Miriam Parkhurst and Lewis Chin, the two Visiting Surgeons, had done an emergency in OR-3 during the early hours of Thursday morning, a dirty case, which meant the entire operating room had to be scrubbed before Mrs. Bergstrom could be moved into it. Adam waited in the corridor outside the OR with Meomartino, next to the rolling litters on which the twins lay, sedated but conscious.

“Peg?” Melanie Bergstrom said drowsily.

Peggy Weld raised herself on one elbow and looked at her sister.

“I wish they had given us a rehearsal.”

“This one we can ad-lib.”

“Peg?”

“Mmmm?”

“I never in all this time said thank you.”

“Don’t start now, I couldn’t stand it,” Peggy Weld said drily. She grinned. “Remember how I used to take you to the ladies’ room when we were kids? In a way, I’m still taking you to the ladies’ room.”

High on Pentothal, they fell into a giggling fit which dwindled into silence.

“If anything happens to me, take care of Ted and the girls,” Melanie Bergstrom said.

Her sister didn’t answer.

“Promise, Peg?” Melanie said.

“Oh, shut up, you stupid girl.”

The doors of OR-3 swung open and two orderlies came out, pushing the wheeled kick-buckets before them with their feet. “It’s all yours, Doc,” one of them said.

Adam nodded and they moved Mrs. Bergstrom into the OR.

“Peg?” she said again.

“I love you, Mellie,” Peggy Weld said.

She was weeping as Adam pushed her litter into OR-4. Without having to be told, fat boy gave her another jolt in the arm before they transferred her to the table.

Adam went in to scrub. When he came back the anesthesiologist was already seated on his stool near her head, playing with his dials. Rafe Meomartino, whose assignment was in the other OR, was standing over Peggy Weld, gently caressing the wetness from her face with a piece of sterile gauze.

It went flawlessly. Peggy Weld had very healthy kidneys, and Adam assisted while Lew Chin removed one of them, then he perfused the kidney and hung around the other OR to watch while Meomartino helped Kender with the transplant.

After that, the rest of the day was anticlimactic and slow-moving and he was very happy to see Gaby when she drove up to get him that evening.

On the road they did very little talking. The scenery was very nice in a stark and autumnal way but in a little while it grew dark and there was nothing to see outside the car but moving shadows; inside, by the slight light of the dashboard, she was a silhouette, lovely and changing in slight detail now and then when she pulled around a more sensibly driven automobile or braked to avoid running through a truck. She drove too fast; they hurtled along as if racing the devil or Lyndon Johnson.

She saw him looking at her and she smiled.

“Watch the road,” he said.