“No, thanks.” The soft-spoken woman smiled at Mel, and she looked as though she had the weight of the world on her frail shoulders. “I want to thank you for everything you've done for us, Mel. We wouldn't even be here if it weren't for you.”

“That's not my doing, that's the network.”

“I'm not so sure of that.” Her eyes met Mel's. “From what I know, you called Peter Hallam for us, and you got us out here.”

“I just hope he can help her, Pearl.”

“So do I.” The black woman's eyes filled with tears, and she turned away, as Mel gently touched her shoulder.

“Is there anything I can do?” Pearl Jones only shook her head in answer, and dried her eyes. She had already seen Pattie Lou that morning, and now they were prepping her for surgery. It was only ten minutes later when Peter Hallam came down the hall, looking businesslike and wide awake despite the early hour.

“Good morning, Mrs. Jones, Mel.” He said nothing more, but disappeared inside Pattie Lou's room. A moment later they heard a soft wail from within and Pearl Jones stiffened visibly in her chair, and spoke almost to herself.

“They said I couldn't go in there while they prep her.” Her hands were shaking and she began to twist a hankie, as Mel firmly took one of Pearl's hands in hers,

“She's going to be fine, Pearl. Just hang in there.” Just as she said the words, the nurses wheeled the child out on a gurney, with Peter Hallam walking beside her. They had already begun the intravenous, and inserted the ominouslooking naso-gastric tube. Pearl steeled herself as she walked quickly to her daughter's side and bent to kiss her. Her eyes were bright with tears, but she spoke in a strong, calm voice to her daughter.

“I love you, baby. I'll see you in a little while.” Peter Hallam smiled at them both and patted Pearl's shoulder, glancing quickly at Mel. For an instant, something rapid and electric passed between them, and then he turned his full attention back to Pattie. She was faintly groggy from a shot they had just given her, and she looked wanly at Peter, Mel, and her mother. Hallam signaled to the nurses, and the gurney began to roll slowly down the hall, with Peter holding Pattie's hand, and Mel and Pearl walking just behind him. A moment later she was wheeled into the elevator to the surgery on the floor above, and Pearl stood staring blankly at the doors, and then turned to Mel, her shoulders shaking. “Oh, my God.” And then the two women clung to each other for a long moment, and returned to their seats to wait for the news of Pattie.

It was a seemingly endless morning, with silence, spurts of conversation, countless cardboard cups of black coffee, long walks down the corridor, and waiting, waiting … endless waiting … until finally Peter Hallam reappeared, and as Mel held her breath, she searched his eyes, as the woman beside her froze in her seat, waiting for the news. But he was smiling as he came toward them, and as he reached Pattie Lou's mother, he beamed.

“The operation went beautifully, Mrs. Jones. And Pattie Lou is doing just fine.” She began to tremble again, and suddenly slipped into his arms as she burst into tears.

“Oh my God … my baby … my God …”

“It really went very well.”

“You don't think she'll reject the valve you put in?” She looked worriedly up at him.

Peter Hallam smiled. “Valves don't reject, Mrs. Jones, and the repair work on her heart went just beautifully. It's too soon to be absolutely sure of course, but right now everything looks very good.” Mel's knees felt weak as she watched them both, and she fell limply into a chair. They had waited for four and a half hours, which had seemed the longest in her life. She had really come to care about the little girl. She smiled up at Peter then, and he met her eyes. He seemed ebullient and jubilant as he took a seat beside her.

“I wish you could have watched.”

“So do I.” But he had forbidden her to, and he had been adamant about not wanting a camera crew there.

“Maybe another time, Mel.” He was slowly opening all his private doors to her. “What about doing our interview this afternoon?” He had promised to do it after surgery on Pattie Lou, but he hadn't said how soon.

“I'll line up the crew.” And then she looked suddenly concerned. “But are you sure that's not too much for you?”

He grinned. “Hell, no.” He looked like a boy who had just won a football game. It made up for all the other times. And Mel just hoped that Pattie Lou didn't begin to fail and dash all their hopes again. Her mother had just gone to call her husband in New York, and Mel and Peter were left alone. “Mel, it really went very well.”

“I'm so glad.”

“So am I.” He glanced at his watch then. “I'd better do rounds, then I'll call my office, but I could be free for you by three. How would that be for an interview?”

“I'll see how fast the camera crew can be here.” They had been waiting in the wings for two days, and she was pretty sure it could all be arranged. “I don't think it'll be a problem though. Where do you want to do it?”

He thought for a minute. “My office?”

“That sounds fine. They'll probably come at two and start to set up.”

“How long do you think it'll take?”

“As long as you can spare. Does two hours sound like too much?”

“That's fine.”

She thought of something else then. “What about Pattie Lou? Any chance we can get a few minutes on her today?”

He frowned and then shook his head. “I don't think so, Mel. Maybe a couple of minutes tomorrow though, if she does as well as I think she will. The crew will have to wear sterile gowns, and it'll have to be short.”

“That's fine.” Mel jotted down a few quick notes on a pad she always kept in her bag. She would get an interview with Pearl Jones that afternoon, then Peter, then Pattie Lou the following morning, and the camera crew could shoot some more general footage the following day, and that would wrap it up. She could catch the “red-eye” flight to New York the following night. End of story. And maybe in a month or so, they could do a more lengthy interview with Pattie Lou, as a follow-up, about how she had felt, how she was doing by then. It was premature to think of that. The crux of the story could be done now, and it was going to be powerful stuff to show on the evening news. She looked up at Peter then. “I'd like to do a special on you one day.”

He smiled benevolently, still basking in their success with the child. “Maybe one day that could be arranged. I've never much gone for that kind of thing.”

“I think it's important for people to know what transplants and heart surgery are all about.”

“So do I. But it has to be done in the right way, at the right time.” She nodded her agreement and he patted her hand as he stood up. “See you in my office around two, Mel.”

“We won't bother you until three. Just tell your secretary where you want us to set up, and we will.”

“Fine.” He hurried to the nurses' station then, picked up some charts, and a moment later he disappeared, and Mel sat alone in the hall, thinking back on the long wait they'd all been through and feeling relief sweep over her. She made her way to a bank of pay phones then, and waved at Pearl, crying and laughing in an adjoining booth.

She got the camera crew set up for an interview with Pearl at one o'clock. They could do it in a corner of the hospital lobby, so she wouldn't have to be far from Pattie Lou. Mel looked at her watch, and mentally worked it all out. At two o'clock they would go over to the complex where Peter's offices were, and set up for the interview with him. She didn't expect any problem with the interviews, and she began to think about going home to the twins the following night. It had been a good story, and she would have only been gone for three days, though it felt more like three weeks.

She went downstairs to wait for the crew. They arrived promptly and interviewed a deeply grateful and highly emotional Pearl Jones. The interview went very well, sketched out beforehand by Mel as she gobbled a sandwich and gulped a cup of tea. And at two o'clock they moved on, and were ready for Peter promptly at three. The office where he sat for the interview was lined with medical books on two walls, and paneled in a warm rose-colored wood. He sat behind a massive desk, and spoke earnestly to Mel about the pitfalls of what he did, the dangers, the realistic fears, and the hope they were offering people as well. He was candid about both the risks and the odds, but since the people they did transplants on had no other hope anyway, the risks almost always seemed worthwhile, and the odds were better than none at all.

“And what about the people who choose not to take that chance?” She spoke in a soft voice, hoping that the question wasn't too personal and wouldn't cause him too much pain.

He spoke softly too. “They die.” There was a moment's pause and he went back to talking specifically about Pattie Lou. He drew diagrams to explain what had been done, and he seemed very much in command as he described the surgery to both the camera and Mel.

It was five o'clock when they finally stopped, and Peter seemed relieved. It had been a long day for him, and he was tired by the two-hour interview.

“You do that very well, my friend.” She liked the term he used, and she smiled as the cameraman turned off the lights. They were pleased with what they'd gotten too. He presented well, and Mel instinctively knew that they had gotten exactly what she needed for the extended piece for the news. It was to be done as a fifteen-minute special report, and she was excited now about seeing what they'd gotten on tape. Peter Hallam had been both eloquent and remarkably at ease.

“I'd say you're pretty good at that stuff too. You handled it very well.”

“I was afraid I'd get too technical or too involved.” He knit his brows and she shook her head.

“It was just right.” As had been, in its own way, the interview with Pearl. She had cried and laughed, and then soberly explained what the child's life had been like for the past nine years. But if the surgery was as successful as he thought it would be, Peter's prognosis for her was very good. And viewers' hearts would undeniably go out to her as Mel's had, and Peter's too. Sick children were impossible to resist anyway, and Pattie Lou had a magical kind of light to her, perhaps because she had been so sick for so long, or maybe that was just the way she was. And over the past nine years, a great deal of love had been lavished on her.

Peter watched Mel as she instructed her crew, and there was frank admiration in his eyes, much as there had been in hers whenever she watched him. But his train of thought was interrupted as one of his nurses came in. She spoke to him in a low voice, and he immediately frowned, just as Mel turned, and she felt her heart sink. She couldn't stop herself from walking toward them and asking if something had happened to Pattie Lou.

But Peter was quick to shake his head. “No, she's fine. One of my associates saw her an hour ago, this is something else. Another transplant case just came in. A red hot. She needs a donor now, and we don't have anything for her.” He was instantly enveloped by the new problem to solve. He glanced quickly at Mel. “I have to go.” And then, on impulse he turned to Mel. “Do you want to come?”

“To see the patient with you?” She was pleased that he would ask, and he was quick to nod.

“Sure. Just don't explain who you are. I can always explain you as visiting medical personnel from a hospital in the East.” He smiled briefly. “Unless they recognize you. I just don't want the family to get upset, or think that I'm exploiting the case.” It was one of the reasons why he had always been gun-shy about publicity.

“Sure. That's fine.” She grabbed her handbag, said a few words to the crew, and hurried out to his car with him. And moments later, they were back at Center City, on the sixth floor, hurrying down the hall to the new patient's room.

As Peter opened the door for Mel, she was startled at what she saw. A remarkably beautiful twenty-nine-year-old girl.

She had pale, pale blond hair and huge sad eyes, the most delicate milky blue-white skin that Melanie had ever seen, and she seemed to take in each one of them as they were introduced, as though she had to remember each face, each pair of eyes. And then she smiled, and suddenly she seemed younger than she was, and Melanie's heart went out to her. What was this lovely girl doing in this terrifying place? She already had a thick bandage on one arm, covering where they had had to cut down to reach her veins to take extensive amounts of blood, and the other arm was black and blue from an intravenous she had received only a few days before. And yet somehow one forgot about all that as one listened to her speak. She had a soft lilting voice, and it was obviously hard to breathe, and yet she seemed happy to see them all, said something funny to Mel when they were introduced, and she bantered easily with Peter as they all stood around. And Melanie suddenly found herself praying for a heart for her. How could all these people be in such desperate need, and what was wrong with the world to strike all these people down, dying slowly with their weak hearts, while others dug ditches, climbed mountains, went dancing, skied? Why had they been so cheated, and while still so young. It didn't seem fair. And yet there was no resentment in the girl's face. Her name was Marie Dupret, and she explained that her parents had been French.