Dead Certain

drug. I wondered what Claudia was listening to right now as she helped Carl Laffer cut through Bill Delius’s chest. Puccini, perhaps. Laffer was an opera buff who liked to sing along with the tenor on the tape and encouraged the rest of his team to do the same. There were some nurses he reportedly wouldn’t work with solely because they couldn’t carry a tune. Luckily, Claudia was a gifted soprano, who reported that singing made the backbreaking labor of cardiac surgery pass more quickly. For my part I was just grateful that it wasn’t Gavin McDermott now holding Bill Delius’s heart in his hands.
     
    When I got home Leo once again waited out front until I had gotten past the dead bolts and was safely inside. Apparently there’d been another break-in the night before, prompting a repeat of his offer to lend me his dog, as well as other, vaguely paternal warnings. I told that I was grateful for his concern, but I was so tired at I honestly didn’t care if someone broke in, just as long as the burglar was careful not to wake me up.
    I let myself into the dark apartment, practically swaying on my feet from exhaustion. Even before I switched on the light, I saw that there were five messages on the answering machine. For a woman with almost no personal life, this was not a good sign. I flipped through the mail as the tape rewound, dropping credit-card come-ons and promises of long-distance savings unopened into the garbage can.
    The first four calls were from my mother. Made at various intervals throughout the evening, they ranged in tone from irritated condescension to outright pique. These were followed by a short message from Elliott Abelman explaining that the defense had rested and the judge had called for closing arguments the next day. His exile to Springfield was drawing to a close.
    Normally the messages from my mother would have sent me into an orbit of distress, but tonight I was immune from her displeasure. Instead, I reveled in the sound of Elliott’s voice and felt my heart quicken at the prospect of seeing him again. I’d spent the last three years trying to figure out my feelings for the man, and for the first time, my heart spoke clearly. Tonight I’d seen blood and pain and glimpsed the capricious fates that hold us in their hands. Perhaps, I thought to myself, perhaps we’re meant to accept love when it’s given.
     
    The next morning I slept through my alarm and woke up with the sun pouring in through the blinds turning the dust in the room into dancing glitters of light. I rolled over, wrapped in the familiar softness of one of Russell’s old T-shirts, my body still heavy with sleep, and looked at the clock. It took a while for the numbers to penetrate the thickness in my brain. I couldn’t believe that it was after nine o’clock.
    I groaned and wondered whether seppuku was an option. Then I remembered Bill Delius and dragged myself to my feet, padding barefoot to the telephone in the front hall to page Claudia. Since we’d started getting hang-up calls, we’d unplugged all the phones in the back part of the apartment to avoid being woken up. By the time I’d made my way to the phone in the front hall, the soles of my feet were covered with dust. Now that both of us knew we would be moving, we’d stopped even talking about cleaning.
    The message light was blinking again. Apparently I’d slept through another call. I hit the rewind button and waited, steeling myself for the worst. When I heard Claudia’s voice on the tape, I actually held my breath.
    “Hi, Kate, it’s me,” began my roommate, her voice thick with fatigue. “It’s... let me see... it’s four-thirty in the morning, and I thought you’d want to know that your client ended up with a double bypass, but it looks like we’re going to be putting his name down in the ‘save’ column. You might want to stop in and see him in the next day or so and judge our handiwork for yourself. You might also want to tell him about the crack trauma team that saved his ass. At any other hospital they would have called him DOA the minute they wheeled him in the door.” Even on the tape I could hear the piercing tones of her beeper going off again. “Uh-oh, they’re playing my song. Got to go,” she said, followed by another beep, this one from the answering machine signaling the end of her call.
    I pushed the rewind button and listened to the message again, feeling a sudden lightness that was much more than relief. It had