Do No Harm

He took in the shock of her face. Her eyes, milky white, shrunken and sightless, were those of a Macbeth witch. Bolsters covered her face from forehead to chin. Xeroform-yellow antibiotic-impregnated sheets-had been sutured into her face over the skin grafts and packed with cotton soaked in mineral water. Then the Xeroform's edges had been folded back over and tied like a package, molding the new skin into the wound so it would take. If the grafts hadn't been laid, the wounds would have contracted as they closed over, pulling her features out of proportion. Disfiguring contractions came in all shapes and sizes-smeared nostrils, drooping eyes, lips stretched wide and thin. Polysporin antibiotic ointment stood out in globs over the bolsters. Infection-the next fight.

David found he was talking. "-in four to five days, we'll get those bolsters off and see if the grafts took. The sutures are sheep gut, so they'll dissolve. I insisted the plastics guys get in right away. They found a pretty good color match with the skin from your supraclavicular and postauricular areas, and they pulled a bit more from your lateral thigh-"

She was shaking her head back and forth. "No more," she said thickly. "No more." Her voice was hoarse-when she was in the ER, he should've seen about revising her crich to a trach earlier.

David crouched, resting his forearms flat on her bed. "I'm sorry," he said. "Just know you're being taken care of."

"Scary," she said. "So scary. A man coming at me… " She made a noise like a sigh. "Did they catch him?"

The thought of the assailant free, plotting and moving among others, made David's mouth tighten. "Not yet."

"I heard he got Sandra too. Is she okay?" Nancy's voice was flat and droning, the words all blending together.

"She'll have some scarring, but she should be all right."

"Did she swallow any?"

He shook his head, then remembered Nancy couldn't see him. "No," he said.

"Where is she?"

"Her mother took her up north. She's being treated at Stanford, closer to home. I'm not sure if she's coming back."

They sat in silence. The overhead lights were giving him a headache.

"I don't want to work anymore," Nancy said. "Don't want to be around people." A bit of drool ran from the corner of her mouth down her cheek, tracing the edge of a bolster.

"You can see about that later. Work can help pull you through a tough time." He sounded platitudinous and foolish, even to himself.

Her head looked like that of a mutant insect in a '50s fear film. "I don't want to help others," she said. "Not anymore."

"Okay," David said. "Okay."

"They said I can't have a corneal transplant."

"No," David said. "I'm so sorry."

"Why" -she paused, sucking air- "why not? Why won't they let me?"

"You lost over half of your cornea. I'm afraid there's not enough to sew into."

"Either eye?"

"I'm afraid not." I'm afraid, I'm afraid-he thought about the construct and how little it conveyed, how clinical it sounded. This woman was blind and terribly scarred. When she could finally eat solid foods again, she'd experience pain swallowing and she'd probably regurgitate her food with some regularity. Her esophagus would scar and tighten, causing strictures. I'm afraid didn't quite cover the bases.

She was crying softly, her head weakly shaking. Her eyes could no longer produce tears. "I don't want to be blind," she sobbed. "I want to see things. Grass, people, movies. What did I do? What did I do?"

He stood dumbly over her, both of them painted with lines of exquisite sunset. "Nothing. You did nothing to deserve this."

"Is Sandra blind?"

"No, she was fortunate. The alkali didn't go in her eyes." Fortunate. Another doctor's crutch.

Hoarse, rasping sobs. "Why me and not her?"

David took her hand quietly and sat with her as she drifted back into a drugged sleep. He did not have an answer.

The Nintendo Gameboy made a woeful noise in Dalton's hands, and he cursed and banged it on his knee. "Game over," he said. "Wanna play?" He offered the unit to Yale, who regarded it disdainfully for a moment before snapping to attention at movement by the ER doors.

An elderly woman emerged, limped across the ambulance bay, and climbed into a blue Volvo. Yale grimaced and settled back on his stool within the cramped confines of the ambulance.

As the Volvo sputtered up the ramp and out of sight, Dalton strained to make out the license plate through the night air. "One Ocean Sam Charles three four seven," he recited.

Yale remained statue-still, his eyes fixed on the ER doors.

"Let's see," Dalton continued. "I'll take the four, which gives me three of a kind because of the red 'Vette and the Dodge Ram. What do you want? Hey-what do you want?"

Yale's eyes flickered over to Dalton. "Whatever."

"Not whatever. You have to pick something. Why don't you take the seven, which'll give you two pairs."

"Fine," Yale said. "I'll take the seven."

"Or you could take the four and go for a straight."

"The four," Yale said. "Great."

"Well, which one?"