She had trouble sleeping that night, and got up at five. Since all her blood work had been done, she had to be at the hospital at six and the surgery was scheduled for eight. Both surgeons had said they would see her before the surgery. The hospital wasn’t far from the apartment and their offices. She took a cab there at quarter to six. It was on the East River, and she arrived on time, and registered. She was taken to a private room, and the anesthesiologist came to see her and explained the procedure to her. It was all much fancier than anything she’d experienced in Belgium, but it was a private hospital, as opposed to a military one that was government run. The care there had been excellent, but it was more personalized here, with attention to every detail to contribute to her comfort.
They gave her something to relax her, and when Dr. Talbot and Dr. Dennis arrived, she was already sleepy and dozing off. They spoke to her for a few minutes and then left to scrub. She hardly noticed when the attendants came to put her on a gurney and roll her down the hall to the operating room. And once on the table, the room and bright lights were a familiar sight. It was cold, and they covered her with a heated blanket before they started. She was aware of both of her doctors in the room. A nurse put something in her IV, and within minutes the anesthesiologist told her to count backward from ten, and at nine she was unconscious.
* * *
—
The next thing she knew, she heard her name, and a nurse kept asking her questions she was too tired to answer. She was in the recovery room, and continued to doze. It seemed like a long time later when both doctors were standing next to her bed and telling her it had gone well.
“That’s nice…thank you…” she said, and went back to sleep, and woke occasionally to say something to the nurse in French. They gave her some juice, and it was nighttime when she got back to her room. The nurse explained that they were giving her pain medication, but Véronique wasn’t aware of any pain. She asked the nurse if there had been a second bomb and if her mother was all right. The nurse said that both her doctors had come to see her again while she was asleep. She never answered her about the bomb and her mother. When they helped her to the bathroom a while later, she asked how Cyril was, and the nurse said he was fine. They were used to post-op patients, and she was getting strong medications. Her face was heavily bandaged, and she slept through the night and woke in the morning. It was snowing outside, and there was a foot of snow on the windowsill. Her mouth felt like cotton from the anesthesia. Dr. Talbot came to see her at eight a.m. and she was starting to come out of the fog.
“It looks like we’re going to have a white Christmas for you.” He smiled at her. It had taken him twenty minutes to get from his office a few blocks away on slippery streets. “How are you feeling, Véronique?”
“Tired, but okay.” She didn’t like the sensation of her face bandaged again. It felt suffocating and brought back bad memories, but she wasn’t in pain.
“You just spend the next few days sleeping.” There were bandages on her legs and arms too, from Dr. Dennis’s work, and a large bandage on her stomach. “We did some good work yesterday,” he said, looking pleased. “I think we’ll all be happy with it. Everything went fine.”
She spent the next two days more asleep than awake, with the medications they were giving her, and both doctors came to see her on Christmas morning. They had lightened the dose of pain medication, and she was more alert. There was even more snow on the windowsill. The city was nearly shut down after a blizzard. She had slept through all of it.
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Talbot asked her, as Dr. Dennis checked the bandages on her legs and was satisfied. She had barely moved out of bed in three days except to go to the bathroom, and most of the time she had thought she was in Belgium. She knew where she was now. It was Christmas morning. “Would you like to go back to the apartment today?” Dr. Talbot asked her. There was no reason to keep her in the hospital. Where she felt most comfortable was really up to her.
“Yes,” she said, her voice a croak from not speaking much for three days, and the anesthetic.
“We’ll have a car pick you up this afternoon, and a nurse will be with you tonight and tomorrow after you go home. After that you should be okay on your own.” She realized then that Dr. Dennis had come in specially to see her, even though he wasn’t on duty on Christmas Day. But his children were old enough to manage without him for an hour. In fact, they all had plans, and were going to be coming and going all day.