His Dying Son On My Table

On her first day as chief trauma surgeon at the military's premier regional hospital, Juliette Ross is handed an emergency case: a thoracotomy on the four-and-a-half-year-old son of Ryan Henderson, the rising Major General she divorced five years and two months ago after finding him with Chelsea, the underprivileged student she had sponsored.

Ryan signs the consent form and lingers, offering honey and lemon water for a stomach ulcer she does not have, then a debit card holding fifty thousand dollars as a peace offering from Chelsea, who kneels in the corridor begging her to save the boy. Juliette keeps her voice level, refusing every gesture and treating the child as nothing but a patient.

As the surgery clock runs, the old betrayal and the child on her table meet in the same room.