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“And longer than that?”

He sighed. He hated these statistics. They were what he fought every day. “Well, the longest we can give anyone is about a fifty-fifty chance for five years.”

“And after that?” She was making notes now, appalled by the statistics, and sympathetic to the defiance in his voice.

“That's about it right now. We just can't do better than that.” He said it with regret, and simultaneously they both thought of Pattie Lou, willing her better odds than that. She had a right to so much more. They all did. One almost wanted to ask what was the point except that if it were one's own life, or one's child, wouldn't one take any chance at all, for a day, or a week, or even a year?

“Why do they die so soon?” Mel looked grim.

“Rejection mostly, in whatever form. Either a straight across-the-board rejection, or they get hardening of the arteries, which will lead to a heart attack. A transplant will kind of step things up. And then the other big problem we face is infection, they're more prone to that.”

“And there's nothing you can do?” As though it all depended on him. She was casting him in the role of God, just as some of his patients did. And they both knew it wasn't fair, but it all seemed to be in his hands, even if it was not. In a way, she wanted it to be. It would have been simpler like that. He was a decent man, he'd make things all right … if he could.

“There's nothing we can do right now. Although some of the new drugs may change that. We've been using some new ones lately, and that may help. The thing you have to remember”—he spoke gently to her, almost as though she were a child—“is that these people would have no chance at all without a new heart. So whatever they get is a gift. They understand that. They'll try anything, if they want to live.”

“What does that mean?”

“Some don't. They just don't want to go through all this.” He waved at the charts and leaned back in his chair, holding his coffee cup. “It takes a lot of guts, you know.” But she realized something else now. It took a lot of guts for him too. He was a matador of sorts, going into the ring with a bull named Death, trying to steal men and women and children from him. She wondered how often he'd been gored by dashed hopes, by patients who had died whom he cared about. Somehow one sensed about him that he was a man who really cared. As though he heard her thoughts, his voice suddenly grew soft. “My wife decided not to take the chance. “He lowered his eyes as Mel watched, feeling suddenly rooted to her chair. What had he said? His wife? And then he looked up, sensing her shock, and his eyes looked straight into Mel's. They weren't damp, but she saw a grief there that explained something to her about him. “She had primary pulmonary hypertension, I don't know if that means anything to you or not. It damages the lungs, and eventually the heart, and it requires a heart-lung transplant, but at the time there had only been two done anywhere in the world, and neither of them here. I wouldn't have done it myself of course”—he sighed and leaned forward again in his chair—“she would have been operated on by one of my colleagues and the rest of the team, or we could have taken her to any of the great men around the world, and she very quietly said no. She wanted to die as she was, and not put herself, or me, or the children through the agonies she knew my patients go through, only to die anyway in six months, or a year, or two years. She faced it all with terrifying calm”—and now Mel saw that his eyes were damp—“I've never known anyone like her. She was perfectly calm about it, right up until the end.” His voice cracked and then he went on, “It was a year and a half ago. She was forty-two.”

He looked deep into Mel's eyes then, unafraid of what he felt, and the silence was deafening in the tiny room. “Maybe we could have changed all that. But not for long.” He sounded more professional now. “I've done two heart-lungs myself in the last year. For obvious reasons, I have particularly strong feelings about that. There's no reason why it can't work, and it will.” It was too late for his wife. But in his heart he would never give up the fight, as though he could still convince her to let him try. Mel watched him with a pain in her soul for what he'd been through, and the helplessness he felt which still showed in his eyes.

Her voice was very soft when she spoke. “How many children do you have?”

“Three. Mark is seventeen, Pam will be fourteen in June, and Matthew is six.” Peter Hallam smiled then as he thought of his children and looked at Mel. “They're all great kids, but Matthew is the funniest little kid.” And then he sighed and stood up. “It's been hardest on him, but it's hard on all of them. Pam is at an age when she really needs Anne, and I can only give her so much. I try to get home early every day, but some crisis or other always comes up. It's damn hard to give them everything they need when you're alone.”

“I know.” She spoke softly. “I have that problem too.”

He turned and watched Mel's eyes, seeming not to have heard what she said. “She could at least have given us a chance.”

Mel's voice was soft. “And she'd most likely still be gone now. It must be very hard to accept.”

He nodded slowly, looking sorrowfully at Mel “It is,” and then as though suddenly shocked at all he had said he picked the charts up in his arms, as though to put something between them again. “I'm sorry. I don't know why I told you all that.” But Melanie wasn't surprised, people often opened their hearts to her, it had just happened a little more quickly this time. He tried to brush it off with a smile. “Why don't we go down the hall and visit Pattie now.” Mel nodded, still deeply moved by all he'd said. It was difficult to find the right words to say to him now. and it was almost a relief to see the child she'd brought out from New York. Pattie Lou was obviously thrilled to see both of them, and it reminded Mel of why she was there. They spent a comfortable half hour chatting with the child and as Peter read the results of her tests, he seemed pleased. He turned to her at last with a fatherly look in his eyes.

“Tomorrow is our big day, you know.”

“It is?” Her eyes grew wide, she seemed at the same time both excited and unsure.

“We're going to work on your old heart, Pattie, and make it as good as new.”

“Can I play baseball then?” Mel and Peter both smiled at the request.

“Is that what you want to do?”

“Yes, sir!” She beamed.

“We'll see.” He explained the procedures of the following day to her, carefully, in terms she could understand, and although she seemed apprehensive, she was obviously not desperately afraid. And it was easy to see that she already liked Peter Hal lam. And she was sorry when they both left her room. Peter glanced at his watch, as they left. It was after one thirty.

“How about some lunch? You must be starved.”

“Getting there,” she smiled. “But I've been too engrossed to think of food.”

He looked pleased. “Me too.” And then he led her outside and it was suddenly a relief to be out in the fresh air. Peter suggested a quick lunch, and Mel agreed, as they strode in the direction of his car.

“Do you always work this hard?” she asked him and he looked amused.

“Most of the time. You don't get much time off from something like this. You can't afford to turn your back on it even for a day.”

“What about your team? Can't you share the responsibility of all this?” Otherwise the burden would be too much to bear.

“Of course we do.” But something about the way he said it made her doubt his words. One had the feeling that he took most of the responsibility on himself, and that he liked it like that.

“How do your children feel about your work?”

He seemed to think for a moment before he spoke. “You know, I'm really not sure. Mark wants to go into law and Pam changes her thoughts on the subject every day, especially now, and of course Matthew is too little to have any idea what he wants to be when he grows up, other than being a plumber, which he decided last year.” And then Peter Hallam laughed.” I suppose that's what I am, isn't it?” He grinned at Mel.” A plumber.” They both laughed in the warm spring air. The sun shone down on them both, and Melanie noticed that he looked younger here. Suddenly, she could almost imagine him with his children.

“Where shall we go to lunch?” He smiled down at her from his great height, obviously comfortable in his kingdom, but it wasn't just that. There was something more. There was a new bond of friendship between them now. He had bared his soul to her, and told her about Anne. And as a result, he felt suddenly freer than he had in a long time. He almost wanted to celebrate the lightness he felt in his heart, and Mel sensed his mood as she smiled at him. It was remarkable to think that he dealt in life and death, and she had come to Los Angeles to deliver a desperately sick child to him. And yet, in the midst of it all, they were still alive, still young, and slowly coming to be friends. And not so slowly at that. Something about him reminded her of the instant openness she had felt when she met Grant, and yet she realized that she felt something more for this man. He was potentially enormously attractive to her, his strength, his gentleness, his vulnerability, his openness, his modesty combined with his enormous success. He was an unusual man, and as he watched her, Peter Hallam was thinking many of the same things about her. He was glad he asked her out to lunch. They had earned the break. They were both people who worked hard and paid their dues, and it didn't seem out of place to take a little time together now. Mel told herself that it would help the interview.

“Do you know L.A. well?” he asked.

“Not very. I always come here to work and dash from one place to the next until I leave. I never have much time for relaxed meals.” He smiled, neither did he, but today it felt right. He also felt as though he had made a new friend. And she smiled up at him now. “I suspect you don't usually go out to lunch, do you?”

He grinned. “Once in a while. Usually, I eat here.” He waved at the hospital behind them, and stopped at his car. It was a large, roomy silver-gray Mercedes sedan, which surprised her, The car didn't really look like him, and he read her thoughts.

“I gave this to Anne two years ago.” He said it quietly, but there was less pain in his voice this time. “Most of the time, I drive my own car, a little BMW, but it's in the shop. And I leave the station wagon at home for my housekeeper and Mark to drive.”

“Do you have someone good with your kids?” They were just two people now as they drove in the direction of Wilshire Boulevard.

“Fabulous.” He looked over at Mel briefly with a smile as he drove. “I'd really be lost without her. She's a German woman we've had since Pam was born. Anne took care of Mark herself, but when Pam was born she was already having cardiac problems and we hired this woman to take care of the baby. She was to stay for six months”—he smiled at Mel again—“and that was fourteen years ago. She's a godsend for us now”—he hesitated only slightly—“with Anne gone.” He was getting used to words like that now.

And Mel was quick to pick up the conversational ball and keep it rolling. “I have a wonderful Central American woman to help me with my girls.”

“How old are they?”

“Almost sixteen. In July.”

“Both of them?” He looked surprised and this time Mel laughed.

“Yes. They're twins.”

“Identical?” He smiled at the idea.

“No, fraternal. One is a svelte redhead, who people say looks like me, but I'm not sure she does. And the other one I know doesn't look like me at all, she's a voluptuous blonde who gives me heart failure every time she goes out.” She smiled and Peter laughed.

“I've come to the conclusion, in the last two years, that it's easier to have sons.” His smile faded as he thought of Pam. “My daughter was twelve and a half when Anne died. I think that the loss compounded with the onset of puberty has been almost too much for her.” He sighed. “I don't suppose adolescence is easy for any child, but Mark was so easy at her age. Of course he had us both.”

“That makes a difference, I guess.” There was a long pause as he searched her eyes.

“You're alone with the twins?” She had said something about that, hadn't she?

Mel nodded now. “I've been alone with them since they were born.”

“Their father died?” He looked as though he hurt for her. He was that kind of man.

“No.” Mel's voice was calm. “He walked out on me. He said he never wanted kids, and that's exactly what he meant. As soon as I told him I was pregnant, that was it. He never even saw the twins.”

Peter Hallam looked shocked. He couldn't imagine anyone doing a thing like that. “How awful for you, Mel. And you must have been very young.”

She nodded with a small smile. It didn't really hurt anymore. It was all a dim memory now. A simple fact of her life. “I was nineteen.”

“My God, how did you manage alone? Did your parents help you out?”

“For a while. I dropped out of Columbia when the girls were born, and eventually I got a job, a whole bunch of jobs”—she smiled—“and eventually I wound up as a receptionist for a television network in New York, and a typist in the newsroom after that, and the rest is history, I guess.” She looked back on it now with ease, but he sensed what a grueling climb it had been, and the beauty of it was that it hadn't burned her out. She wasn't bitter or hard, she was quietly realistic about the past, and she had made it in the end. She was at the top of the heap, and she didn't resent the climb.

“You make it sound awfully simple now, but it must have been a nightmare at times.”

“I guess it was.” She sighed, and watched the city slide by. “It's actually hard to remember it now. It's funny, when you're going through it, there are times when you think you won't survive, but somehow you do, and looking back it never seems quite so hard.” He wondered, as he listened, if one day he would feel that way about losing Anne, but he doubted that now.

“You know, one of the hardest things for me, Mel, is knowing that I'll never be both a mother and father to my kids. And they need both, especially Pam.”

“You can't expect that much of yourself. You're only you, and you give the best you have to give. More than that you can't do.”