Vivian was forced to pick up the slack. For twenty-nine straight days, she was the one and only orthopaedic resident on duty, around the clock. She moved her belongings into the call room and promptly lost five pounds on an unrelenting diet of cafeteria food. For twenty-nine straight days, she did not step out of the hospital front doors. On the thirtieth day her rotation ended, and she walked out to her car, only to discover that it had been towed away a week before. The parking lot attendant had assumed it was abandoned.

Four days into the next rotation, vascular surgery, Vivian's fellow intern was struck by a city bus and hospitalized with a broken pelvis. Again, someone had to take up the slack.

Vivian Chao moved right back into the hospital call room.

In the eyes of the other residents, she had thus achieved honorary manhood, a lofty status which was later acknowledged at the yearly awards dinner when she was presented with a boxed pair of steel balls.

When Abby first heard the Vivian Chao stories, she'd had a hard time reconciling that steel-balls reputation with what she saw: a laconic Chinese woman who was so petite she had to stand on a footstool to operate. ThoughVivian seldom spoke during attending rounds, she could always be found standing fearlessly at the very front of the group, wearing an expression of cool dispassion.

It was with her usual air of detachment that Vivian approached Abby in the SICU that afternoon. By then Abby was moving through a sea of exhaustion, every step a struggle, every decision an act of pure will. She didn't even notice Vivian was standing beside her until the other woman said, "I hear you admitted an AB positive head trauma."

Abby looked up from the chart where she'd been recording patient progress notes. "Yes. Last night."

"Is the patient still alive?"

Abby glanced towards Bed 1 l's cubicle. "It depends what you mean by alive."