Night Sins Read Free Page A

cart and crash cart thundering into the treatment room.
    “Standard ACLS procedure, guys,” Hannah called out. “Get me a 6.5 endotracheal tube. Let's get her bagged and get some air into her lungs. Do we have a pulse without
CPR?”
    “No.”
    “With CPR?”
    “Yes.”
    “BP forty over twenty and fading fast.”
    “Start an IV. Hang bretylium and dopamine and give her a bristoject of epinephrine.”
    “Goddammit, I can't get a vein! Come on, baby, come on, come to Mama Kathleen.”
    “Allen, check for lung sounds. Stop CPR. Angie, run a strip. Is respiratory coming?”
    “Wayne's on his way down.”
    “Gotcha!” Kathleen slipped the line onto the catheter and secured it with tape, her small hands quick and sure. A tech handed her the epinephrine and she injected it into the line.
    “Fine v-fib, Dr. Garrison.”
    “We need to defibrillate. Chris, continue CPR until my word. Allen, charge me up to 320.” Hannah grabbed the paddles, rubbing the heads together to spread the gel. “Stand clear!”
Paddles in position against the woman's bare chest.
“All clear!”
Hit the buttons.
The old woman's body bucked on the gurney.
    “Nothing! No pulse.”
    “Clear!” She hit the buttons again. Her eyes went to the monitor, where a flat green line bisected the screen. “Once more. Clear!”
    The woman's body convulsed. The flat line snapped like a cracking whip and the monitor began to bleep out an erratic beat. A cheer went up in the room.
             
    T hey worked on Ida Bergen for forty minutes, pulling her out of the clutches of death, only to lose her again ten minutes later. They worked the miracle a second time, but not a third.
    Hannah delivered the news to Ida's husband. Ed Bergen's chore clothes emanated the warm, sweet scent of cows and fresh milk with a pungent undertone of manure. He had the same stoic face she had seen on many a Nordic farmer, but his eyes were bright and moist with worry, and they brimmed with tears when she told him they had done their best but had been unable to save his wife.
    She sat with him and led him through some of the cruel rituals of death. Even in this time of grief, decisions had to be made, etc., etc. She went through the routine in a low monotone, feeling on autopilot, numb with exhaustion, crushed by depression. As a doctor, she had cheated death time and again, but death wouldn't let her win every time and she had never learned to be a gracious loser. The adrenaline that fueled her through the crisis had vaporized. A crash was imminent. Another familiar part of a routine she hated.
    After Mr. Bergen had gone, Hannah slipped into her office and sat at the desk with the lights off, her head cradled in her hands. It hurt worse this time. Perhaps because she felt perilously close to loss for the first time in her life. Her marriage was in trouble. Ed Bergen's marriage was over. Forty-eight years of partnership over in the time it took a car to skid out of control on an icy road. Had they been good years? Loving years? Would he mourn his wife or simply go on?
    She thought of Paul, his dissatisfaction, his discontent, his quiet hostility. Ten years of marriage was tearing apart like rotted silk, and she felt powerless to stop it. She had no point of reference. She had never lost anything, had never developed the skills to fight against loss. She felt the tears building—tears for Ida and Ed Bergen and for herself. Tears of grief and confusion and exhaustion. She was afraid to let them start falling. She had to be strong. She had to find a solution, smooth over all the rough spots, make everyone happy. But tonight the burdens weighed too heavily on her slender shoulders. She couldn't help thinking the only light at the end of the tunnel was the headlight of a big black train.
    Knuckles rapped against her door and Kathleen stuck her head in. “You know she'd been seeing a cardiac specialist at Abbott-Northwestern for years,” she said quietly.
    Hannah sniffed and