That’s when the flatline tone cut through the hallway like a wire. Gregory’s rhythm collapsed — V-fib, textbook, no warning. Vivienne’s phone was still recording when I shoved past her shoulder and into the room. I didn’t ask permission. I climbed onto the bed rail, started compressions, called the code myself, named the drugs, named the doses, named the joules. The resident who’d been staring at his shoes suddenly remembered how to move. Two rounds of CPR. One shock. Amiodarone. Another shock. Gregory’s monitor stuttered, caught, and found a rhythm again. I was still counting under my breath when I finally looked up. Vivienne was pressed against the glass, mascara running, phone shaking in her hand, whispering, “Who — who ARE you, get the doctor, get the DOCTOR—” The charge nurse stepped between us, calm as Sunday. “Ma’am. That IS the doctor. That’s Dr. Elena Marsh, Chief of Cardiothoracic Critical Care. She runs this unit. She was the attending on your father’s surgery yesterday. You’ve been screaming at the woman who opened his chest.” Vivienne’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. My badge had been flipped backward the whole time — I’d just come off a fourteen-hour shift and hadn’t fixed it. I flipped it around slowly so she could read every letter: MARSH, E., MD — CHIEF, CT-ICU. Then I looked at her phone, still recording, red dot blinking. “Keep filming,” I said. “Legal is going to want a copy. And when your father wakes up, you can explain to him why the overworked nobody in the cheap scrubs is the reason he gets to.” She dropped the phone. It cracked on the tile. Nobody picked it up.
