Page 39 of Beneath Her Hands
“It’s Jane,” Doctor Mars said. Rosalind couldn’t ever remember her referring to Jane by her first name. “There’s been an accident.”
The room seemed to tilt onto its side. Rosalind gripped the edge of her desk for support. “What kind of accident?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“She was struck by a vehicle on the way here, the ambulance is on the way now,” Doctor Mars said. Her voice seemed to steady as she fell into the role of medical professional.
“I’ll get the OR prepped,” Rosalind said and grabbed her lab coat. She marched toward the door.
“You can’t perform this surgery,” Doctor Mars stated.
“Like hell I won’t,” Rosalind said, and for the first time, Dr. Mars almost looked cowed.
“Doctor Maxwell, you are too close to her,” she said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how close the two of you have become.”
“I’m her best shot,” Rosalind countered. “She’s the only other experienced trauma surgeon, I have to be in there.”
“I understand how you feel, but your emotions won’t allow you to be objective,” she said. “I can’t let you do this.”
“With all due respect, Doctor Mars,” Rosalind said. Her voice was cold and intense; she was not going to allow room for argument. “You won’t be able to keep me out of there, and I am the best person to perform this surgery. You know it. I don’t know how bad the situation is, but the fact that you are in here telling me personally, and that you are scared, tells me that it’s bad. If you want Jane to have a shot at surviving, Ihaveto be there.”
Dr. Mars shook her head, all her professional training told her that this was not the right choice, but Rosalind knew that there wasn’t a better option. “She better survive this, Rosalind, you will never be able to live with yourself if she doesn’t.”
“I know,” Rosalind answered. It was the truth. Even if she performed flawlessly, if Jane didn’t pull through this, Rosalind knew she’d never forgive herself. Jane’s survival was the onlyoption. Doctor Mars backed out of the doorway and Rosalind rushed through to the ambulance bay.
It smelled of antiseptic and adrenaline. Everyone was on edge, rushing to make sure the department was ready for Jane to arrive. Overhead, the fluorescent lights burned with a sterile white that flattened every shadow, but Rosalind barely registered the brightness. Her eyes were fixed on the gurney crashing through the double doors, pushed by two paramedics whose faces were tight with urgency.
“Forty-year-old female, Jane Roberts,” the lead paramedic barked, though everyone knew who she was. “Pedestrian struck by a vehicle at high speed. Hypotensive, tachycardic. Multiple fractures. GCS nine. We intubated en route. She’s lost a lot of blood.” Rosalind’s breath snagged in her chest.Jane.
For one dizzying second, the room fell silent in her mind, the clamor of monitors and shouted vitals fading to a dull roar. Her heart seemed to stop, then slam painfully against her ribs. Suddenly it was all very real. The woman on the stretcher—pale, bloodied, unconscious—was Jane. Her Jane. The woman she was so desperate to talk to, to explain everything, to confess everything. Now Jane lay dying beneath the harsh lights of Trauma One.
“Doctor?” The sharp call of a nurse’s voice snapped Rosalind back to motion. She stepped forward, forcing her mind to lock down into the cold precision of medicine. There was no time for fear. No time for love. Only skill.
“Let’s move!” she ordered, her voice steadier than she felt. “Get her to OR three. Massive transfusion protocol—her blood type is A positive. What’s the pressure?”
“Seventy over forty,” a resident answered, pale with anxiety.
“She’s crashing,” Rosalind said. “Move, now!”
The team surged into action. Gurney wheels rattled across the floor. Monitors beeped in frantic staccato. Rosalind ranalongside, gloved hands already snapping on a gown as they barreled into the operating room.Keep breathing, Jane. Don’t you dare leave me.
Inside the OR, time became elastic, stretching and snapping in strange, disjointed rhythms. Rosalind stood at the head of the sterile field, her world reduced to blood, tissue, and the fragile rhythm of a heart she could not afford to lose.
“Central line is in,” the anesthesiologist announced. “BP is still dropping.”
“We need to open the abdomen,” Rosalind said, her voice crisp. “We need to find the source of the bleed.”
The scalpel slid through flesh with clinical efficiency, but to Rosalind every motion felt unbearably intimate. Her hands—steady as stone—moved with an urgency that belied the storm inside her. Jane’s blood slicked the gloves, warm and slick against the latex, the proof of life ebbing away.
“Massive hemoperitoneum,” the resident reported, voice trembling. “She’s bleeding out.”
“I see it,” Rosalind said. “Suction. Retract here. Clamp the aorta. We need proximal control.”
The instruments clinked like brittle bones. The suction hissed, pulling away the crimson flood. Rosalind leaned in, eyes narrowing as she searched for the arterial source. A tear in the splenic hilum, a shattered liver edge—damage everywhere. Too much.No, she thought fiercely.Not her. Anyone else, but not Jane.
“Two more units of blood,” she commanded. “Call interventional for backup, but we’re not waiting.” Her hands moved faster. Clamp. Tie. Cauterize. Each motion carried the weight of desperate love, though no one could see it. She couldn’t falter. She didn’t care if the personnel around her noticed. She wouldn’t lose Jane.
“Pressure is sixty over thirty,” the anesthesiologist said sharply. “She’s circling the drain.”
Rosalind’s head snapped up. “Not going to happen,” she said. “Get me a vascular clamp. Now.” She dove back into the wound, sweat prickling under her cap. Her eyes burned from the strain of holding back tears. She felt the fragile pulse of Jane’s life under her fingertips, and it terrified her.
