Helen laid her hand on the woman’s arm. “Everybody gets a little bit scared just before an operation. That’s completely normal.” She hoped the smile that cost her so much effort came across as sincere.

She had scarcely been able to control her nerves while opening the recovery room with her colleagues this morning. In the changing room, she had forgotten to put her phone and her rings in the locker, and shortly after that, she had run into the wall with a cart and dropped a basket of cannulas. “Rough night?” Paula, one of her older colleagues, had asked as she helped her pick up the needles from the floor.

“I st—stayed up until the kids came home.”

Paula understood. “The teenage years are all blood, sweat, and tears, aren’t they? I’m glad my kids have left home, for what it’s worth. Means I can sleep again at night.”

“Nurse?”

Helen awoke from her reverie with a start.

“I guess it’s for the best,” said the patient.

She had forgotten what operation the woman was due to undergo, and cast a quick glance at the monitor. Appendectomy, it said. “Oh yes, absolutely. It’ll relieve all your pain straightaway.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Lex Melo approaching—one of the nurse anesthetists. Like everybody in the unit, he was wearing blue scrubs with short sleeves and plastic clogs.

“Look, my colleague is here already,” said Helen. “He’ll take you through to the OR, and I’ll see you again very soon in the recovery room.” She leaned forward confidentially. “They’ve got a superb team working in there—the very best people we have.”

“And if Helen says it, then it must be true.” Lex winked at Helen from behind the patient. “You haven’t had surgery before, if I understand correctly?”

The woman looked a good deal more cheerful when he directed his attention toward her. No doubt because of his eyes, thought Helen—big and brown, the most beautiful eyes in the whole hospital. He had once told her that he’d inherited them from his Brazilian grandfather.

“No, that’s right. This is my first time.”

“We’re always extra careful when that’s the case,” he joked.