Pregnant with Her Best Friend's Baby

by Alison Roberts

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  Surely Maggie would have said something if she was considering moving out of the city? Her parents were a good ninety minutes’ drive away. But then again, why would she say anything? They were friends, not life partners. Living in a different town didn’t mean that they couldn’t co-parent. It would just make it a lot more difficult. On the opposite end of the spectrum he had suggested with the idea that Maggie could live in the second apartment of that old house he’d just bought.

  Shirley put mugs and a pot of coffee in front of the men. Her glance made Joe feel like she could see far more than he might be comfortable with.

  ‘Has Maggie seen that new house of yours?’

  Yep. Seemed like Shirley really was telepathic to some degree. ‘She came with me.’

  ‘It’s got two apartments, I hear.’

  Joe sighed. ‘Yep. And, yes, before you ask, Shirley, I did suggest that Maggie move into one of them. She said she didn’t want to. That things were complicated enough already.’

  Shirley echoed his sigh and then tutted with disappointment as she went back towards a sink that was full of her baking and mixing dishes. She might have been muttering something about people not seeing things that were right under their noses but Joe pretended not to hear.

  He stared at the slice of cake on his plate. ‘I actually asked Maggie to marry me,’ he confessed to Tom.

  Good grief...why on earth had he said that to someone he didn’t know that well? Because Tom was so calm and sensible that he might have some advice to offer? Maybe it was because he wasn’t as close a friend yet as someone like Andy. Or Cooper, who was still bathing in the rosy glow of both marriage with someone he was very much in love with and the excitement of expecting his first child.

  ‘She said no, I take it?’

  ‘She thinks there’s got to be more than friendship. That you’ve got to be in love.’

  Tom ate a bite of cake slowly and then nodded. ‘She’s right.’

  Joe tried to eat some cake in the silence that followed, punctuated only by Shirley banging cake tins in the background, but it was hard to swallow.

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ he said. ‘Like I said, I’ve never been in love that I know of. With a house or a person.’

  Because he’d never let himself get past those roadblocks?

  ‘You’d know, if you were,’ Tom told him.

  ‘How?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Everything’s different. It’s like the sun has just been turned on in your personal universe. Everything’s so much brighter. Warmer.’

  Joe stared at his colleague. There were certainly depths to this man that he had never recognised. ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘Yeah...’ Tom’s smile was slow. Poignant. ‘Past tense is right, unfortunately. I lost my wife and son in a car accident a few years ago now.’

  ‘Oh... God... I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’ Joe caught his breath. No wonder Tom felt so strongly about the kind of job they’d just been on when they’d saved the life of a young woman who’d crashed her car. No wonder he seemed so serious at times.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Tom drained his coffee mug. ‘You’re not the only one with no idea. It’s not something I talk about. It broke me but I’ve put my life back together. I know I couldn’t do it again but I also know that you’ll know when it happens to you. And that for a marriage to work, it needs to happen on both sides.’

  And that was never going to happen. Maggie had made it clear right from the start that she would never feel like that about him. Joe wasn’t in love with Maggie—he couldn’t be—but he did miss her. He missed the easy friendship. He missed the sex, too, of course, but it didn’t feel as if his personal universe had been plunged into darkness. It just felt different.

  Emptier.

  And because he wasn’t in love with Maggie and she wasn’t in love with him, Tom was in agreement that she’d been right in refusing to marry him. That meant she would probably be making the right choice if she chose to move away from the city to raise her child with the help of her parents.

  Without him.

  This new emptiness of his personal universe kicked up a notch or two. Joe reached for another forkful of his cake in the hope of filling a tiny portion of that emptiness but he didn’t get the chance to sink his teeth into it. His pager sounded.

  So did Tom’s.

  ‘Bike versus truck,’ Tom announced. ‘I knew we’d be in for a spate of accidents this afternoon.’

  Andy already had the rotors going by the time the two men had picked up their kits and helmets and were climbing aboard.

  ‘Got cleaned up in the nick of time,’ he said. ‘Buckle up, it’s getting a bit wild out there and we’re heading into the worst of it, up the coast.’

  It was a ten-minute ride, buffeted by wind. Things seemed noisier than usual and their information was coming in by crackled sound bites. A motorbike had skidded on the newly wet tarmac and had been clipped by a truck on a corner. One person was unhurt, another was reported as Status Two, which meant that they were unstable and potentially seriously injured. Visibility was less than perfect with rain streaking the Perspex and landing on a section of the road that the police and fire service had cleared for them took all of Andy’s skill along with the backup of the medical crew watching out for hazards.

  ‘Clear this side,’ Tom confirmed.

  ‘Tail clear,’ Joe added.

  Droplets of water on Joe’s helmet visor were intensifying the colours of the flashing lights of emergency vehicles as he strode, ahead of Tom, to the centre of the accident scene. Red and blue flashes from a police car and an ambulance. He could see that the cab of the truck was empty so the driver had got out. That was probably him sitting in the back of the ambulance with a policewoman beside him.

  Joe could also see the wheels of the motorbike, which was lying on its side just in front of a cluster of crouching people that was obscuring his view of their patient.

  ‘Air Rescue,’ he called. ‘Let me through...’

  People shifted. Joe could see the feet of their patient poking out from beneath a blanket. A paramedic was focussed on whatever she was hearing through her stethoscope and another was pulling an oxygen mask from its packaging. Two fire officers were holding up a tarpaulin both to keep rain off the injured person and shield them from curious stares from onlookers. From the corner of his eye, as he stepped forward, Joe was taking in the damage to the motorbike as an indication of how serious this accident had been.

  It still looked largely intact, which was a good sign but no guarantee that the rider might have escaped a critical injury. The only damage Joe could see was that a handlebar was bent and the paintwork was pretty scratched. Sky-blue paintwork, he registered. Unusual.

  The same as Maggie’s motorbike.

  He took another step forward, aware of the chill running down his spine, and then he stopped so abruptly that Tom bumped into the kit on his back.

  ‘No...’ Joe could feel the blood draining from his head as he took in the pale face with that cloud of blonde curls surrounding it. Her eyes were closed. Was she even alive? He was frozen into immobility. How could he deal with this when he couldn’t even think of the most basic thing he needed to do? When all he wanted to do was crouch down beside Maggie and take her into his arms?

  ‘I’ve got this.’ Tom stepped past him. ‘Stay here for a moment, Joe.’

  Tom knew who it was. He might not have worked at the Aratika Rescue Base for that long but he’d known Maggie well before that, from taking her patient handovers in the emergency department. He also knew what everyone else knew about Joe’s relationship with Maggie and about her pregnancy.

  So he knew it wasn’t just one patient they had to worry about. It was two.

  Maggie...and their baby...

  Tom dropped his backpack and crouc
hed beside the paramedic with the stethoscope.

  ‘Accident wasn’t high speed from what witnesses have told us,’ a young paramedic told him. ‘Sounds like she just hit a patch of oil in the road and the wheel slid out from under her. Her name’s Maggie Lewis. She’s thirty-five years old.’

  ‘I know Maggie,’ Tom said. He gripped her shoulder. ‘Maggie? Can you hear me?’

  Her eyes fluttered open. From where he was, still near her feet, Joe could see how anxious she looked. And how rapidly she was breathing.

  ‘Vital signs?’ Tom queried calmly.

  ‘Blood pressure is one hundred over sixty,’ the paramedic said. ‘Respirations twenty-four. Heart rate is one twenty and her oxygen saturation is...’ she looked over at the monitor ‘...ninety-two percent. That’s down from a few minutes ago.’

  ‘T-Tom...’ Maggie pulled the oxygen mask away from her face, her voice hoarse. ‘Can’t...breathe...’

  It was the sound of her voice that broke those frozen few seconds for Joe. He was moving now. Close enough for Maggie to see him. Close enough for him to see the very real fear in her eyes.

  ‘J-Joe... I’m...’

  ‘I know.’ He put his hand on her cheek for a moment, before replacing the oxygen mask. ‘We’ve got this. You’re going to be fine.’

  She had to be. That was all there was to it.

  ‘She’s got a chest injury on the left side,’ the paramedic was saying now. ‘Probably broken ribs. She’s refused any pain relief because she’s pregnant. About seventeen weeks, she said.’

  Tom fitted the earpieces of his stethoscope, placing the disc on Maggie’s chest. Joe was watching the condensation on the inside of her mask that showed the rate of her breathing efforts increasing. She was also looking more distressed, her head rolling from side to side.

  ‘I think she’s got reduced air entry on the left side.’ The paramedic was frowning. ‘It’s hard to tell with all the noise here, though.’

  Joe felt like he was having trouble breathing himself. That his own lungs were being squeezed.

  ‘Absent breath sounds, left side,’ Tom said quietly. ‘And we’ve got some subcutaneous emphysema happening.’ He touched an area of skin where there were bubbles of air marring the smoothness.

  ‘Needle decompression?’ The paramedic was turning towards her kit. ‘I’ve got the gear.’

  But Tom was looking at Maggie. Reaching to shake her shoulder. ‘Maggie? Can you hear me? Open your eyes...’

  Joe felt the moment she lost consciousness and knew that Tom had felt it as well. A few seconds later and she stopped breathing. The men exchanged a single glance. The air escaping into Maggie’s chest from her lung, probably due to an injury from a fractured rib, had reached a critical level. Her lung had collapsed and the pressure was building. It was pushing her heart towards the other side of her chest and the major veins leading into her heart would be getting blocked. The level of oxygen in her bloodstream would be dropping dramatically. A respiratory arrest would be followed by a cardiac arrest very soon if they didn’t move fast.

  ‘Simple thoracostomy,’ Tom said, already opening his pack to remove the roll he needed. ‘Rather than needle decompression. You agree, Joe?’

  Joe could only nod. He still felt as if he couldn’t breathe. How could he, if Maggie wasn’t breathing? The tension wasn’t just in Maggie’s chest. It was pressing down on Joe, so hard it felt like something might explode.

  Thank goodness Tom, with all his experience and skill, was here to provide a more definitive treatment to this life-threatening situation. He was moving swiftly but calmly. Joe helped position Maggie’s arm, lifting and turning it to put her hand under her head. He kept his own hand there as well, covering hers. Just needing to be in contact with her skin. Touching her.

  You can’t do this, he told her silently. You are not going to die...

  He watched as Tom cleaned the skin over Maggie’s ribs, made a cut with a scalpel and then opened the muscle with some forceps before inserting his gloved finger to make sure he had reached the chest cavity. As he pulled his finger out, he nodded with satisfaction.

  Joe felt the movement through his hand and straight into his own chest. He was dragging in a huge breath at the same time as Maggie pulled in one of her own. And then another. The miraculous effect of the pressure being released had her eyelids fluttering again within seconds. Joe had never been happier to see those dark blue eyes so close to his own.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he told her. ‘You’re going to be okay. We’ve got you...’

  They had her into the helicopter a short time later.

  ‘I’ve got her helmet.’ Joe climbed in after Tom. ‘There’s no significant damage and the ground crew said she wasn’t knocked out. Her GSC was fifteen on arrival.’

  ‘I think she’s been lucky.’ Tom nodded. ‘We’ll be able to check her thoroughly once we’ve got her into Emergency. Buckle up, Joe. I’ll sit by her head. I want to keep a close eye on her in case she starts tensioning again.’

  It was too noisy to try and talk to Maggie and Tom was taking excellent care of her so there was nothing for Joe to do but fasten his harness and go along for the ride.

  He was still worried about Maggie. Of course he was. Worried about the baby as well, now that the terrifying threat of losing Maggie was receding. It was enough to give him a painful lump in his throat, thinking about how real that threat had been for a minute or two.

  Thinking about what it might have been like to lose Maggie.

  What was it Tom had said? That you’d know you were in love with someone because it was like the sun had been turned on in your personal universe. He’d just experienced the opposite of that, Joe realised. He’d recognised how dark his personal universe would be if Maggie disappeared from it. How much light and warmth he could lose.

  He knew.

  He’d known all along, hadn’t he? He’d just been afraid to put it into words, let alone admit it aloud. The warmth and light had always been there but he’d thought it was no more than friendship because it was something so different from anything he’d experienced in his romantic liaisons. Now he could see it very clearly for what it actually was.

  He loved Maggie.

  He was in love with Maggie.

  He could see her living in that beautiful house with him. As his life partner. His wife. The mother of his child. No...make that children...

  Joe still had that lump in his throat as he walked beside Maggie’s stretcher as they took her down to the emergency department from the helipad. He stood behind Tom in the elevator and it was then that he remembered something else that Tom had said earlier today—that he would know when he’d fallen in love, but that for a marriage to work it had to happen on both sides.

  When the stretcher disappeared ahead of him through the doors of the main resuscitation area, Joe was remembering something else that had been said. Not by Tom. This was an echo of Maggie’s voice he could hear in the back of his mind now. When they’d been lying in his bed, having ignored their decision not to let it happen a second time. Basking in the aftermath of the best sex ever. He could still hear how adamant she’d been in agreeing with him that marriage was not something he had any wish to consider.

  ‘Believe, me,’ she’d said to him. ‘I’ll know who I want to marry—probably within a few minutes of meeting him... It certainly wasn’t something I was thinking when I met you, mate...’

  ‘Joe?’

  He could hear Maggie’s real voice now. Calling for him.

  ‘I’m here.’ He pushed his way through the team that had already been in the resuscitation area, waiting to receive Maggie.

  The way she took hold of his hand and squeezed it so tightly gave Joe a weird prickle behind his eyes to go with that lump in his throat that wouldn’t go away. It also gave him a flash of something like hope. Hope that perhaps he was important e
nough for Maggie to want to keep him in her life, even if she would never be in love with him or want to marry him.

  ‘Somebody got that foetal monitor?’ The consultant leading the resuscitation team was looking around the room as soon as they’d dealt with the first tasks of reviewing all Maggie’s vital signs and then placing a tube to secure the drainage of air from her chest. ‘Let’s get it on.’

  That request changed everything. It didn’t matter how Joe felt about Maggie right now. Or how she felt about him. Even the relief that Maggie was breathing well and all her vital signs were within normal ranges got shunted into the background. There was only one important thing to know in this moment.

  That their baby had survived this accident.

  The realisation of how he felt about Maggie had opened floodgates that had been locked shut for what seemed like his whole life. It wasn’t just Maggie that Joe was experiencing such powerful feelings for, was it? It felt like the life of his child was hanging in the balance. His son. Or his daughter. A child that he needed to protect. And that he wanted to be able to love.

  ‘It’s on its way from Maternity,’ someone said. ‘Shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘We’ve got a Doppler here,’ Tom reminded them. ‘I’ll find it.’

  Other members of the medical team were still monitoring Maggie’s oxygen levels, heart rhythm, blood pressure and other vital signs. They were also doing an even more thorough secondary survey to make sure they hadn’t missed any other significant injuries but, as Tom had thought, it seemed that the only real damage had been done when her ribs had been caught by the handlebar of her bike. Tom and Joe would normally have handed over the care of their patient and gone back to the helipad but there was no way Joe could leave and Tom had morphed from being a HEMS doctor back into his usual role of emergency medicine consultant.

  He had the Doppler unit in one hand and the small probe in the other. Maggie’s clothes had already been cut away and Joe could see that her bump was just starting to show and that made that lump in his throat get so big it was hard to breathe around its edges.