SHHHHH-CLINK.
Forty-five milliliters of dark, deoxygenated blood evacuated from the compressed space surrounding ten-year-old Chloe Vance’s myocardium.
Instantly, the violent, erratic fluttering beneath her ribcage stabilized. The harsh, mechanical crescendo murmur receded into a clean, rhythmic, ninety-beat-per-minute sinus tempo:
LUB-DUB... LUB-DUB... LUB-DUB.
The cyanotic blue draining from the child’s lips retreated, replaced by a faint, trembling flush of healthy rose.
Chloe let out a long, shuddering gasp of pure oxygen, her eyelids fluttering open against the fluorescent cabin lights, her small, cold hand reaching out blindly in the aisle until her miniature fingers curled tightly around the sleeve of my blue surgical scrub top.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” I whispered, my large, scarred surgeon’s hand resting gently over her forehead:
“Breathe slow. The pressure is off your heart. Grandpa’s line holds true.”
Beside us on the floor of the aisle, Melissa Vance collapsed forward until her forehead was pressed flat against the carpeted floorboards, her eight-thousand-dollar cashmere cardigan soaked in iodine and tears, her shoulders heaving in violent, spastic sobs of pure, un-calibrated humiliation:
