Free The Doctor and Mr. Dylan by Rick Novak Page A

an hour.
    Castro remained in O.R. #4 to sew the patient’s neck back together after the failed tracheostomy attempt. I had no surgeon, and there was nothing for me to do but monitor my sleeping patient and wait. I sat down and took some deep breaths. I felt conflicting emotions of anxiety and pride. No one could bop in and out of a trauma scene like that without being changed by the adrenaline surge.
    It was the sort of episode that defined a man’s life—mine, Dylan’s, and the patient’s—while off the radar screen to the rest of the world. No one outside of the Hibbing General Hospital operating room suite had a clue about what we’d just lived through. The patient was oblivious, as were his relatives. Johnny, sitting in a classroom five blocks away, was oblivious. Alexandra, thousands of miles away, drinking her morning latte and puffing on a Marlboro Light, was just as oblivious. My disconnection from my small family never felt more profound. I was a skilled professional in the hospital, but outside these doors my mooring was tenuous.
    The O.R. door opened. The green-eyed nurse entered the operating room and approached me. “That was pretty slick work in there, Doctor,” she said. “I’ve never seen an intubation quite like that.” Her masked face hovered so close I could count the turquoise flecks in her irises. I liked looking at her. She had young eyes, fascinating, intoxicating eyes.
    “It was a long shot,” I said. “I’m glad it worked.”
    “Where did you learn to do that?”
    “I worked in a lot of intensive care units. The blind nasal technique works if a patient is awake and gasping for air. They inhale the tube down into their trachea.”
    She cocked her head, wondering that such a fairy tale could be true.
    “How’s the patient doing now?” I said.
    “Bobby transfused the four units of O negative blood, just like you told him. Dr. Perpich just arrived. There weren’t any pulses in the leg, so Dr. Perpich is doing an angiogram. It looks like he’ll have to repair the femoral artery.”
    “What a mess. Why aren’t you in there?”
    “The dayshift nurses took over. I just got off night shift. It’s time for me to go home.”
    She stood only inches away from me and made no move to leave. She leaned one elbow against my anesthesia machine, and let out a long sigh. The trauma patient episode had been stressful, and Green Eyes had suffered through it like I had. We had that crisis in common, this pixie of a woman and me. She was tiny, no more than five feet tall, with a thin and boyish figure. Her left hand was free of a ring.
    I wanted to know her. I offered my hand and said, “I’m Nico Antone.”
    “My name is Lena Johnson.” The clasp of her hand was warm, her skin soft. “I heard about you. They say you’re from California.”
    “I am.”
    “If I had a job in California, I wouldn’t leave it to come to Hibbing, Minnesota.” She pronounced her home state Minnes-oooooh-tah, the word stretched out by an elongated O-sound. She stared back and waited for me to refute the obvious illogic of my translocation. The persistence of her stare made me uncomfortable. At last she asked, “Why did you move up here?”
    “I grew up in Hibbing, and moved back so my son could graduate from high school here.”
    She lifted one eyebrow. “They don’t have high schools in California?”
    “It’s a long story. My son and I decided it would be good for him to transfer to Hibbing High. It’s a great school.”
    “I have a daughter in 11th grade.”
    “My son’s in 11th grade. You and I can compare notes as the year goes on.”
    “Sounds good. Great work today, Dr. Antone. It’s not every day you can save someone’s life.”
    “Call me Nico.”
    “I’ll call you Dr. Antone, Dr. Antone.” She winked at me and walked away.
    Our exchange was like electroshock therapy, bringing a wave of unexpected brightness into a tense morning. I couldn’t remember Alexandra ever acknowledging that