‘Gosh, I’ve never seen it so clean and tidy,’ she said with a laugh, and he just rolled his eyes and sighed.
‘Silly girl. I should have smelled a rat when I got home last night and found the place sparkling. I can’t believe I was so dense.’ He gave the quilt cover one last tug into place, straightened up and met Amy’s eyes.
‘Matt should be with you when you have the baby, Amy. Labour can be a tough and lonely place. You’re going to need support.’
‘Ben, it’s OK,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll be all right.’
‘And what about Matt? What about my brother, Amy? He lost a baby too, you know. He needs this to put things right for him, to balance the books a bit. You can’t deny him the experience of seeing his child born. This is going to happen. You can’t keep ignoring it.’
She swallowed and nodded. ‘No. You’re right, I know you’re right. I’ll discuss it with him when I tell him—just maybe not tonight. You’ll want to talk to him tonight, tell him your news. There are things we’ll need to sort out anyway, and I’ve only got five weeks to go. Nothing’s going to go wrong now.’
Oh, foolish, foolish words.
She woke on Friday morning with a slight headache, and went downstairs and poured herself a tall glass of fruit juice and iced water, and sat in the conservatory listening to the birds.
Gosh, her head was thumping, she thought, and went and had a shower, washed her hair and let it air dry while she had another drink.
She must be dehydrated. Too busy yesterday to drink much. Too busy, and too stressed because Matt was coming up for the weekend and she was going to tell him. She’d tried to phone him last night from the hospital but she hadn’t got hold of him, and she would have tried again when she got home, but she’d worked till nine and she’d been too tired, and today she was starting at seven. She’d try again this afternoon, before he left London—not that it seemed right to do it like that, over the phone, but she couldn’t exactly do it face to face. He didn’t need to be an obstetrician to work it out, so there’d be no subtlety, no putting it gently.
No ‘You remember that night you made love to me, and I told you it was all right because I was on the Pill? Well, there’s something I need to tell you.’ Nothing so easy as that—although, to be fair, it couldn’t be easier than just opening the door to him. That would be pretty straightforward, she thought with a wry grimace.
She dressed for work, wriggling her feet into her shoes and sighing because even they were getting tighter. Everything was, but it was pointless buying things at this stage.
It was ludicrously busy at work, of course, and she began to think she ought to consider taking maternity leave sooner than she’d allowed.
She had two more weeks to go, come Monday, and she was working today and tomorrow. Just as well, since Matt was going to be around, although she’d have to talk to him face to face in the end.
She found time for lunch somewhere between one and two—a quick sandwich eaten on the run, which gave her vicious indigestion, but she needed something in her stomach so she could take some paracetamol for her headache.
She sat down in the office for a moment and eased her shoes off. Pregnancy was the pits, she decided, and vowed to be nicer to her mums when they complained about it in future. Really, men didn’t know how lucky they were—and that’s if they were even there!
No. She mustn’t be unfair. She hadn’t given Matt the chance to be there.
‘Amy, can you come? I’ve got a mum about to deliver.’
‘Sure.’
She squirmed her feet back into her shoes, winced and followed Angie, one of the other midwives, down the corridor to the delivery room. Roll on nine o’clock, she thought. Why on earth had she agreed to do a double shift? It was a good job Ben wasn’t here to see her, or Daisy. They’d skin her, but there hadn’t been anyone else available at the last minute and at least it would mean she’d be out when Matt arrived.
Any other day, she thought, and tried to smile brightly at their patient. ‘Hiya, I’m Amy,’ she said, and threw herself into the fray.
Matt’s car was outside, and just the thought that he was there made her heart pound, her throat dry and her chest ache.
She hadn’t been able to ring him that afternoon. Should she ring him tonight?
No. Tonight should be for Ben and Daisy, for him to meet his little nephew, although judging by the sounds coming through their front door, Thomas was well and truly met.
She could just picture him holding the tiny baby in those big, capable hands.
She closed her eyes to shut out the image and squeezed them tight shut. Oh, they ached. Everything ached. Her head, her eyes, her feet…
She looked down, and blinked. Her feet were swollen. Not just the normal swollen feet of pregnancy, but a more sinister kind of swollen. And her fingers felt tight, and her head was splitting. She could feel her heartbeat in her eyeballs, even, and as she mentally listed the symptoms, she closed her eyes and leant against her front door, stunned.
Pre-eclampsia? Just like that? But she’d been fine up to now. Ben had been monitoring her minute by minute until Thomas had been born, but that was only two days ago, and she’d had no symptoms at all.
Except the headache this morning, and the tight shoes and clothes, and the epigastric pain she’d put down to indigestion—
Lord, she felt dreadful.
Matt. I need Matt.
She could hear voices through their front door, and the baby was quiet now. If she called out— Oh, her head ached so much, and she moaned. It was so far to the door…
She stepped over the little fence, arm outstretched towards the bellpush, but then she stumbled and half fell, half slid down the door with a little yelp. Oh, her head. She heard a voice, heard running footsteps, then felt the door open as she slid sideways across the step and came to rest.
There was a startled exclamation, and gentle hands touched her face.
Matt…!
CHAPTER FIVE
‘WHAT was that?’
Ben frowned at him. ‘I don’t know. Amy? Are you all right?’ he called, and there was a muffled cry and a crash against the door.
‘What the hell—?’ Matt thrust his nephew at Daisy and ran down the hall, turning the door handle and then catching the door as it was forced inwards.
‘Matt, she’s…’ Ben began, as the door swung open and Amy tumbled over at his feet.
He knelt beside her, cupping her face in his hand and turning her towards him so he could check her pupils.
The doctor in him was registering her symptoms. The man was in shock, and deeply, furiously angry, because Amy was pregnant, and none of them had told him—unless it wasn’t his?
‘It’s yours,’ he heard Ben say, but he didn’t answer. He was too damned angry with him and too worried about Amy to deal with that now, and the fear just ramped up a notch.
‘Amy? Amy, it’s Matt, talk to me!’ he said urgently, his eyes scanning her. How the hell had she got like this? Her feet were swollen, her face was puffy, her eyes—her eyes were opening, searching for him.
‘Matt.’ She lifted her hand and rested it against his cheek, and worry flickered in her eyes. ‘I’ve been trying to phone you. I’ve got something I have to tell you.’
He laid his hand over hers and squeezed it. ‘It’s OK, sweetheart. Don’t talk now.’
‘But I have to. I have to tell you—’
‘Amy, it’s all right, I know about the baby. You just close your eyes and rest, let me look after you.’
Her fingers fluttered against his cheek, and he pressed his lips to her palm and folded her hand over to keep it safe. It made her smile, a weak, fragile smile that tore his heart wide open. ‘I’m so glad you’re here…’
‘Me too,’ he said softly, his voice choked, and turned his head. ‘She’s about to fit, we need an ambulance,’ he snapped at Ben, but he’d gone and Daisy, standing there with Thomas in her arms and shock in her eyes, answered him.
&
nbsp; ‘He’s getting the car—he said there wasn’t time for an ambulance. I’ll get the emergency team to meet you there.’
‘We’ll need a theatre.’
‘I know. Ben’s outside with the car. You need to go.’
They did. She was barely conscious now, her eyes rolling back in her head, and he felt sick with fear. He scooped her up, ran down the path and got into the back of the car behind Ben, Amy on his lap.
Please be all right. Please let the baby be all right. Don’t let it happen again. I can’t do this again. Amy can’t do this again. Please be all right…
They screeched into the hospital, pulled up outside Maternity and left the car there with the doors hanging open. Ben threw the keys at the reception clerk and asked her to deal with it, and a waiting team took over.
Matt dumped her on the trolley and they had her in the lift and on oxygen instantly, a line was going in each hand and an infusion of magnesium sulphate was started while they were still on the move.
‘I’m scrubbing,’ he said, and earned himself a hard stare.
‘No way. By all means get gowned up, but I’m doing this, not you,’ Ben said flatly, and filled the team in. ‘Pre-eclampsia, sudden onset, partial loss of consciousness, she hasn’t fitted as far as we know but she might have done,’ he told them, but they were already on it, primed by Daisy, and as Ben went to scrub they were preparing her for surgery.
There was no job for Matt, so he stepped back out of the way. Someone fed his arms into a gown and tied it up, put a cap on his head, a mask over his face, and he stood there, his heart in his mouth, and watched as his brother brought his son into the world.
A boy. A perfect, beautiful boy, but still and silent, his body blue, his chest unmoving.
Please, no, not again…!
Matt was frozen to the spot, his eyes fixed on the little chest, begging it to move.
‘Come on, baby,’ the midwife was saying, sucking his mouth out, rubbing his back, flicking his feet. ‘Come on, you can do it.’
When the cry came, he thought his legs would give way under him. He dragged in a huge breath, then another, and pressed his fist to his mouth to keep in the sob.
‘Go and meet your baby,’ Ben said gently, and he went over on legs that were not quite steady and reached out a finger and touched his baby’s hand. Tiny, transparent pink fingers clenched around his fingertip, and another sob wrestled free from his chest.
He stroked the fingers, oh, so gently with his thumb, afraid for the fragile, friable skin, but he was past that stage. Thirty-five weeks was OK. He’d be OK. The relief, for a child he didn’t even know he was having until half an hour ago, was enormous.
It had plagued him, all the what ifs, the regrets that not once but twice he’d let her send him away without putting up a fight, the hope that she might contact him and tell him she was pregnant that had flickered and then died. He’d even seen her at Christmas, thought she looked well, had even put on a little weight, for heaven’s sake, and all the time…
He turned his head. ‘How is she?’ he asked hoarsely.
‘Stable. We’ll know more when she comes round. The neurologist is coming to have a look at her and we’re moving her to Maternity HDU.’
He swallowed the fear and turned back to his son.
‘Hello, my little man,’ he murmured softly, his hands trembling but his voice gentle with reassurance. ‘Your mummy’s not very well, but she’ll be OK, and so will you. Daddy’s here now and I’m going nowhere,’ he promised.
‘Want to hold him?’ the midwife asked gently.
He nodded, and she wrapped him in a soft cotton blanket and placed him in Matt’s arms. ‘He needs to go to SCBU for a while, just to make sure he’s OK and his lungs are coping, but he’s looking good so far. He’s 2.1 kilos. That’s a good weight for a preemie—over four and a half pounds.’
He nodded. He could feel him, knew he was a good size, but that wasn’t what he was seeing.
He was seeing another child in his arms, far smaller, too small to make it in this world, a child he’d never had the chance to love. His heart ached with the love he’d never been able to give, would never be able to give that child, and now he had another child, a child whose mother might not recover from this. God, how much more—?
Ben appeared at his side, and he felt an arm around his shoulders. ‘He’s going to be all right, Matt,’ he said softly, and there was a catch in his voice.
He nodded. ‘He is. Ben, how did she get like this?’
‘I have no idea. I’ve had her under a microscope, and I’ll be going over her notes again with a fine-toothed comb, to see if there’s anything I’ve missed, but she hasn’t even had high blood pressure.’
‘What is it now?’
‘Two thirty-five over 170.’
‘What?’ He felt his legs buckle slightly and jammed his knees back hard. That was high. Too high. Ludicrously high. She could still fit, still end up with brain damage—
‘Don’t go there, Matt. She’s in good hands.’
He nodded, handed the baby back to the midwife and turned to watch Amy being wheeled out of Theatre. ‘I need to be with her.’
‘Yes, you do. I’m sorry. If I hadn’t been off on paternity leave for the past two days, I would have spotted this coming on. Someone’s just told me she did a double shift today, and she was supposed to be working tomorrow.’
‘That’s crazy!’ he said under his breath. ‘What the hell was she thinking about? Or was she keeping out of my way?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben said heavily. ‘She wasn’t booked to do the double shift. I think they were short-staffed, but if I’d been here I wouldn’t have let her do it.’
The anger, so carefully banked, broke free again. ‘Nor would I, but I didn’t get that choice, did I? Why didn’t any of you tell me she was pregnant? How could you keep that from me? For God’s sake, Ben, I’m your brother!’
They were following the trolley, and Ben paused and met his eyes. ‘You think I don’t know that? I’ve been trying to get her to tell you since the day she found out.’
‘You could have told me.’
‘No. I promised her I wouldn’t. I said I’d look after her.’
He made a harsh sound in his throat. ‘If you’d told me, I would have been looking after her, and this wouldn’t have happened.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, man, if you’re that bothered, why did you let her go in the first place? And it wasn’t me who got her pregnant,’ Ben snapped impatiently, and with a rough sigh he stalked off after the trolley, leaving Matt to follow or not.
He followed, his thoughts reeling, and they walked the rest of the way in an uncomfortable silence.
She fitted in the night, and Matt stood at the end of the bed with his heart in his mouth while all hell broke loose and drugs were pumped into her and the team struggled to control her blood pressure.
He clenched his fists and forced himself to keep out of it, to let them do their jobs, but in fairness they were doing exactly what he would have done if he’d been in charge, so he watched the monitor, and he waited, and finally it started to come down as her kidneys kicked in again, and he watched the numbers on the monitor drop gradually to sensible levels.
He felt his own blood pressure slowly return to something in the normal range, and then once he could get near her again he sagged back into the chair beside the bed and took her puffy, bloated hand in his. He stroked the back of it gently with his thumb, the rhythm soothing him, the contact with her warmth giving him hope.
She’d survived, and she was breathing. For now, that was all he could think about. All he could let himself think about.
‘It’s OK, Amy,’ he murmured, trying to inject some conviction into his voice. ‘You’ll be all right, my love. Just hang in there. I’m right here, and I’m not leaving. You’ll be OK, don’t worry. The baby’s fine. He’s going to be fine, and so are you…’
His voice cracked, and he broke off, dragging in a dee
p breath and staring up at the ceiling.
Who was he trying to convince? Her, or himself? Empty words, the sort of platitudes he heard desperate relatives telling their loved ones all the time in the face of insurmountable odds.
Were they insurmountable? He forced himself to be realistic. He treated women with pre-eclampsia all the time, and usually it was fine, but rarely—very rarely—it came on so fast, like Amy’s, that it caught them by surprise, and then it could spiral out of control with shocking speed. Sometimes there were no symptoms at all, the woman went straight into eclampsia and began fitting, and then the symptoms might follow later.
The outcome then was dependent on many factors—what had caused the fit, what damage it had done, how bad the multi-system failure was—and it was impossible to second-guess it.
She might have had a stroke, or got irreversible kidney or liver damage, he thought, and stopped himself running through the list. He didn’t need to borrow trouble. Time would tell, and until then he’d look on the bright side. She was alive. She was breathing for herself, her kidneys were starting to work again, her blood results were in the manageable range and he just had to wait. It often got worse before it got better. He knew that.
The time, though, seemed to stand still, punctuated only by the regular visits of the nursing and medical staff every few minutes until it all became a blur.
Underneath the worry for Amy, though, concern for the baby was nagging at him incessantly. All the staff were busy, but even so they’d given him a couple of reassuring updates. It wasn’t the same as seeing him, though. He wanted to watch over him as he was watching over Amy, to will him to live, to tell him he loved him.
But Amy needed him more, so he sat there feeling torn in half, part of him desperate to go and see his tiny son, the other, bigger part unable to drag himself away from Amy’s bedside until he was entirely confident of her recovery.
Then Ben came in, at some ungodly hour of the morning, and stood behind him, hands on his shoulders, the weight so reassuring, anchoring him, somehow.
The Fiancé He Can't Forget Page 7