Wynn stuck his head out of the curtain and spoke using words like
She tucked her hands in her lap before they got ideas. “You should rest.”
“I’ll rest when the work is done.”
“The work of war may never be done. You’ll die on your feet and then what will your patients do?”
“You’re a rather morbid encourager.”
“Russians are firmly rooted in the dramatic. We know no other way.”
“Don’t I know it.” He moved to open the curtain. “Try to get some rest yourself. For your sister’s sake as well as your own.”
“‘I’ll rest when the work is done.’” The words rushed from her heart before she could stop them. Before he would be too far gone to hear them. “Dr. MacCallan. Wynn. It’s good to see you.”
He looked at her for a long moment. The corners of his eyes crinkled, a telltale sign of the smile beneath his mask. “It’s good to see you too.”
* * *
Wynn stood aside, the book in his hand forgotten, as three more covered bodies were carried down the stairs to be taken out back of the hospital to await transport to the mass grave being dug outside the city. One of many constructed lately to accommodate the influenza victims. There were simply too many.
“Are these all?” he asked the last orderly.
“Two more. Civilians. We’ll come back and fetch them once the Sisters have finished washing the bodies.”
Dread filling him, Wynn waited until the grim procession passed out of sight before sprinting the remaining stairs to the infectious ward. Death steals boldly in the dark night of a sick ward, seizing those in rest who otherwise remain vigilant in light of day. He heard the rattles of breath and the shivers leaving bodies weak and exposed to searching Death.
The Sisters stood guard as they patrolled up and down the aisles, but none stood by the curtained bed. Wynn hurried toward it and pulled back the flimsy material. Marina lay on the bed with red blotching her cheeks. Svetlana sat in the chair next to her, her cheek resting on her arm beside her sister’s hand. Asleep.
He released a shaky breath. Death had not visited. He checked the medical chart attached to the foot of the bed, then performed a quick examination of the patient, careful not to disturb her. She was still feverish, but the sheets were dry. The crucial twenty-four hours had passed, yet she remained in some danger. Patients often seemed to recover the second day only to relapse.
Wynn’s attention drifted to Svetlana. Thin and pale, with purple smudging under her eyes. The months of fleeing had not been gentle to her. Would that he had a medicine or surgical instrument to alleviate the fear she must carry.
And there was nothing he loved more than a challenge. It was a lifelong pursuit of his, claiming the endeavors others thought out of reach and exploring them until he understood them inside and out, until he alone could reveal the hidden treasure within, like the life-pumping valves of a heart.
No cardiological study sent his heart racing the way she did. There was something about her that called to a lost part of him. She possessed a strength of character that bolstered his own. When problems seemed insurmountable in the operating theater, he would remember her fortitude not to cower at the Red Army, instead braving Russia’s bitter winter to escape, and confining herself to a dank basement for the safety of her family. She inspired him.
Across the bed, Svetlana stirred awake. Her eyes widened at the sight of him and she jerked in her chair to grab Marina’s hand.
“She’s asleep,” he reassured her.
She took a shaky breath, much the same as he had done a few minutes before, then tugged at the kerchief covering her hair. While her nurse’s uniform was nothing of a shock to see on a hospital floor, she wore it with the discomfort of an unfamiliar skin.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Are you still on duty?”
He nodded. “Surgery is quiet for the moment. I came to see how you’re doing.”
“You did not return home.”