17

When Gabby didn’t find Heather at home, she circled the neighborhood until she found her striding along beside an animal that looked more like a bear than a dog. She passed the duo, parked on the street, and got out to tag along, positioning herself with Heather between her and the monstrous beast.

Heather brightened at her approach. “Hi, Gabby. I didn’t expect to see you.”

“What is that?”

“Bo? He’s a mastiff.”

“I thought you said you were a dog-walker,” Gabby said. “That’s no dog.”

The animal seemed to be setting the pace. Gabby struggled to keep up in her heels. “Could you slow him down?”

“I’m doing the best I can.” Heather held on like a water-skier as the mastiff pulled her along.

Gabby slipped off her shoes. She jogged to catch Heather again.

“We need to talk.”

“So talk.”

“Like this?” Gabby resumed jogging, juggling two shoes and her handbag.

“Welcome to my world.”

Sweat began beading off Gabby’s forehead. Richmond’s clear sky offered no relief from the bright sun. Gabby reached for the leash and pulled hard with Heather. Bo looked back and miraculously stopped.

“There. I’m going to Kenya,” she said. “I want you to go with me.”

 

Jace’s initial excitement over the possibility of getting his heart program up and running gave him hope that he might soon be taken off general surgery call. That hope dissolved when Dave Fitzgerald insisted that Jace scrub on a prostatectomy so he could learn the technique.

Jace felt like an intern again. Each step was accomplished under Dave’s instruction.

“Here,” he said, “slip your finger in behind mine.”

Jace obeyed.

“Feel that? That’s the right plane. Now work your finger back in and forth around the gland. Push more against the gland so the bladder won’t be injured. It’s all done by feel.”

Everything Jace did in cardiac surgery was done with the tissues exposed so that he could see every step. Now he was being asked to operate by feel. Like my life, Jace thought. It’s like I’m feeling my way ahead through darkness.

“I’ve arranged to have a cardiac anesthetist and my pump technician come to initiate the heart program.”

Dave didn’t respond. “Let me feel what you have.” He lowered his hand into the pelvis and after another few moments, he lifted a prostate gland out of the bladder. It was white and the size of a small apple. “There,” he said. “You’d better get this operation down before you think about cardiac surgery.”

“I’ve already lined up the first case.”

“We’ll see.” He held out his hand to the surgical tech. “Chromic,” he said, asking for a suture. “The capsule needs to be oversewn along the superior edge for hemostasis. I’ll show you this time. Next time, you’re on your own.”

“Will you assist on my valve replacement?”

“Look around, Jace. Do you really think we’re ready for heart surgery?”

“Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind that we’re not.”

“We’ve yet to see how these heart cases will affect our ability to continue giving the level of care we currently embrace. One case is going to demand lots of blood, theater time, and the retraining of our staff.” He sighed. “I’m not sure we have the resources.”

“The medical director has signed off on it.”

“Look, the whole staff agreed to the program on a trial basis. To let you do a few cases and see what kind of impact it has on our resources.”

“But you’re not convinced.”

“You should know by now that I won’t keep my opinions to myself. We have enough problems just doing the present load without taxing the system even more.”

“So you were outvoted.”

“Apparently.”

“Blake is in agreement to proceed with the valve.”

“Blake seems to think a politician has backed us into a corner. Just because the staff goes along with this first case doesn’t mean the program is a go.” He paused. “Close the bladder in two layers of running zero chromic. Imbricate the second layer over the first.”

With the instructions given, Dave stepped away from the operating table and stripped off his gown. “How much blood do you need for one open-heart case?”

“Ten units.”

“Yeah,” the surgeon responded. “Sometimes it takes days to just find one suitable unit, so good luck with that.” He picked up the patient’s chart. “Maybe you’re a bigger man of faith than I thought.”

Dave exited the room, leaving Jace to close the bladder alone. A bigger man of faith? Or just a man with a crazy dream and no faith at all?

 

“Look, I’ve thought about it,” Heather said. “One of the reasons I didn’t go to Africa was because Jace needed space to figure out his life. That hasn’t changed.” She lifted a glass of sweet tea to her lips. She thought about the conversation she’d had in Ukrop’s parking lot. I’ve got a life outside my surgeon husband. “Besides, I’ve got responsibilities here.”

Gabby sat across the kitchen table from her friend. “I know. I understand. But it would be so much better for me if you’d come.”

“I’ve been thinking about something. I want you to do me a favor,” Heather said.

“Sure.”

“I want you to get a sample of Jace’s blood.”

“What?”

“I talked to a friend down at the medical examiner’s office. He said that they could use a sample of Jace’s blood to do a DNA test to see if it matches the semen sample found in Anita Franks.”

Gabby winced. “You can’t be serious. Jace would never—”

“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” Heather interrupted. She stood and started to pace around the island in the kitchen. “Why else would there be ketamine in her blood? Who else would have access to that kind of drug?”

Gabby shook her head. “I shouldn’t need to defend him to you. You should know he’s not capable of rape.”

“I know that,” Heather responded. “But maybe, just maybe, he’s a fallible man, and in a moment of weakness, he fell into the clutches of a seductress.” She paused. “I hate doubting him, but … he refused to explain what he was doing that night.”

“You said he didn’t remember.”

“That’s his story.”

“Collecting evidence should be a police matter.”

“The police aren’t investigating Anita Franks’s death. It’s being considered an accident.”

“Do they know about the ketamine?”

“I don’t know.” Heather raised her hands. “I’m not even sure why I know. But someone wanted me to know this stuff.”

“So what if they find a DNA match? What then? Are you going to go to the police with your findings? Turn in your own husband?”

“No. I’m doing this for me. I want to prove he’s innocent.”

“Or guilty.”

“I don’t want that, Gabby. I want to believe in my husband again. Maybe this will help.”

Gabby took a deep breath. “So you’re saying maybe this will prove it to you.”

Heather bit her lower lip. “I hope so.”

Gabby reached for her hand. “One more try,” she said.

“One more—what?”

“Go with me, Heather. Work it out with Jace, face-to-face.”

 

Jace plodded out of the hospital lobby and into the night air. He needed to walk. To think. And spend some time under the expanse of sky.

He’d always been the doubter. When Janice credited God, he credited circumstance. When she acknowledged divine insight, Jace claimed human wisdom. When they met an obstacle, Jace saw obstruction; Janice, opportunity.

He walked away from the hospital, along a dark path leading through an informal soccer field. There, away from ambient light, he looked at the heavens, a mantle salted with a million stars and the brilliance of the moon. Unlike back in Richmond, where only the brightest stars could be appreciated, under the African sky he could study the Milky Way, seen on edge as a stripe of heavenly white dust.

There, under the enormity of the starry host, Jace felt alone.

Small.

Stripped of the accolades of his cardiothoracic colleagues or appreciative patients.

Facing opposition from hospital staff, threats from politicians, and questions about his motives from the chaplaincy, Jace puffed up his chest.

I’ll show them all.

I can save Beatrice from heart failure.

I can …

He raised a fist to the sky.