Monday Mornings: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

wandered, and she wondered if anything was going on between Ty and Tina. They were spending a lot of time together. Sydney had a sixth sense for these things, and she smelled a whiff of added intimacy between the two doctors.
    The thought of work of course prompted Sydney to suddenly stop and check her pager. Nothing. It was no surprise that Sydney hadn’t been able to actually get through dinner and a complete romantic date for the last two years. If the pager went off, she stopped whatever she was doing and rushed to check it. Ross, her last real boyfriend, had gone so far as to buy an engagement ring. He had it in his pocket the night they went to Gandy Dancer, the nicest restaurant in town. He picked an evening when she wasn’t on call and should have had no reason to wear her pager. After she answered it for the seventh time, though, disappearing for thirty minutes, Ross decided the ring was better off in his pocket. Afterward, Sydney didn’t know why their relationship had soured, only that the vision she had of “punching the marriage ticket” as her career powered ahead had vanished with the empty cups of decaf at the Gandy Dancer.
    Sydney headed downhill, her legs churning, moving away from the million-dollar homes toward the ranches and teardowns in the next neighborhood over, Sung Park’s neighborhood. Even though he was making a good salary now as a neurosurgeon, he still lived in the same house he bought when he was a resident. She had asked him once if he was planning on getting a bigger place now that he had three children and a better-paying job. He looked at her for a long second, and then said, “Why?”
    Sydney’s pager went off. Her pulse quickened. She checked it without breaking stride. It said, 311. 6. Poor Ty , she immediately thought. The bigger they are, the harder they fall . Ty was the big man on campus in the hospital, and was naturally gifted, but no one escaped Monday Mornings.
     
    I n the operating room, Ty stood over the twenty-five-year-old woman’s exposed brain. He now knew her name was Sheila, she was a teacher, and she’d been driving home after a long bike ride on the Kensington Park trail. Her father had given Ty these details while her mother sat next to him sobbing. When Ty handed over the consent form for surgery, the reality of the situation hit both parents, and they broke down. Ty had gently put his hands on their shoulders and said simply, “Don’t worry, when she’s in there with me, I will treat her like a member of my own family.” Sheila’s mother wiped her eyes, stood up, and gave Ty a hug. Her father signed the form giving permission for Ty to open up his daughter’s brain with a series of drills, saws, and scalpels.
    The rest of her head was covered by a light blue drape, framing the gray tissue visible through a round hole in the side of her skull. It had taken Ty just twenty-five minutes to open the skull, delicately cut the outer layer of the brain, and split the natural fissure between the frontal and temporal lobes. This was arguably one of the most difficult operations a brain surgeon could perform, but no one in the operating room seemed anxious. When Ty Wilson walked into the room, everything seemed to fall into a state of order and calm. Now Ty was carefully peering into the microscope, the bright light reflecting the gray-red brain onto his blue eyes. He needed to clip the aneurysm that had almost killed her earlier that night and could kill her in the days or weeks ahead if he did not disarm it.
    The operating room was cold, and Eddie Vedder played over the stereo system: “Just Breathe.” The Northwest grunge music was the choice of the anesthesiologist, a petite doctor named Mickie Mason. She stood next to a bank of devices monitoring the woman’s vital signs. Most surgeons held strong opinions about what music played in the OR when they operated. Truth was, Ty didn’t even hear it when he was in the zone, so he let the gas passer—his