Strangers by Dean Koontz

danger. He was ten years younger than the average recipient of bypass surgery, with greater resources for recuperation. His cardiac ailment was not complicated by any other debilitating condition, such as phlebitis or excessively high blood pressure. His prospects were encouraging.
    But Ginger could not twist free of the dread in which she found herself increasingly tangled. On Monday afternoon, as the hour of surgery drew near, she grew tense, and her stomach turned sour. For the first time since she had sat a lonely vigil beside her father’s hospital bed and had helplessly watched him die, Ginger was filled with doubt.
    Perhaps her apprehension grew from the unjustified but inescapable notion that if she somehow failed this patient she would in a sense be failing Jacob yet again. Or perhaps her fear was utterly unwarranted and would seem foolish and laughable in hindsight. Perhaps.
    Nevertheless, entering the operating theater at George’s side, she wondered if her hands would shake. A surgeon’s hands must never shake.
    The operating room was all white and aqua tile, filled with gleaming chrome-plated and stainless-steel equipment. Nurses and an anesthesiologist were preparing the patient.
    Johnny O’Day lay on the cruciform operating table, arms extended, palms up and wrists exposed for the intravenous spikes.
    Agatha Tandy, a private surgical technician who was employed by George rather than by the hospital, stretched thin latex gloves over her boss’s freshly scrubbed hands, then over Ginger’s hands as well.
    The patient had been anesthetized. He was orange with iodine from the neck to the wrist, swathed in neatly tucked and folded layers of green cloth from the hips down. His eyes were taped shut to keep them from drying out. His breathing was slow but regular.
    A portable tape deck with stereo speakers was on a stool in one corner. George preferred to cut to the accompaniment of Bach, and that calming music now filled the room.
    It may have calmed the others, but today it did not calm Ginger. A secret scurrying something spun a web of ice in her stomach.
    Hannaby positioned himself at the table. Agatha stood at his right side with an elaborately ordered tray of instruments. The circulating nurse waited to fetch whatever might be required from the cabinets along one wall. An assisting nurse with large gray eyes noticed an errant flapof green sheeting and quickly tucked it into place around the patient’s body. The anesthesiologist and his nurse were at the head of the table, monitoring the IV and the EKG. Ginger moved into position. The team was ready.
    Ginger looked at her hands. They were not shaking.
    Inside, though, she was all aquiver.
    In spite of her sense of impending disaster, the surgery went smoothly. George Hannaby operated with quickness, sureness, dexterity, and skill that were even more impressive than usual. Twice, he stepped aside and requested that Ginger complete a part of the procedure.
    Ginger surprised herself by functioning with her customary sureness and speed, her fear and tension revealed only by a tendency to perspire more than usual. However, the nurse was always there to blot her brow.
    Afterward, at the scrub sink, George said, “Like clockwork.”
    Soaping her hands under the hot water, she said, “You always seem so relaxed, as if…as if you weren’t a surgeon at all…as if you were just a tailor altering a suit of clothes.”
    “I may seem that way,” he said, “but I’m always tense. That’s why I play Bach.” He finished washing up. “You were very tense today.”
    “Yes,” she admitted.
    “Exceptionally tense. It happens.” Big as he was, he sometimes seemed to have the eyes of a sweet, gentle child. “The important thing is that it didn’t affect your skill. You were as smooth as ever. First rate. That’s the key. You’ve got to use tension to your advantage.”
    “I guess I’m learning.”
    He grinned. “As usual, you’re being too hard on yourself.