by Emily Forbes
‘You’ve left?’
‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘We both need some time. I still need to talk to Jess, and I’m hoping Mike might change his mind once he’s had a chance to think it over, but if he doesn’t then I will make my choice.’
Joe couldn’t imagine Mike backing down. He was a surgeon and had the ego to go with his profession. Joe didn’t think he was madly in love with Kitty and he imagined Mike would see the surrogacy as an assault to his masculinity. He thought Kitty was going to be disappointed if she expected Mike to change his opinion.
‘What can I do?’ Joe asked. He would do anything for her. Always had. Always would.
‘I need a place to stay,’ she told him. ‘If I stay at Mike’s it will give him an opportunity to try to talk me out of this. I need a bit of space while I work out how to handle this, and I can’t stay with Jess. If she knew what had happened tonight she’d try and talk me out of my decision as well, and I’m doing this for me as much as for her and Cam. Can I stay at your place? On the couch would be fine, I don’t want to cramp your style.’
‘Of course.’ If all she needed from him was a place to stay while she got things sorted then that’s what he would give her. And if it meant Kitty went ahead with the idea and Mike ended the relationship Joe wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t like the sound of that. ‘And just for the record, I think it’s a fantastic gesture,’ he added. He would be as supportive as possible of this exercise.
‘Thank you. I knew you’d understand.’
Her brown eyes were still shiny with tears but at least they weren’t spilling over her cheeks any more, although she still looked as if she needed a hug. He opened his arms and she stepped into his embrace. He wrapped his arms around her, closed his eyes briefly and inhaled the familiar vanilla scent of her shampoo as he comforted her.
He hated seeing her upset and he would go to just about any lengths to protect her. He had friends, lots of them, but none of his friendships enjoyed the same closeness that he and Kitty shared. Both of them found something in their relationship that they didn’t get from anyone else. That sense of being understood without the need for explanation. He wasn’t close to his family and avoided serious romantic relationships, but his relationship with Kitty was proof that he was capable of sustaining a meaningful connection.
It proved to him that he wasn’t a complete emotional failure. That he could love someone and maintain a long-term relationship, even if it was platonic. He didn’t doubt he wasn’t cut out for marriage and commitment. He had no evidence that long-term monogamy was for him. His parents certainly hadn’t subscribed to that ideology, they’d had five marriages between them, and Joe himself knew he grew bored and irritated if any of his romantic relationships stretched past a few months.
Some of his friends were convinced that he just hadn’t met the perfect girl but Joe wasn’t sure she existed. Even perfection had a use-by date in his opinion. From what he’d seen, marriages ended in one of three ways—divorce, death or disinterest—and he didn’t see the point. But in the absence of other relationships his connection with Kitty became even more important, and he would do whatever was necessary to maintain it. He intended to always be there for her in a way that others hadn’t been.
‘But if you’re going to do this,’ he told her, ‘then you need a long-term plan. You need to make some decisions about the next few months, not just about tonight.’
‘I know,’ she sighed, ‘but right now, tonight is all I can manage.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘HOLY CRAP!’
Kitty was signing notes at the nurses’ station in the emergency department when the ED clerk’s exclamation interrupted her concentration. She looked up and saw Lisa’s eyes fixed on the wall-mounted television screen.
In the centre of the screen was a burning bus.
Orange flames leapt into the air from the rear and thick black smoke billowed around the vehicle and over several cars that had stopped haphazardly around it. In the background, Kitty could see a sandstone pylon and the heavy iron framework of the Harbour Bridge.
The time was fixed in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Eight thirty-four a.m. Morning rush hour. This was happening in the middle of her city, a few kilometres from her hospital, and the images were being broadcast live from one of the news helicopters.
Kitty’s heart was racing. What was going on? Was it a bomb? In the middle of Sydney?
The volume was muted on the television but Kitty could read the words scrolling across the screen under the picture.
Bus goes up in flames.
Harbour Bridge closed.
Morning traffic disrupted.
Use alternative route.
Traffic had come to a standstill but there was no mention of what had caused the bus to catch fire.
Kitty couldn’t tear her eyes from the fiery disaster that was unfolding on the screen in front of her as the helicopter camera zoomed in on the chaos. People were out of their cars, doors left hanging open as they ran. Some ran towards the burning bus, others away. Kitty could see a man with a fire extinguisher aimed futilely at the flames as people stumbled from the bus. He was joined by another half-dozen men, all wearing hi-visibility vests and hard hats, and a couple were carrying additional fire extinguishers, but from what Kitty could see the extra hands were having no impact on the fire.
The live feed widened to show the emergency vehicles, the ambulances and fire engines, their red and blue lights absorbed by the thick cloud of black smoke as they weaved their way through the stationary cars on the bridge.
The images from the helicopter cut out and were replaced by a reporter standing on the bridge, a microphone held up to her mouth and the burning bus behind her. How the hell had she got through the traffic and the chaos? Sitting on the ground around her were several people who looked dazed and shocked. Some were coughing and Kitty wondered if they were passengers from the bus.
Lisa grabbed the remote and pressed a button, increasing the volume until they could hear the reporter’s commentary.
‘...on the Harbour Bridge, where a city-bound commuter bus has gone up in flames near the northern end. Witnesses say twenty to thirty passengers have been evacuated but there may still be people trapped inside the bus...’
Kitty didn’t want to see the reporter. She wanted the camera to go back to the accident—she was looking for Joe. But the reporter continued to talk.
‘There is no word yet on what caused the fire. Commuters say there was a loud explosion, and you can see behind me that the windows of the bus have all been blown out.’
The camera panned to the bus, zooming in on the accident, and Kitty searched the scene.
‘The heat is intense, the sky is thick with black smoke and there is a terrible odour in the air. Paramedics are treating victims for smoke inhalation as firefighters try to get the blaze under control.’
Kitty’s eyes flicked from one paramedic to another, from one blue uniform to the next, but she couldn’t see Joe. She knew he was working this morning and that crews from the station at the North Sydney Hospital would be some of the closest to the scene. Maybe he was on another call-out? As long as he was safe, she thought—just as she saw a familiar shape at the side of the screen. Smoke was obscuring the image, but she recognised the way he moved.
Joe.
He was running straight at the bus. Her eyes followed his path as he came further into view in the centre of the television screen. There was a man standing in the doorway of the bus, his back to Joe. He was bent over, and he looked like he was struggling with something. Kitty realised he was dragging someone from the bus. And then Joe was there, followed by two other paramedics.
The standing man stepped out of the way as the paramedics threw a blanket over the man who lay in the doorway before lifting him from the bus and putting him on a stretcher.
Kitty could see the other man swaying as he stood next to the bus. Just when he looked as if he was about to collapse Joe caught him and laid him on the ground.
The camera panned out again and the reporter was in the foreground of the shot, blocking Kitty’s view. She could see the man lying on the ground but she couldn’t see Joe. He wouldn’t have gone into the bus, would he? Surely not? That would be the firefighters’ job. But was he far enough away? What if there was another explosion?
‘Firefighters are struggling to douse the flames engulfing a city-bound bus on the Harbour Bridge,’ the reporter repeated. ‘All lanes on the bridge are closed until the danger is contained. It appears that the bus has now been evacuated with reports that two men, the driver and a passenger, are being treated for burns, but there are no reports of any fatalities at this stage and still no information as to the cause of the fire.’
There was an increase in activity in the background and finally the camera cut away from the reporter and back to the bus. Kitty could see ambulances, their doors open and lights flashing as the picture showed someone being loaded in through the back doors of one of them.
And there was Joe. Back in view. She couldn’t see his face but she didn’t need to. He was instantly recognisable. It was more than the width of his shoulders and the shape of his head. It was the way he moved. Purposeful, composed. Unflappable, measured. Despite the chaos of his surroundings he projected calmness. He always seemed to know what he was doing. Not like her. So often she felt completely lost unless he was there to anchor her. Joe had been there for her in the toughest of times, but he’d never seemed to need her in the same way.
He was leaning over one of the victims, but he looked awfully close to the burning bus. Too close. Kitty’s heart was still racing. She was trapped in a terrible feeling of helplessness. What if something happened to him?
She tried to push that thought aside as she saw him loading his patient onto the stretcher. She couldn’t bear to think of something happening to Joe. He was a constant, solid, reassuring presence, the calm through so many of her storms, and she couldn’t imagine her life without him in it. She turned away from the television as Joe disappeared from the screen, willing him to hurry before anything else could go wrong.
He would be on his way to her now. She knew he would be coming to her hospital. She needed to see him, to reassure herself he was OK.
Lisa muted the television as Kitty brought her focus back to the task at hand. The ambulances would be arriving soon. They needed to be ready. The paramedics would be turning around and bringing the injured to the North Sydney Hospital. They might not be the closest but they were on the right side of the bridge, on the same side of the harbour. They would be the most easily accessible emergency department, and they had a burns unit. Time was of the essence, especially for burns victims.
Kitty grabbed aprons and left Lisa to deal with the patients waiting for attention. She would have to explain to them that there was a bigger emergency that had to be dealt with before they could be seen.
Davina, the charge nurse, was assembling her troops and assigning them to teams. Kitty saw Mike arrive, tying his apron over his scrubs. She hadn’t seen him since she’d walked out three days ago. Hadn’t worked with him, hadn’t taken his calls. She’d replied to his messages but that had been all she’d been capable of. She hadn’t felt ready for another discussion that would more than likely end in another argument. She needed to have her argument prepared.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she wasn’t assigned to Mike’s team. She had no idea if that had been deliberate on Davina’s part, she didn’t think anyone knew about what was going on, but she was grateful. She needed to focus and she didn’t need the distraction of worrying about what Mike may or may not be thinking.
‘The information I’ve got is that we have two burns victims coming in. Priority One. Mike, you take the first one, his injuries are more extensive and you’ve got the most experience. Anna,’ she said, nodding at the other doctor, ‘your team can take the other. We’ll triage any other patients on arrival,’ Davina finished as the first ambulance pulled in to the emergency bay.
Kitty pulled on a pair of disposable gloves and craned her neck as the ambulance doors opened, trying to see which paramedics were in attendance.
She couldn’t see Joe.
‘Young adult male. Unresponsive. Burns to his legs and arms.’ She heard the information being disseminated as the patient was wheeled past her but she was already turning away, turning back to the road, on the lookout for the next ambulance.
She waited nervously, hoping the next unit would bring Joe. When her parents had been killed in a car accident, and again when Jess had been diagnosed with cancer and throughout her treatment, Kitty had always been able to rely on him and she couldn’t imagine how she would cope if anything happened to him.
She shook her head, clearing her mind as another ambulance pulled in. Anna had her hand on the rear door and she swung it open. Kitty exhaled as Joe emerged from the back. Broad shoulders, long legs, spiky hair. Strong and solid. He reached for the stretcher, pulling it from the ambulance. He bent his head and she could see him talking to his patient. His voice would be calm, reassuring.
Kitty stepped closer as Joe’s partner slammed the driver’s door and came to help manoeuvre the stretcher.
Joe was filthy. His uniform was covered in black soot and Kitty could smell smoke, diesel fuel and burning rubber. The smell seemed to have permeated the clothes of the paramedics and the victim, but at least Joe appeared to be in one piece.
‘Hey! I thought I might find you here,’ he said as she fell into step alongside him.
‘You’re OK?’ she asked. When he nodded she glanced over his shoulder. ‘How many more are there?’
‘Only two seriously injured. The rest are smoke inhalation victims and assorted, non-life-threatening orthopaedic injuries.’
Kitty knew it could have been worse. Joe didn’t say anything in front of their patient but Kitty could hear in his voice and she’d seen the scene for herself. Two burns victims, no fatalities and some people suffering from smoke inhalation and a few fractures was a pretty good outcome. It could have been much worse. But their patient didn’t need to hear that.
‘This is Carlos, the bus driver, fifty-three years old, second-degree burns to his hands and arms. Smoke inhalation but airway not compromised.’
Kitty looked down at Carlos. He had a sheet pulled halfway up his chest covering his arms but she could see an ID badge on his shirt pocket and she could just make out the bus company logo. His shirt, like Joe’s, was blackened with soot, and he had an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth but Kitty took that to be a precautionary measure given Joe’s summary.
As they pushed the stretcher through the hospital doors and into an exam room, Joe drew back the sheet that had been tented over Carlos’s forearms in an attempt to protect him from exposure to bacteria. His hands were bright pink, the skin blistered and hairless, and the burns extended halfway up his forearms. Someone had inserted an IV cannula into his elbow but no fluids had been connected. His transfer had been less than thirty minutes so there had been no urgency.
Kitty grabbed a slide board and prepared to transfer Carlos from the stretcher. She stood next to Joe and waited while Anna and the other paramedic carefully rolled Carlos. She and Joe slid the board under their patient.
‘On three.’ The transfer went smoothly and Joe and his partner stepped out of the way, removing their stretcher and leaving Kitty and Anna to get to work. With a wink in her direction, Joe was gone.
Kitty didn’t waste time. Anna was cutting Carlos’s shirt away as Kitty replaced his oxygen mask and attached monitors. She and Anna worked together well. She was an experienced ED doctor and Kitty liked working with her. She was methodical and didn’t miss much.
‘Carlos, I’m Dr Lewis. Kitty and I will look after
you. Do you have any medical issues we need to be aware of? Any heart problems, diabetes? Anything like that?’
Carlos shook his head.
‘I’m just going to take your oxygen mask off to check your airway,’ Anna explained softly.
Kitty recorded Carlos’s heart rate, blood pressure and respiration rate while Anna did her examination. She replaced the oxygen mask with tubing once Anna was finished, looping it over his ears and sliding the pegs into his nose. She recorded his oxygen levels as Anna kept talking.
‘We need to replace your lost fluid and get these burns cleaned up. I’m going to give you something for the pain, OK?’
They worked quickly through their initial assessment, needing to get a handle on the extent of Carlos’s injuries. Some, like his burned skin, were obvious but damage to his lungs was less easy to spot and more likely to cause problems, although often not for a day or two. They had to prioritise.
Anna attached a bag of saline to the cannula in Carlos’s elbow to replace the fluids he’d lost while Kitty distracted him, asking questions about his family. ‘Is there anyone you want us to call?’
‘The paramedics called my wife. Someone is bringing her to the hospital, but can you tell me how the boy is?’ His voice was raspy and breathless. It sounded painful to talk and Kitty was sure she’d heard correctly. Boy?
She frowned. Was Carlos delirious? Her gaze flicked to the monitors. His temperature was raised but not excessively. ‘What boy?’
‘The one I pulled from the bus. Did he make it?’
Kitty realised he was talking about the other victim. Their first patient. ‘You pulled him out?’ The vision she’d watched on the television flashed back in her mind. The man dragging the other body from the bus. The standing man. The one who’d looked as if he’d been about to collapse only Joe had caught him just in time. That had been Carlos. ‘Is that when you got burnt?’
Carlos nodded and struggled to talk. To explain. ‘When the fire started it was just a bit of smoke. I stopped and told everyone to get off but the boy only got as far as me and said something about his bag. He ran back down the aisle before I could stop him. Then something exploded. The windows of the bus blew out and he got caught in the flames. I couldn’t leave him.’