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working a miracle.”
    “He’s hyping himself.”
    “Before I introduce those seated behind me,” Paris went on, “and while we are on the subject of outside interference in hospital business, I want to say just a few words about the gauntlet of demonstrators some of you were forced to traverse to get here this morning. Some on our maintenance staff are currently conducting an illegal job action which we have good reason to believe has been instigated and is being abetted by one of those operations committed to our demise. Mark me well. We shall not allow them to interfere one iota with patient care or any other business of this institution.” He pounded his fist on the podium for emphasis. “And that you can take to the bank!”
    The word “bank” was still reverberating throughout the amphitheater when a set of power lines was crossed, causing the main electrical generator at MCB to short out. The backup system, supplying electricity to the operating rooms, ICUs, and part of the emergency ward, kicked in immediately. But the amphitheater, which was windowless, was thrown into instant, stygian darkness.
    The kickoff program for Changeover Day was over.

CHAPTER 3
    I F S ARAH HAD A ROLE MODEL IN HER PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS and gynecology, it was her chief, Dr. Randall Snyder. From his soft-spoken manner to his gray Volvo sedan, everything about the man was fatherly and reassuring. Now in his mid-fifties, he still approached his solo practice with exuberance and compassion. When a new technique or treatment in his field was announced, he would be one of the first in line to learn it. If an uninsured clinic patient had a problem pregnancy, he would accept her as his private patient without a word about payment.
    Today Randall Snyder was taking time from his busy schedule to drive Sarah to the Jamaica Plains section of the city. There he would assist her in performing a home delivery on a twenty-three-year-old unwed woman with no health insurance and an inordinate fear of doctors and hospitals.
    “How do you do it?” Sarah asked as they drove.
    “Do what?” Snyder turned down the volume on the Bach cantata he was playing on the tape deck.
    “Keep on doing medicine the way you do without letting it get to you?”
    Snyder stifled most of a smile. “Do you want to define ‘it’?”
    “Oh, you know—the peer reviews and the lawyers, and the insurance companies and government telling you what you can and can’t charge for your work; the mountains of paperwork, and the constant threat that you’ll offend some vindictive or imbalanced patient who’ll lodge a complaint about you or sue you.”
    “Oh,
that
‘it,’ ” Snyder said. “Sarah, as far as I’m concerned, you’re not even talking about the
real
stress on this job: the cases that don’t come out right, the people with untreatable illness, the people who die in spite of everything we do.”
    “But that’s medicine. The other stuff is … is …”
    “Is medicine, too. It’s part of the package. Believe me, I’m not the serene machine a lot of people make me out to be. But neither do I go home after a day’s work and beat my wife because I haven’t hit the lottery or written the best-seller that will enable me to get out of the profession. I can handle the things you’re talking about because by and large I still love what I do, and feel damn lucky to have been given the chance to do it. Why are you asking about all this? Are you having trouble?”
    “Not trouble exactly. Oh, turn right at the next corner.”
    “Got it. Knowlton Street, you said, right?” “Yes.”
    “I know the way. Now go on.”
    “You know that before I went to med school I worked in a holistic healing center.”
    “Of course. I’ve been to some of your presentations. Interesting stuff. Very interesting.”
    “My training was in herbal medicine and acupuncture. But some things happened that made me feel I needed to broaden the skills I had.”
    Some things