Until this moment.

Now, it seemed, near the close of his own career, he was to share the sad and bitter harvest of another man’s incompetence; and worse—a man who was a friend.

“Joe,” he said, “there’s something I’d like you to know.”

Pearson had lowered himself to a lab stool, his face drained of color, his eyes unfocused. Now he looked up slowly.

“This was a premature baby, Joe; but it was normal, and we could have done an exchange transfusion right after birth.” Dornberger paused, and when he went on the turmoil of his own emotions was in his voice. “Joe, we’ve been friends a long time, and sometimes I’ve covered up for you, and I’ve helped you fight your battles. But this time, if this baby dies, so help me God!—I’ll take you before the medical board and I’ll break you in two.”

Twenty

“For Christ sake, what are they doing over there? Why haven’t we heard yet?”

Dr. Joseph Pearson’s fingers drummed a nervous tattoo upon his office desk. It was an hour and a quarter since the blood sample had been taken from the Alexander baby and promptly dispatched to University Hospital. Now the elder pathologist and David Coleman were alone in the office.

Coleman said quietly, “I called Dr. Franz a second time. He said he’ll phone the moment they have a result.”

Pearson nodded dully. He asked, “Where’s the boy—Alexander?”

“The police drove him back. He’s with his wife.” Coleman hesitated. “While we’re waiting—do you think we should check with the health office about the kitchen situation, make sure the foodhandler checks are being started?”

Pearson shook his head. “Later—when all this is over.” He said intensely, “I can’t think of anything else until this thing is settled.”

For the first time since this morning’s events, which had erupted so explosively in the lab, David Coleman found himself wondering about Pearson and what the older man was feeling. There had been no argument about the validity of Coleman’s statements concerning the sensitization test, and Pearson’s silence on the subject seemed a tacit admission that his younger colleague was better informed than himself, at any rate in this area. Coleman thought: It must be a bitter thing to face; and for the first time he felt a stirring of sympathy for the other man.

Pearson stopped drumming and slammed his hand hard on the table. “For Pete’s sake,” he said, “why don’t they call?”

“Is there any news from Pathology?”

Dr. Charles Dornberger, scrubbed and waiting in a small operating room which adjoined Obstetrics, asked the question of the charge nurse who had entered.

The girl shook her head. “No, Doctor.”

“How close are we to being ready?”

The nurse filled two rubber hot-water bottles and placed them beneath a blanket on the tiny operating table that was used for infants. She answered, “Just a few minutes more.”

An intern had joined Dornberger. The intern asked, “Do you intend to go ahead with an exchange transfusion—even if you don’t have the Coombs test result?”

“Yes,” Dornberger answered. “We’ve lost enough time already and I don’t want to add to it.” He considered, then went on, “In any case, the anemia in the child now is sufficiently marked to justify a blood exchange even without the test.”

The nurse said, “By the way, Doctor, the baby’s umbilical cord has been cut short. I wondered if you knew that.”

“Yes, thank you, I did.” To the intern Dornberger explained, “When we know in advance that an exchange transfusion will be necessary, we leave the umbilical cord long at birth. It makes a convenient point of connection. Unfortunately in this case we didn’t know, so the cord was cut.”

“How will you proceed?” the intern asked.

“I’ll use a local anesthetic and cut down just above the umbilical vein.” Turning back to the nurse, Dornberger asked, “Is the blood being warmed?”

She nodded. “Yes, Doctor.”

Dornberger told the intern, “It’s important to make sure the new blood is close to body temperature. Otherwise it increases the danger of shock.”

In a separate compartment of his mind Dornberger was aware that he was talking as much for his own benefit as for the instruction of the intern. Talking at least prevented him from thinking too deeply, and for the moment deep thinking was something Charles Dornberger wanted to avoid. Since he had left Pearson after the showdown in the lab his own mind had been engaged in a torment of anxiety and recrimination. The fact that, technically, he himself was not to blame for what had happened seemed unimportant. It was his patient who was in jeopardy, his patient that might die because of the worst kind of medical negligence, and the ultimate responsibility was his alone.

About to continue talking, Dornberger checked himself abruptly. Something was wrong; he had a feeling of dizziness; his head was throbbing, the room swirling. Momentarily he closed his eyes, then opened them. It was all right; things were back in focus, the dizziness almost gone. But when he looked down at his hands he saw they were trembling. He tried to control the movement and failed.

The incubator containing the Alexander baby was being wheeled in. At the same moment he beard the intern ask, “Dr. Dornberger—are you all right?”

It was on the edge of his tongue to answer “yes.” He knew that if he did he could carry on, concealing what had happened, with no one but himself aware of it. And then perhaps, even at this late moment, by exercise of skill and judgment he could save this child, salving, at least in some measure, his conscience and integrity.

Then, in the same moment, he remembered all that he had said and believed over the years—about old men clinging to power too long; the boast that when his own time came he would know it and make way; his conviction that he would never handle a case with his own facilities unpaired. He thought of these things, then looked down at his shaking hands.

“No,” he said, “I don’t think I am all right.” He paused, and aware for the first time of a deep emotion which made it hard to control his voice, he asked, “Will someone please call Dr. O’Donnell? Tell him I’m unable to go on. I’d like him to take over.”

At that moment, in fact and in heart, Dr. Charles Dornberger retired from the practice of medicine.

As the telephone bell rang Pearson snatched the instrument from its cradle.

“Yes?” A pause. “This is Dr. Pearson.” He listened. “Very well. Thanks.”

Without putting the receiver back he flashed the exchange and asked for an extension number. There was a click, then an answer, and Pearson said, “Get me Dr. Dornberger. It’s Dr. Pearson calling.”

A voice spoke briefly, then Pearson said, “All right, then give him a message. Tell him I’ve just heard from the university. The blood test on the Alexander baby is positive. The child has erythroblastosis.”

Pearson replaced the phone. Then he looked up, to find David Coleman’s eyes upon him.

Dr. Kent O’Donnell was striding through the hospital’s main floor on his way to Neurology. He had arranged a consultation there to discuss a partial paralysis condition in one of his own patients.

It was O’Donnell’s first day back at Three Counties after his return from New York the evening before. He still felt a sense of exhilaration and freshness from his trip; a change of scene, he told himself, was what every physician needed now and then. Sometimes the daily contact with medicine and sickness could become a depressive, wearing you down after a while without your own awareness of its happening. In the larger sense, too, a change was invigorating and broadening for the mind. And akin to this, more and more since his New York meeting with Denise, the question of ending his own tenure at Three Counties, and of leaving Burlington for good, had kept coming back, to be assessed and weighed in mind, and each time the arguments in favor of a move had seemed more convincing. He knew, of course, that he was strongly motivated by his feelings for Denise and that even until their latest meeting the thought of leaving Burlington had not occurred to him. But he asked himself: was there anything wrong with an individual making a professional choice which weighed in favor of personal happiness? It was not as if he would be quitting medicine; he would merely be changing his base of operations and giving of his best elsewhere. After all, any man’s life was the sum of all its parts; without love, if once he found it, the rest of him might wither and be worthless. With love he could be a better man—zealous and devoted—because his life was whole. Again he thought of Denise with a rising sense of excitement and anticipation.