From the International Herald Tribune:

An explosion of unknown origin destroyed a small private clinic outside Barcelona yesterday. The intensity of the heat and smoke greatly hampered rescue operations, and aside from an American, Charles Spencer-Moore, who was apparently blown through a window by the force of the blast, it is believed that there are no survivors. Mr. Spencer-Moore was evacuated to Sisters of Mercy Hospital in Barcelona, where he is in critical condition.

Founded by Dr. Benjamin Talmidge some twenty years ago, the Reproduction Institute catered primarily to the very wealthy and was known chiefly for its cosmetic surgery. . . .

Gently Vivienne took the straw from Charles’s lips and set the glass of apple juice back on the hospital tray. He smiled at her. At least she thought he did. With all those bandages, it was hard to tell. Again a wave of guilt washed over her. If not for her . . .

As though reading her thoughts, he shook his head very slightly. “Not your fault,” he whispered. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again. “Is Angela still here?”

“She’s outside,” Vivienne told him. “I’ll send her in.

“Charles caught at her arm with a bandaged paw. “I’m sorry, Viv,” he said.

She stood and smiled sadly down at him. “Me too,” she said. She bent and kissed him lightly on the forehead. “We’ve all hurt each other. Now it’s time to heal.”

Angela had been hovering as near to Charles’s door as the duty nurse would let her, but as Vivienne emerged, she turned quickly away. They’d been playing this game for days, ever since Charles had been flown back from Spain to New York General Hospital. But today Vivienne followed Angela down the hallway and put a hand on her shoulder. Angela stopped but didn’t turn around.

“Please, Angie,” said Vivienne. “I know it’s hard. But for Charles’s sake, we have to talk.”

Angela was silent.

“You were my best friend,” Vivienne said. “You slept with my fiancé, and yes, that stinks. But I slept with Eric while I was still engaged to Charles. And Charles was unfaithful to me, with you. It all stinks.”

She paused, searching for words. “What I mean is, we’re none of us perfect. But, Angie, these past few weeks I’ve seen so much worse. . . .

“We all need to be forgiven. And we all need to forgive. At least you had the strength to give Charles up. And you sent him to look for me - yes, he told me about all that - even though you knew that finding me might mean losing him. And I love you for it.”

Slowly Angela turned to face Vivienne; tears stood in her eyes. “I love you too, Viv,” she said. “I’ve been so miserable . . .”

The two women embraced. “Clean start?” Vivienne asked.

“Clean start.”

Vivienne put her arm around her friend and walked Angela back up the hallway toward Charles’s room. “Clean up that face before you go in,” she ordered. “He’ll think you’re crying about him.”

“He will be all right, won’t he?” Angela asked anxiously.

“Yes, Eric says he’s doing very well.” Neither mentioned the mangled foot.

Suddenly Angela stopped. “I have an idea,” she said tentatively. “Now, if you don’t like it, say so, OK?”

Vivienne smiled and nodded.

“Charles wants us to get married. Soon. It’ll be a real simple ceremony, probably right here in the hospital. But - if this is awkward for you, just say so - it would really be great if you and Eric could be there for us.”

Vivienne examined her feelings. First, a rush of joy; Angela had forgiven both Vivienne and herself. Then, a pang of jealousy - good God, could she still be in love with Charles?

But the appearance of Eric at that moment, striding along the corridor toward them, immediately put that fear to rest. The swell of love she felt for Eric made her realize that what she’d mistaken for jealousy had been no more than a conditioned reflex; Charles had been hers for so long.

“We’d love to,” she told Angela sincerely. “Now, fix your face and go tell Charles.”

Angela waved a greeting to Eric and scurried toward the ladies’ room. Eric looked after her, surprised.

“We’ve made up,” Vivienne explained. “Everything’s fine again. In fact, you and I are going to stand up for them at their wedding.”

“They’re getting married?”

“Yes, and quite soon.”

He studied her face carefully. How did she really feel about it? But apparently what he saw in her eyes reassured him, because he kissed her deeply.

“Your patient stop breathing, Dr. Rose?”

Startled, they moved apart. Dr. Harris stood in the corridor, trying to look stern. He and Vivienne had had a long talk when she and Eric had returned to the States, and she now considered him a family friend. Still, they were both embarrassed to be caught embracing in the middle of the corridor.

“The transplant conference starts in about ten minutes,” Harris told them, “and I wanted a word with our new staff surgeon here beforehand.”

“Of course, John,” Eric assured him. “No problem. I just came down for a quick look at Charles. Not that his own doctors aren’t doing a great job,” he added hurriedly. Vivienne had explained that Charles found his occasional visits reassuring, but Eric had made certain the specialists in charge understood he was there only as a friend.

“I’ll come with you,” Harris offered.

“And I’ll see you tonight,” Vivienne said.

“He’ll be late. And tired,” Harris assured her.

“So what else is new?” She smiled.

“And hungry,” Eric added. “What do you say we try out the new barbecue grill? I could fix us a couple of steaks, maybe some hash-browns.”

“I’ve gained four pounds since this guy moved in,” she complained, laughing. “I’ll never work again!”

They parted, she toward the bank of elevators, the two doctors toward Charles’s door. A fourth-year medical student came out of the room, freshly filled blood tubes in her hand.

She watched as Eric knocked softly and both doctors disappeared inside. She’d discussed this patient during rounds, and studied the treatments for his various injuries. He seemed so nice; she hoped they’d be able to save his foot, although it didn’t look likely.

She turned and headed toward the nurses’ station with the blood tubes. Of course, Mr. Spencer-Moore’s doctors were doing everything they could. Still, in this age of transplants, shouldn’t there be a better technique? For example, there were any number of cases in which doctors had reattached patients’ own extremeties; why not use a donor foot, the way they did with livers and kidneys? The surgical techniques existed. But the chances of matching a donor limb physically, let alone genetically, were extremely unlikely. Besides, whoever donated their feet to science?

She was placing the blood tubes in the laboratory pickup cart when another thought came to her. Why couldn’t you use a person’s own cells to grow a new part for him? That way you wouldn’t have to worry about rejection. And attachment would be so easy! You’d make a razor-sharp cut across the top of the new foot, just where you wanted to join it, hook everything up perfectly . . . There were so many advantages, she thought excitedly. You could maintain the length of the blood vessels because you’d have all that new genetically matched material to work with. And the bone ends would knit together easily and heal just like a fracture, nice and clean.

For a fleeting moment, she considered asking Dr. Harris about it to see what he thought. But Harris could be so formidable. And she was embarrassingly aware of how much she had yet to learn. She’d look like a dork, telling him what she was thinking. There were probably a hundred reasons against it.

But what if there weren’t? She leaned against the pickup cart, lost in speculation. What if you could grow someone a new hand or foot, even a new organ? Better still, what if you could grow a whole body! Then you’d have it all: heart and liver and limbs and eyes. They were making such progress in cloning techniques. Sure, it was a little science-fiction-y, but so was the idea of a moon landing once, and that had happened.

“Andi, you finished with those charts?”

Startled, she blinked, then smiled at the waiting nurse. “Five minutes,” she promised and turned toward the nearby console table with its pile of waiting paperwork. Someday, she thought, someone would discover how to do such things. Maybe she would herself! Wouldn’t it be wonderful?