you’ll feel smarter, Sabs.”
“Surrre.” I could hear the eye roll in that one word. Then a
pause, and a quiet, almost accusatory question from Sabine.
“You don’t like her?”
“I absolutely do like her. Maybe not as much as you do, but
I like her plenty for only knowing her a coupla days. But let’s
see what we think by end of deployment, huh? And once
we’ve worked a case with her? Maybe she’s a total surgical
asshole.”
“Sure, end of deployment,” Sabine mused. “I really don’t
think she’ll be a surgical asshole.”
“Why not?”
“Have you ever met a surgical asshole who wasn’t an
asshole the rest of the time?”
“Good point,” he mumbled.
Sabine’s tone lightened, almost as if she’d decided she’d
won some unspoken argument and it was time to move on.
“You checked out the prep room yet?”
“Yeah. Well-stocked, and with all scrub sizes so thank fuck
I don’t have to go askin’ round for the tall-muscled-man size.
But the color of those scrubs will wash me out somethin’
fierce.” A touch of camp had crept into his tone. Now that was
interesting. Joking, or something else…?
Sabine laughed. “Yeah, but did you see they’ve also got
camo scrubs? Between those and working emergency traumas
in our ACU, we’ll never see each other in the OR.”
“Marco,” he said dryly.
Sabine’s answer was a giggling, “Polo.” They laughed
together before Sabine spoke again. “Come to the chow hall
with me? I’m still trying to figure out what time of day the
best food is.”
“Darlin’, I don’t think there’s any best time of day for food
on deployment.”
Their footsteps faded, but I waited before I followed. And
for the first time in my life, I pondered the sound of my own
voice. I’d walked barely ten steps when the incoming casualty
line, which was linked to multiple phones throughout all
buildings to ensure someone could always answer, started up
on the wall near the pre-op prep room. I snatched up the
phone, noting I’d just won a bet, albeit not an enjoyable one.
“LTC Rebecca Keane. We’re available for intake.”
As I listened, I jotted down shorthand notes on the pad that
lived perpetually in my breast pocket. Single casualty, GSW
torso, ETA less than five minutes. As I ended the call I
punched a button on the wall beside the phone to trigger the
call of “Attention on the FOB,” which echoed through the
halls of the hospital and across the grounds outside, making
me feel as if I were surrounded by people cupping their hands
around their mouths to shout those words at me. Both
Fleischer and Boyd came skidding back, jostling each other
before they spotted me and screeched to a halt.
Their simultaneous, “Ma’am” was both a greeting and an
apology.
“Congratulations, you’re first to report. I only need one
assist for now, so rock-paper-scissors or whatever you need to
do to figure out who’s scrubbing in with me. And do it in the
next five seconds, please.” There would be plenty of time to
familiarize myself with how they worked, and me plus one
would suffice for this trauma.
An unspoken message seemed to pass between them before
Sabine stepped forward. “I’m ready, ma’am.”
“Good. Now, it only sounds like small-team trauma, with a
single casualty, but I still want you on standby, Mitch. Watch
the intake procedure, get familiar with it so when it’s your turn
next you know exactly what you’re doing.”
He nodded. “Absolutely. Yes, ma’am.”
With a mix of excitement, anticipation, and nonchalance,
the rest of the team came rushing into the room. I smiled at
them. “Too slow. I have Fleischer. I need you, Bobby, for
anesthesia, and also Nurse Team B, please. Everyone else,
you’re still on standby in case things get messy or they decide
to bring us more.”
A chorus of agreement filled the space and everyone
surplus to needs drifted away to resume whatever they’d been
doing. As I quickly pulled on my cloth scrub cap and tied it, I
told Sabine, “If you can do it in under two minutes, get
changed into scrubs for surgery now, otherwise we go in as we
are. Assessment PPE over the top.” To Mitch I said, “Grab
yourself some PPE just in case it’s messy while you’re
observing.”
Mitch hovered unobtrusively as the Combat Pararescuemen
—PJs—rushed a stretcher carrying a man wearing only his
underwear through the doors. His torso was one gigantic
bruise and I had an immediate sense of what had happened.
“Thank you, take him right into the first bay, please. Sabine,
clinical exam STAT.”
She stood opposite me as we ran through a quick, targeted
clinical exam. I percussed his thorax, tapping, feeling and
listening for signs of internal hemorrhage. The moment I took
my hands away, Sabine had the probe on his belly.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Nasty liver lac, belly full of blood.” Sabine looked up at
me, her solid eye contact almost pleading, as if she feared I
might disagree. She turned the screen toward me.
After a quick glance at the screen, I raised my eyes to hers.
“I agree. Okay, let’s go.” To the rest of the hovering surgical
team I said, “Prep laparotomy trays please.”
Sarah, the lead nurse from Team B rushed away to scrub
and relay the message to prep the instrument trays we needed.
Sabine and I followed the casualty to the OR. I peeled off my
gloves and disposable PPE and began a quick surgical scrub,
desperate to get in and stop the hemorrhage. As Sabine
lathered her hands with a surgical scrub sponge she asked,
“How did this happen? He was wearing body armor? There’s
no penetrating injury, so it has to be blunt force trauma, but
how?” Her voice rose in disbelief with every question.
“We’re seeing it more and more with hard body armor,
especially when it gets between a person and a high-caliber
projectile. The hard plates distort and transfer the ballistic
energy into the torso. So instead of a penetrating wound, we’re
getting blunt force trauma.” I glanced sideways at her. “Always
consider BABT in a casualty who’s presented without
penetrating injury after collecting a projectile in the vest.
Especially with this telltale bruising.”
“Behind armor blunt trauma. Yes, ma’am.”
I rinsed my hands and shook them out. “Okay, let’s go.”
She was right behind me as we rushed into the room to slip
into sterile gowns, gloves, and protective eyewear, before
positioning herself for a laparotomy. Bobby spoke up from by
the anesthetic machine. “Already under for you, Fleischer.
Once you’ve worked with me, you’ll never want another
anesthesiologist. I’m the best.”
As soon as I’d started my midline incision, Sabine spoke.
In a light, conversational tone that felt incongruous with how
fast we needed to move, she responded to Bobby. “Whether
you’re the best or not is yet to be seen. But you’re certainly
one of the most egotistical, which is saying something…”
I held back my laugh. Everyone else, including Bobby, let
theirs free.
Frowning, I announced, “There’s a bucket of blood in here.
I’m going to need suction and an Everest of laps in here,
please. Suction. More, more. Thank you.” Sabine was right
with me, almost ahead of me, with everything I asked for. I
used my finger to confirm my visual assessment. “Grade four
liver laceration right posterior-inferior, IVC is intact, right
hepatic vein is…yes, it’s lacerated. Get him whole blood right
now. Sabine, what are we doing?”
As she applied lap pads to control the hemorrhage, Sabine
rushed out, “I can’t see any other source of bleeding. It’s just
that lac on the right lobe compromising the right hepatic vein.
Inflow vascular control with Pringle maneuver, then
parenchymal and vascular repair with sutures.”
“You don’t want to resect?”
“I—” She tilted her head side to side as if having discourse
with herself, and after a moment said, “No, ma’am. I’m
confident we can repair it without resection.”
“Good. Let’s get it done. And quickly.”
Sabine placed the clamp with quick efficiency. She was
obviously both fast and effective, and I was excited to see
someone who had both skill and apparently no desire to
steamroll their partner. I was impressed. Confident, clean,
quick. Sabine was one of those surgeons who seemed to know
intuitively what her co-surgeon needed and how best to
verbalize what she herself wanted in a way that didn’t come
across as short-tempered or arrogant.
Every member of the team, from surgeons to
anesthesiologists to nurses, was highly skilled. But there were
more than a few egos which I knew chafed under the
immovable nature of chain of command. Hopefully Sabine and
Mitch would slot into the OR as easily as they had outside it,
because I did not need any more dramas in the unit.
Every now and then I’d ask her something and she’d
respond instantly, and correctly. There was nothing to do other
than smile my encouragement and agreement then observe her
doing what she obviously did best. Once we’d completed,
checked, and closed, I looked up to find her watching me.
“Nicely done, Fleischer.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Her eyes brightened. “I…guess he’s
going to live-r.” Pink spread around the edges of her mask to
her ears and neck. Her eyes suggested she couldn’t believe
she’d just said such a thing.
I pressed my lips together to keep myself from guffawing
at the hilariously awful dad-joke that’d just come out of her
mouth. A deep breath helped settle the laughter bubbling in
my chest and I managed an almost-steady, “Yes. I guess he is.”
The rest of the room erupted into good-natured hysterics.
Sabine raised a hand in acknowledgment. “Thank you, thank
you, I’ll be here all week.” She looked as if she wanted firstly
for me to forget every word, and secondly to vaporize into thin
air so she could disappear. She was utterly adorable.
Outside the OR, Sabine joined me at the sink. She wilted.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ve said some stupid things before but
that’s right up there. I promise I do have a modicum of
intelligence in my head.” She grinned wryly. “Unfortunately,
there also seems to be a weird, jokey ten-year-old kid in there
too.”
I really wanted to see more of the jokey kid. “Don’t worry
about it, Sabine. Keeping your sense of humor is always
beneficial, both here during your deployments and when you
get back to D.C. and into working full-time at Walter Reed,” I
said, shaking water from my hands. “Very early on I had a CO
tell me that if you can’t laugh about things while you’re
deployed, you’ll probably cry.”
She stepped back so I could reach the paper towel
dispenser on the wall, but in the limited space near the sinks
there was barely enough room for me to reach without
touching her, even though she was pressed to the wall. If she
was bothered by me being this close to accidentally brushing
against her arm, she gave no indication. “Is that the advice
you’d pass along to me too, ma’am?”
The way she looked at me made me feel totally exposed, as
if she’d reached into my mind and was gently searching my
thoughts. I was grateful she couldn’t actually search my
thoughts because I’d just had a sudden and unexpected mental
image of kissing her. Maybe it was her almost-innocent,
eyebrows-raised expression, as if she trusted me to be truthful
and keep her safe in this unsafe place. Or maybe it was just
that she was so damned attractive and I was so damned lonely.
Regardless of the reason, it played out so clearly in my mind’s
eye. The moment of pause right before mutual attraction is
acknowledged. That second pause to be sure. Then the kiss. I
could almost feel the soft warmth of her lips, her hands sliding
through my hair and cupping the back of my head, her fingers
gliding over my neck.
The rush of heat wasn’t unexpected, and I forced myself to
keep looking at her instead of averting my gaze away from the
discomfort of my attraction to a subordinate, and the fact I’d
just had a very clear and very enjoyable mental image of
kissing her. I pushed my fingertips hard into my palms, and
when it didn’t help erase the image I pressed the pads of my
thumb and forefinger together, rubbing them back and forth.
Aunt Thérèse used to call the gesture “Rebecca’s Reset,”
noting how I’d started doing it after my parents died. Every
time my tante saw it, she’d bundle me up into a hug, smother
my forehead in kisses, then make me an omelet whether I was
hungry or not. Rebecca’s Reset was a habit I’d never broken,
though every time I became aware of it, I reasoned I could be
dealing with my emotional discomfort in an unhealthy way
instead of just self-soothing.
After a slow, settling breath I said, “Among other snippets
of advice, yes. Though sometimes, I think crying is the only
thing that’ll help.” I balled the paper towel and attempted a
three-pointer.
When my throw missed, Sabine laughed and bent to
retrieve the bundle. “I’ll remember that.” Instead of trying to
re-create my attempted basketball shot, she carefully disposed
of the paper towel, then smiled at me like she’d handed in an
assignment for extra credit. Goddammit, she was so cute. And
definitely not in the young person handing in an assignment
way, but in the gorgeous adult with an appealing and fun
personality way.
“Enjoy the rest of your day, Sabine. And again, great work
today. I’m glad you’ve joined the unit.” After realizing that
sounded close to favoritism, I added, “Both you and Boyd.”
She dipped her head. “Thank you, ma’am. It was fun. And
great working with you.”
As much as I tried to ignore it, the disconcerting sensation
flooding my body made it hard to concentrate. It was lust. Pure
and simple. Thankfully lust was just a chemical response that I
could learn to ignore. But my mind kept wandering back to my
imaginary kiss, and then to my reaction. Had I given myself
away? I was sure I hadn’t, just as I was sure of another thing…
I was so screwed.
* * *
The halls in the living quarters were never entirely quiet,
