Storm Prey

Cooper. By making the offer, she diplomatically cleared the way to help him finish, if that were needed.
    Inside the OR, they waited while Hanson finished taking out the last bit of the ring of bone. He was sweating profusely, but five or six minutes after they stepped inside, he said, “That’s it.”
    Not unlike drywall repair, Weather thought. Then: Well, yes, it is unlike drywall repair.
    Maret: “Okay, everybody, we’re doing good, now. Let’s move the kids. First thing, check all the lines. We don’t want to yank anything out, from clumsiness.”
    The checks were quick, but not perfunctory. The monitoring, anesthesia, and saline lines going into the children were now separate, but there were a lot of them, and included no-longer-functioning joint lines. The team traced them out, moved a few around, and then Maret said, “Let’s make the move. Let’s make the move.”
    Weather was standing in a sterile isolation area, where the non-sterile circulating nurses were not allowed, and had an end-on view of the tables. Hanson, Maret, and one of the anesthesiologists gripped the form-fitting foam cushion on which the twins lay, and carefully, slowly, pulled them apart.
    As the cushions moved, the twins slowly, for the first time in their lives, drew apart, an inch at a time, then more quickly, until six feet separated them.
    Maret turned to Weather and Cooper: “Quickly, now. Quickly.”
     
     
    WEATHER HAD SARA, Cooper had Ellen. She first took out the two expanders, silicone balloons filled with saline solution—a bloody process because the scalp had to be lifted away from the skull. Once the balloons were out, she worked around the edges of the loosened skin, where it was still attached to Sara’s skull.
    “Ah, shit,” Cooper said. She glanced sideways and saw Cooper with blood spattered on his operating glasses. In cutting the scalp away from the skull, he’d cut through a tiny artery, which squirted blood up into his face and glasses. He cauterized it, and the smell of burning blood drifted through the room.
    When she thought she was ready, with a little to spare, Weather said, “Cap,” and a neurosurgeon moved in with a composite piece marked with tiny orientation grooves. He got it the right way around and placed it in the defect, and Weather saw it almost click into place. The cap would be held down by two tiny stainless-steel screws, and, finally, by the scalp, as it grew back.
    The surgeon said, “You do good work, Rick,” and, “Drill, please.”
    Weather stepped back from the table, holding her hands against her stomach to keep from bumping anything non-sterile, and glanced up at the watchers. Only a glance, and then she kept her head resolutely down, for she’d seen, in the glance, the skinhead. Virgil and Lucas had described him, and there was no doubt about it.
    “First screw is in,” the neurosurgeon said, and behind him, Cooper, working on Ellen, said, “Cap,” and a moment later, another neurosurgeon said, “Just like the cap on a Ball jar.”
    Weather kept her eyes down, thinking. A surgical pen, last used by Hanson, was sitting on an equipment tray. She reached out, picked it up, stepped behind the neurosurgeon, and wrote on the sleeve of her operating gown, “DO NOT LOOK UP. Go in the hallway and tell my husband that the skinhead is in the observation area. DO NOT HURRY.”
    She said to one of the circulating nurses, whom she’d known for a while, and who knew who Lucas was, “Kristy, could you get me one of the large gauze pads, please?”
    The nurse stepped over to a supply cabinet, picked up a pad, slit the packaging without touching the sterile gauze, and brought it over to Weather. Weather held out the arm with the writing on it, still concealed behind the neurosurgeon’s back, slowly pulled the gauze pad out of the packaging.
    Kristy looked down at the writing on Weather’s sleeve, and she almost looked up, but didn’t. Her eyes came to Weather’s, and she gave a tiny nod. No dummy.
    Weather took the gauze pad and moved up beside the neurosurgeon, to watch him place the final screw.
    “Second screw is in ... as my girlfriend said to me last night,” the neurosurgeon said. The women in the room booed him, and he said, cheerfully, “Just trying to speak truth to power.”
    Weather moved back up and stretched the loosened scalp over the cap.
    Maret asked, “Is there enough?”
    Weather said, “Of course. I’m even better at topology than Rick,” and