by Lilian Darcy
‘I know, Nell, but if there’s nothing specific, and if the mother is already too detached to get properly—’
‘Look, I’m not saying it’s an easy decision,’ she cut in. ‘There are pros and cons.’
‘There are always those.’
She ignored him. ‘We have to consider the downside of transporting a fragile baby, for a start. And you’re right. Taking a premmie away from a mother whose bonding is already tenuous could cause its own problems. But let’s think about it,’ she urged, her eyes bright. ‘Let’s get it right.’
She left without giving him time to reply, and Emma saw his jaw set.
Anger, or determination?
She wasn’t sure.
She didn’t think Pete was the kind of doctor who’d make up his mind and then stick to his guns out of ego and pride. She’d only ever seen him put the interests of his patients first. But she knew he was under pressure at the moment in his personal life, and there were pulls in both directions for Alethea.
Pete looked again at the baby and at the fluctuating red figures on the monitor, and Emma couldn’t help doing the same. The heart rate, respiration and oxygen saturation all showed up on screen at a glance. The baby’s nappy was as small and flat as an envelope. The little hat covered the whole of her tiny head, and her face looked as crumpled and ancient and inscrutable as that of an Eastern mystic.
‘Should we start trying for a bed in Sydney or Melbourne straight away?’ Pete muttered. He might have been talking to himself. ‘On paper, we’ve got the facilities and the staff. I’m glad I called in Nell.’
‘She’s good,’ Emma agreed.
So was he. Thorough and caring and imaginative in his approach. He wasn’t afraid to try something new, or to go out on a limb.
He was way out on a precarious one right at this moment, putting Rebecca’s chance to bond with her baby on a par with the baby’s potential need for a higher level of care. On the other hand, skin-to-skin human contact had been shown in repeated studies to be as physically important to a premmie’s development as oxygen, medication and specialist expertise.
He looked up.
‘Sorry. I’m still e-mailing you. Only verbally this time.’ He grinned, and there was a warm glint in his brown eyes that she responded to at once with a laugh.
‘Are you?’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he conceded. ‘But it was nice, Emma. Did I say that?’
‘You said it was a slice of paradise. My house. In your card, I mean.’ Emma cleared her throat. ‘You didn’t specifically mention the e-mails.’
She felt absurdly self-conscious beneath the warm wash of his words. In the confined space, they were standing closer than she felt comfortable with. It was ridiculous to be so aware of him, to feel this sense of closeness and this sense of knowing him, which was based on such a thin foundation.
‘Well, the e-mails were good,’ he said. ‘They helped.’
Emma blurted, ‘Is it Claire? Is that why you’re looking so stressed?’ Then could have cut out her tongue. He’d said nothing to encourage her to ask such a personal question. It was all coming from her.
He sighed, then muttered, ‘Yes, of course it’s Claire.’
‘I’m sorry, you don’t have to—’
‘I thought that we were in the home stretch.’ His mouth tightened and turned down. He spoke in a low, rapid way, and didn’t look at her. ‘We had decisions made and arrangements worked out. I thought. But Claire’s thrown that to the four winds, and I would have done so even if she hadn’t, because of the way she’s been behaving. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.’
He stopped, and looked up suddenly, with a ravaged expression that struck Emma to the heart. She felt the same need to touch him that had tingled in her fingers before. The same need to smooth out those creases around his eyes and softly stroke the brown skin at the back of his neck, to press his lips with her fingertips until they relaxed, and to tell him everything would be all right.
‘Oh, Pete!’ she said. It was heartfelt, but so inadequate.
‘I haven’t talked to anyone about this.’ His eyes were narrowed, and glittered with fatigue. ‘I don’t know why I’m talking to you.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Because you’re listening, I guess. Because you asked. You were here at the right moment, basically. The wrong moment, perhaps.’
‘I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.’
‘No, it was fine. Only now I’m not offering you much choice about listening to a far more detailed reply than you wanted.’
‘I-it’s fine, Pete,’ she stammered, echoing the same word he’d used—safe and vague. ‘I’m happy—that is, I want to listen. If it’s a help.’
‘I’m petitioning for sole custody. Please, don’t talk to anyone about this!’
‘As if I would!’
He glanced around to check that the door was closed and that they were fully alone.
‘Couldn’t find a house I liked as much as yours,’ he said quietly. Emma had to step even closer in order to hear him, and came within range of his body heat and his clean male smell. ‘I’ve rushed into it. Had to, because I wanted a home for the girls. It’s part of that new development up on the hill overlooking the river.’
‘It’ll be beautiful when the gardens get going. I’ve driven through it. There are some lovely places.’
‘I know. But right now it’s arid. And I shouldn’t even begin to mind about that, because it’s the least of my problems. I don’t know what’s wrong with Claire,’ he repeated.
‘If you need anything, Pete…’ Emma offered, while wondering if even this token formula was overstepping the bounds. They weren’t friends. They were only colleagues, and he’d recently paid her three months of rent. The fact that they were standing this close didn’t mean anything personal.
‘Might,’ he answered. The single word told her nothing about how he’d received her offer. ‘I’ll let you know.’
‘Please, do.’
He nodded briefly, then looked at both babies’ monitors again, and she watched him literally turn his back on the brief moments of confession. With his back to her, he cleared his throat, massaged his temples with the thumb and middle finger of one hand, squared his shoulders, then turned to her again. ‘Patsy’s out of Recovery and in a private room. She wants to see the baby.’
‘Mary Ellen can organise that. She’s probably with Patsy now, starting to get her mobile.’
‘Keep me posted on any change in how Alethea’s doing. I want to be as involved as I can.’
‘Of course. You and Dr Cassidy are both down as her doctors.’
‘I’d better go. For some strange reason, a lot of other people in this town have the idea I’m their doctor as well!’ His smile was warm and kindled flame in his brown eyes, but Emma saw the effort in it and it soon faded.
Something vital seemed to leave the atmosphere of the room as soon as he’d gone.
CHAPTER THREE
‘AND Dr Cassidy wants to be told the moment there’s any change in her numbers or her appearance or—’
‘OK, so any change at all, basically,’ summarised Jane Cameron, the midwife who was about to take over baby Alethea’s care for this shift.
It was already four o’clock, and Emma was late finishing. She still felt reluctant to go, and didn’t understand why, until Pete Croft appeared in the doorway.
I was hoping he’d show up again, and I didn’t want to leave until I’d seen him, she realised.
‘Still here?’ he asked vaguely, and she nodded, feeling foolish.
‘I’m about to head off,’ she said.
‘What about the mum? Where’s she?’
‘She wanted a same-day discharge.’
‘You mean she’s already gone?’
‘Her mother took her home about half an hour ago. There was no medical reason to say no. Unfortunately.’
‘Yes, we would have liked to keep her here for the baby’s sake.’
‘She was feelin
g good. No temp. Stomach so flat already you’d hardly know she’d given birth.’
‘What’s the mother like?’ he asked. ‘Rebecca’s mother, I mean. Susan. I’ve only had her in and out of my office for such trivial things that I barely remember her.’
‘She seems very sensible. I gave the instruction sheets about post-partum care to her, not to Rebecca.’
‘Rebecca wouldn’t read them?’
‘Or follow their suggestions if she did, I suspect. Um, Jane, I’m going to head off,’ she added to the other midwife.
‘Yes, go. You’re late already.’
‘Let me take a look at her,’ Pete said, speaking to Jane. He picked up the baby’s notes and glanced through them. ‘Dr Cassidy’s been here again,’ he murmured.
‘See you tomorrow,’ Emma said to no one in particular, and Pete only glanced up for a second as he muttered an acknowledgement of her words.
Emma and Pete saw too much of each other over the next two days, but all of their contact revolved around the two small newborns in Emma’s care, and if there were any small windows for a more personal interlude between them, neither he nor she chose to open those windows up.
Emma was happy to work another long shift on Wednesday, her mood closely tied to baby Alethea’s progress, or lack of it. Patsy McNichol was an almost constant presence while her little Lucy remained in the neonatal annexe, but by Thursday morning the baby girl had begun to feed with consistent strength and appetite, and was looking so good that, in the absence of further problems, she would soon be moved to Patsy’s room, ready for discharge on Friday.
Rebecca Childer had only been seen in the unit once, very briefly on Wednesday morning, since her same-day discharge on Tuesday afternoon. During her visit, she had to be coaxed to talk to her baby and to touch her. She seemed frightened that allowing herself to love the baby might prove too painful, and she seemed frightened of the baby, too—so fragile and tiny and different from the fat, healthy, pink ones she’d seen on television commercials for disposable nappies and baby food.
Alethea was still in a precarious condition, with her respiration the biggest problem at this stage, despite the fact that she’d now come off the respirator and was on a mask. Her breathing alarm went off regularly, because she would simply forget to breathe. Emma usually just tickled her feet to get her started again, but it was an indication that she was fragile.
Nell had ordered a precise and detailed monitoring of every aspect of the baby’s system, including the recording of every millilitre of fluid that went in and out, every nuance of temperature change and oxygen saturation reading.
The heart murmur wasn’t clear or conclusive, and Nell was reluctant to perform tests straight away. Not until Alethea was breathing better. Not until her weight had started to claw its way back to what it had been at birth, after the normal initial loss. Not until the drug they’d given her to close that patent ductus had had a chance to work.
The potential need for transport to Sydney or Melbourne remained Nell’s greatest concern at this stage, and she’d muttered a couple more times in Emma’s hearing, ‘Something’s not right…and yet the figures suggest she’s doing well. Am I borrowing trouble here?’
It was heart-rending to see the difference in size between Alethea and the two healthy babies born in the unit since her own delivery on Tuesday morning. Patsy herself talked about it in poignant terms in relation to her own tiny Lucy.
‘To me those other babies look so huge,’ she said to Emma on Thursday, just before lunchtime. ‘Almost unnatural. Like the offspring of giants. Yet I know that it’s my baby who’s the wrong size. And she’s lost a hundred and fifty grams since she was born. When will she put it back on and start to gain?’
‘Soon,’ Emma promised, because she was promising herself the same thing about both babies. ‘That weight loss is normal. She’s feeding, and that’s great. She’s getting fluid, and she’s getting your antibodies for immunity.’
‘Will I really be able to take her home with me?’
‘We hope so. It’s looking that way.’
Patsy was able to hold her baby easily at least. With Alethea, however, the process was far more of an effort, and Emma had to schedule it into her day in order to fit it in. It had to be done with care, given the equipment to which she was still attached. If Rebecca herself had been here, Emma would have had more time.
But apart from that one uncomfortable visit, Rebecca stayed away.
Her mother was the one to come and see Alethea. She seemed to love the baby very much, but was obviously torn.
‘My daughter should be doing this. Is my coming in just encouraging her to pretend this isn’t happening?’ she said to Emma on Thursday afternoon, and Emma didn’t really have an answer. She was pleased that the baby had someone, and wondered if Mrs Childer would have spent even more time here if she hadn’t been so worried about Rebecca’s lack of interest.
Nell came up to the unit several times a day, poring over the detailed figures noted on Lucy’s and Alethea’s charts. Alethea was passing urine, which meant her kidneys and heart were both doing their jobs. Her feeds came via a nasogastric tube, which she occasionally seemed to be fighting. That wasn’t a bad sign either. Some babies were too weak to fight the discomfort of the tube. She also had an IV line for medication and fluids.
Pete dropped in on his way to his practice each morning, on the way home each night, and at any other time he happened to be at the hospital, and Emma knew that she counted on his visits more than she should, just as she’d done on Tuesday, when she’d hung around for that extra hour. By Friday afternoon, there was a sense of something hanging in the air, waiting to happen, but she didn’t understand where it came from, or what it meant.
It worried her.
Pete dropped the girls off at his sister’s at eight-thirty on Saturday morning. He had office appointments, as usual, from nine until one, and then some patients to see at the hospital. Alethea was, of course, at the top of his list. Lucy and her mother were doing fine, and had been discharged as planned the previous morning.
‘Thanks, Jackie,’ he told his sister, as soon as the girls had run off to play with their older cousins. ‘This would be impossible without you.’
‘I can’t go on doing it forever, though, Pete,’ she told him gently, sliding a mug of coffee across the kitchen bench and into his hand. He hadn’t asked for it, but didn’t turn it down. ‘It would be easier if Mum and Dad were able to share the load.’
‘I wouldn’t ask. I know Mum’s fully tied up, dealing with Dad. And I wish…’ He stopped and shrugged.
Jackie knew what the end of the unfinished sentence would have been. Their parents had moved to a retirement unit last year, and their father had a weak heart and type II diabetes. Pete would have liked to have spent more time with them, but how did he fit it in? Jackie did her best in that area, and these emergency sessions of looking after his girls weren’t easy on her.
‘Mum understands,’ Jackie said, answering the statement he hadn’t made. ‘And so do I.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘You’ve both been great. Not to sound like a condemned man, but how long have I got before the axe falls?’
‘Until you work something out. An arrangement that’s going to last, Pete. Is Claire able to…?’
‘She went to Canberra yesterday. Some project. She needed to see a government minister.’
‘To do with work?’
Claire had a part-time job with a large local winery. It consisted of basic office assistance, and didn’t match her qualifications or her skill level, but she’d been hoping for promotion and increased hours. If the company had sent her to Canberra, perhaps that meant she had been given some additional tasks lately.
‘I assume so,’ Pete answered his sister. ‘I don’t know.’
‘The two of you don’t talk much, do you?’ she drawled.
‘Understatement, Jackie. I’m so angry with her, I can’t see straight where she’s concerned,
and she never explains anything properly. Apparently, several times lately she hasn’t turned up to collect the girls from preschool. No phone call, no alternative arrangement made and Claire herself unreachable. The teachers have had to stay on until she showed up, or they’ve sent the girls home with another parent. Once it was nearly six before Claire bothered to track them down.’
‘Goodness!’ Jackie clicked her tongue and frowned. ‘The teachers didn’t try to phone you?’
‘Claire had given them various stories about my being away and unavailable and uninterested. I’ve set them straight now. What they think of it all, I don’t know.’
‘Have you tried talking to her?’
‘Have you tried collecting water in a sieve? We need a consistent, workable arrangement, but Claire won’t see that.’
‘You’ve seen Jim Braithwaite, though, haven’t you?’ Jackie herself had recommended the family law specialist.
‘Yes, and he and I have put the custody petition together, but we have to wait for the hearing. In the meantime, the girls are in limbo, and I’m bending over backwards trying to keep them from feeling as uncertain about their future as I do.’
‘Have you talked to anyone else about this?’
Pete hesitated, hearing the hole in the conversation like a giant resonance in the air, then answered, ‘No.’
What about Emma? He’d talked to her. Sort of. Without planning to. He’d said too much, and not enough, and none of the right things, and she’d listened to him with more focus and care than he’d had any right to expect.
He still had a clear mental picture of her brown-eyed gaze fixed on him with such concern. She hadn’t said much in response to his outpouring. Her halting phrases had suggested she probably thought she’d been inadequate.
She hadn’t. There was just nothing that anyone could say.
This was his life, his problem. His, and the girls’, and Claire’s. He even felt uncomfortable about Jackie’s well-meant suggestions and sympathetic noises, and he deeply regretted having talked to Emma. Dragging her into it. Sending the wrong message.
It didn’t help to have more people knowing about this, more people putting on Jackie’s brisk, supportive expression. He should keep as much of this to himself as possible, from now on. He definitely shouldn’t have talked to Emma. He’d said it was e-mail, but he’d never e-mailed her with that sort of detail about his problems.