Harvest by Tess Gerritsen Read Free Book Online Page B

think and feel, but also to give the rest of our body a purpose. When that purpose is gone, the heart, the lungs, they start to fail." Abby looked at the ventilator. "The machine is breathing for her."
    "I know." Joe rubbed his face with his hands. "I know, I know. I know . . ."
    Abby said nothing, Joe was rocking back and forth in his chair now, his hands in his hair, his throat squeezing out little grunts and whimpers, the closest thing to sobs a man could allow himself. When he raised his head again, clumps of his hair stood up damp and stiff with tears.
    He looked up at the monitor again. The one spot in the room he seemed to feel was safe to stare at. "It all seems too soon."
    "It isn't. There's only a certain amount of time before the organs start to go bad. Then they can't be used. And no one is helped by that, Joe."
    He looked at her, across the body of his wife. "Did you bring the papers?"
    "I have them."
    He scarcely looked at the forms. He merely signed his name at the bottom and handed the papers back. An ICU nurse and Abby witnessed the signature. Copies of the form would go into Karen Terrio's record, to the New England Organ Bank, and Bayside's Transplant Co-ordinator files. Then the organs would be harvested.
    Long after KarenTerrio was buried, bits and pieces of her would go on living. The heart that she'd once felt thudding in her chest when she'd played as a five-year-old, married as a twenty-year-old, and strained at childbirth as a twenty-one-year-old, would go on beating in the chest of a stranger. It was as close as one could come to immortality.
    But it was scarcely much comfort to Joseph Terrio, who continued his silent vigil at the bedside of his wife.
    Abby found Vivian Chao undressing in the OR locker room. Vivian had just emerged from four hours of emergency surgery, yet not a single blot of sweat stained the discarded scrub clothes lying on the bench beside her.
    Abby said, "We have consent for the harvest."
    "The papers are signed?" asked Vivian. "Yes."
    "Good. I'll order the lymphocyte crossmatch." Vivian reached for a fresh scrub top. She was dressed only in her bra and underwear, and every rib seemed to stand out on her frail, flat chest. Honorary manhood, thought Abby, is a state of mind, not body. "How are her vitals?" asked Vivian.
    "They're holding steady."
    "Have to keep her blood pressure up. Kidneys perfused. It's not every day a nice pair of AB positive kidneys comes along." Vivian pulled on a pair of drawstring trousers and tucked in her shirt. Every movement she made was precise. Elegant.
    "Will you be scrubbing in on the harvest?" asked Abby.
    "If my patient gets the heart, I will. The harvest is the easy part. It's reattaching the plumbing that gets interesting." Vivian closed the locker door and snapped the padlock shut. "You have a minute?
    I'll introduce you to Josh."
    "Josh?"
    "My patient on the teaching service. He's up in MICU."
    They left the locker room and headed down the hall towards the elevator. Vivian made up for her short legs by her quick, almost fierce stride. "You can't judge the success of a heart transplant until you've seen the before and the after," said Vivian. "So I'm going to show you the before. Maybe it'll make things easier for you." 'what do you mean?"
    "Your woman has a heart but no brain. My boy has a brain and practically no heart."The elevator door opened. Vivian stepped in. "Once you get past the tragedy, it all makes sense."
    They rode the elevator in silence.
    Of course it makes sense, thoughtAbby. It makes perfect sense. Vivian sees it clearly. But I can't seem to get past the image of two little girls standing by their mother's bed. Afraid to touch her... Vivian led the way to the Medical ICU. Joshua O"Day was asleep in Bed 4.
    "He's sleeping a lot these days," whispered the nurse, a sweet faced blonde with Hannah Love, RN, on her nametag.
    "Change in meds?" asked Vivian.
    "I think it's depression." Hannah shook her head and sighed. "I've been