Flick tried to smile but it didn’t come easily. Her stomach was still churning, her bladder threatening to burst, and she was a melting pot of emotions. She was excited about seeing her baby’s image for the first time but sad that Tristan wouldn’t share the experience. No matter what she thought of him, he was the father and she wanted him to have the same level of involvement, but unfortunately he didn’t feel the same way.
‘Please, hop up on the table and lift the top of your scrubs.’
Flick followed Prue’s instructions. The sonographer then tucked a disposable sheet into the elastic band at the top of her scrub pants and rolled them down to expose her slightly rounded stomach.
‘It just looks like you’ve eaten a large meal, you’re so tiny still,’ Prue said, as she applied the conducting gel and, moving her eyes from Flick’s stomach to the monitor and back again, began the examination.
‘There’s no risk to the baby with the scan is there?’
‘The low as reasonably achievable principle has been advocated for an ultrasound examination, which means keeping the scanning time and power settings as low as possible but consistent with diagnostic imaging, so any risk is minimal and outweighed by the advantages of having the scan,’ Prue explained, then continued, aware of Flick’s role as a student midwife, ‘Do you understand why you have the NT scan, Flick?’
‘Well, the main reason is to work out if my baby has any chromosomal abnormality, such as Down’s syndrome, isn’t it?’
‘That’s definitely one reason,’ Prue replied, as she moved the hand-held device over her stomach and adjusted the image on the monitor. ‘Another is to see if you’re expecting twins or even triplets. It’s crucial to know about twins early on, as it’s easier to see whether or not they share a placenta. Finding out about having twins early in pregnancy also gives you more time to prepare for the birth and for your doctor or midwife to plan your care.’
Flick didn’t want to think about having twins. One baby was going to be a challenge on her own but two was more than she could contemplate.
‘I’m quite sure it’s only one,’ Flick said, hoping to somehow influence the result with her nervous prognosis.
Prue didn’t answer as she hadn’t completed the examination and wasn’t yet ready to rule out a multiple-birth scenario.
‘This scan is the most accurate for the head to bottom measurement of your baby. This measurement is called the crown rump length and after thirteen weeks the baby can curl up and stretch out, so measuring the length becomes less accurate. That’s when we measure the width of the head and the length of the thigh bone to gauge size.’
Flick needed to know if she was expecting twins and she couldn’t be patient any longer. The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind until now. Finding out she was pregnant had been sufficiently stressful, without looking for additional worries.
‘Is there more than one?’
Prue hesitated for a moment then turned to Flick. ‘I can definitely tell you that you have only one baby, Flick.’
Flick felt her breathing become easier.
‘I’m just going to check your baby’s heartbeat and other developmental markers such as—’
Suddenly the door was pushed open and both women looked up in surprise.
‘Did I make it in time?’ Tristan asked, as he rushed into the room, slightly breathless from the dash through the hospital corridors and the stairwells.
Flick couldn’t hide her shock at seeing him standing there beside her in his scrubs. Seeing his state of dress, she realised he must have come straight from surgery to be there with her. Happiness stirred inside her when she realised perhaps she had misjudged him and he did care about her and his baby. Suddenly doubt was replaced with the feeling that everything might just be perfect after all.
‘Tristan, I didn’t know if you could make it.’ He voice was soft, not hiding the happiness she felt.
‘I got your note but I didn’t know how long the surgical list would take today. I didn’t want to make a promise and not be able to keep it.’
Prue looked over at Amanda, who was still holding open the door. It was obvious now to both who the father was but neither made comment before Amanda closed the door and went back to Reception and the other six-o’clock patient.
‘I heard you mention the heart,’ he began. ‘How is that looking?’
‘Good so far. Obviously, the twenty-week scan will be more accurate but Flick’s baby looks healthy.’ Prue continued the examination, stopping now and then to take screen shots of the foetus.
Tristan moved away from Flick and closer to the monitor. His eyes roamed the screen, scrutinising the black and white images.
‘So no visible abnormalities?’
‘None that I can detect. Obviously, as I said before, the twenty-week scan will give us a better picture—’
‘Stop,’ he cut in, pointing to the screen. ‘Can you go back so that I can see the heart chambers?’
‘Sure, but it’s very small. I think all we can be guided by at the moment is the presence of a strong heartbeat.’
Tristan stared at the monitor, not noticing Flick’s concern at his behaviour growing by the minute. Her mood suddenly took a turn and she wondered if his interest was purely medical. He was cross-examining the sonographer like a medical student researching a paper.
‘The placenta is functioning well and the baby’s size is appropriate for gestational age?’
‘Yes, everything is within normal limits and looks perfectly healthy.’
Flick felt herself become agitated with the intensity of his questions. It was far from what she imagined the usual reaction of a father-to-be was.
‘So you’re happy that the foetus has no obvious health issues?’
‘Tristan, I’ll print the films and you can have a closer look. The digital files will be available for you as well. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you while I collect the films and I’ll send you the report in a day or so. When you’re ready, Flick, please pop out and see Amanda.’
‘Thanks, Prue,’ Flick said, as she pulled her top down and her pants up as the woman left the tiny room. She stared at Tristan with frown lines dressing her forehead. She was very confused by his behaviour.
‘What on earth was with the twenty negative questions?’ she demanded, sitting upright and staring at Tristan in indignation. She had been excited to see him but his interrogation had seen her joy morph into irritation.
‘I just want to know that everything is fine, that there are no medical conditions that we need to take into consideration. I think that’s quite normal.’
‘There’s nothing normal about the Spanish inquisition of a sonographer. Why would there be any medical conditions?’ she demanded in a lowered voice. ‘I’m only twenty-five years of age, I exercise regularly, walk almost every day, eat a healthy diet, and my last glass of wine was at the ball … before I became pregnant.’ She rolled her eyes when she thought about that night. She wished she could blame their night together on the wine but one glass could not be held accountable for them falling into bed together. One glass had not swayed her judgement. She’d been very aware of what she’d been doing when Tristan had carried her into the bedroom.
‘I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon, of course I’m going to be interested in all aspects of our child’s health.’
‘There’s no history of any congenital problems so your questions are uncalled for. I am not one of your patient’s mothers or some medical case study.’
‘I just want to be thorough.’ His jaw tensed as he spoke. He didn’t want to divulge any more to Flick. The child had an equal chance of being healthy. There were two parents and no guarantee that his genetic condition had been passed on.
‘I didn’t sense thoroughness a minute ago, Tristan. I would call your line of questioning a little obsessive and unnecessarily worrying to me, to be honest. I know this was far from a planned baby but I would like to find some joy along the way. I want to leave practicality
at the door, and if there’s anything to deal with I will, but I’m not going to watch the sky nervously just in case it falls in.’
‘I just want to have a general overview.’
‘It was far from a general overview, Tristan. Your questions were very specific. I get that you specialize in cardiology and you’re surgically correcting congenital heart defects all day, but there is no reason to think our child will have cardiac problems so just stop looking for a drama.’ She was tired and, she knew, a little short-tempered. ‘Look, I’m struggling a little with the pregnancy and I don’t need added or unnecessary stress.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Tristan asked, his concern almost palpable. ‘Can I help you?’
Flick knew he couldn’t make anything better. He could just stop making it worse. He wasn’t there for her, and she wasn’t convinced about his feelings for the baby now. Was he attending the scan from a medical specialist standpoint or as a concerned father of her baby? She sadly suspected it was the former, so she turned her response to one of a patient. Because clearly that was all she was to him.
‘I still have dreadful morning sickness, it’s dragging on longer than I thought it would and I’m so tired still. I’m not sleeping that well and I wake exhausted every day,’ she told him, climbing down from the examination table. ‘Sophia reassured me the second trimester should be much easier. Apparently in the next two weeks or so the golden period of my pregnancy will kick in and the nausea will decrease, sleep patterns will be better and I should feel increased energy levels. I just want to stop throwing up soon. So unless you have a magic obstetric wand, there’s nothing you can do except to stop creating problems and concerns where there are none.’
After hearing about her struggles with the pregnancy, Tristan knew he had made the right decision not to raise the possibility of a serious problem. He didn’t want to add to her woes.
‘What if I support you financially so that you can give up work and focus on the baby?’
Flick felt her blood pressure sky-rocket and her heart sink. She hadn’t thought he could make it worse but he had. He hadn’t mentioned anything more than a financial arrangement. No emotional commitment, instead a way for her to step away from the workforce and tend to the baby with no effort from him other than opening his wallet. He’d just projected her back fifty years. She was incensed at his suggestion.
‘Give up work? So close to completing? Have you gone completely mad? I’m the one with raging hormones who is supposed to be irrational and you come up with that completely illogical suggestion.’
‘I didn’t think it was that bad,’ he said, taken aback by her reaction. ‘It’s a simple way to reduce your stress. If you don’t have to get up every day and go to work, you can slow down and the symptoms may not seem so severe.’
‘But then I won’t be qualified. How am I supposed to support myself and my child without a qualification? And I don’t want to be kept by you when I am perfectly capable of earning my own way, doing what I love.’
‘It’s our child, not just your child, and I intend to support the baby too. You might be a single mother but you are not a sole parent. There’s a difference.’
Flick was surprised by his serious tone.
‘Our baby will never go without,’ he told her sombrely. ‘I intend to be there every step of the way and if there are medical issues we will deal with them, not just you—we will deal with them.’
‘Why do you keep going back there, Tristan? You are like the doom-and-gloom father-to-be. If you can’t help yourself, please don’t come to any more appointments. Honestly, I would rather attend all the antenatal visits alone than have you looking for problems that don’t exist and then on top of that telling me to throw in my career.’
Tristan was beyond frustrated. He was trying to protect and take care of her as best he could under the circumstances. He was well aware that pregnancy brought about a wave of emotions but he was surprised that a woman who had been clearly in control of her emotions three months previously was suddenly so emotional now. And defensive along with it.
‘Not throw in your career, maybe delay it a little while until you feel better or until after the baby is born.’
Tristan hoped that that the baby would be healthy and Flick could pick up her studies again. Devoting every waking moment to looking after a sick child was not the way he wanted her future to play out. His medical condition had been all-consuming for his parents and the reason they’d never had a second child. And, he suspected, the reason why they’d finally separated when he’d been eighteen. It had been years of stress and it had finally taken its toll on their relationship.
They had parted as friends because friendship was all that there had been after eighteen years of worry and focus on their son. The romance and passion had no doubt dissipated in sterile waiting rooms and ICU wards over the years. Tristan was sad that his relationship with Flick hadn’t even made it that far, but it had been a joint decision in his mind. Even though it had ended after one night, his responsibility would last the child’s lifetime, whether or not the child suffered his genetic condition.
‘Flick, I’m in this with you.’
‘I understand that you want to be responsible. That’s great, Tristan, but I’m perfectly capable of getting through this without you.’
‘I’m not walking away from you.’
‘I think you mean you’re not walking away from our baby, Tristan. We never had anything more than one night, so you can’t walk away from me—you were never with me.’
Tristan was dealing with the news of the pregnancy, the problems that might ensue, and promising more to Flick at that moment wasn’t possible. He didn’t know if perhaps she was drawn to him because he was the father of the baby. She hadn’t reached out during those three months any more than he had. If the baby hadn’t brought them together, he wondered if she would have visited his office at all. He still had feelings for Flick, they had not disappeared since the morning they woken together, but how she truly felt about him wasn’t so clear. But his devotion to the baby she was carrying was very clear in his mind and in his heart.
‘Don’t push me away now, Flick. I meant when I said. I am here for you, whatever you need.’
‘Fate has given us this baby, but we don’t have to pretend that there’s anything else between us,’ she told him, not wanting the words to be true but knowing in his heart they were. ‘Let’s not try to fool ourselves. This is not a relationship you wanted. Let’s not pretend that there’s anything between us.’
‘I think we both made a decision not to pursue a relationship. I’m not into long-term relationships. You could say that I’m married to my career. It wasn’t anything personal.’
‘Great to know that when you made love to me it wasn’t personal.’ She stormed over to the door. ‘Be careful, Tristan. You’re making it worse than it was. And it wasn’t good when you left my bed that morning without so much as a goodbye.’
‘Flick, let’s not go there. I’m not the only one who felt it was best that I left. It was obvious that you wanted me gone. Staying that long in the bathroom was clearly my cue to leave.’
Flick stood staring at him, dumbfounded by his statement.
‘Your cue? I’ve never done anything close to that before. I was feeling overwhelmed, I needed a moment to myself. But you left without a word. Clearly I was nothing more than one night. Don’t try to change that now. It’s too late,’ she said, as she closed the door on Tristan and his hold on her heart.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS ALMOST two weeks since the scan and their confrontation. Flick had continued to avoid Tristan, which wasn’t hard since she was out on community antenatal visits and still completing her external study load.
Her morning sickness was still dragging on. Although it wasn’t as severe, it was showing no sign of leaving. Most nights she tossed and turned, thinking about Tristan and what they had shared. For him, she reasoned it had stopped at just one night but, despite wh
at she’d said, for her it had been so much more. A baby was for ever and she knew the memories of the night they’d spent in each other’s arms would last in her heart for the same time. She couldn’t stop her feelings for him. She wanted them to go way. To disappear overnight so that she woke to feel nothing for him at all.
She hated that she woke thinking about him.
The man who had not even tried to contact her seemed at odds with the man who spent those hours sitting talking on her tiny balcony in the sun, and the man who had made her feel as light as air on the dance floor at the ball and the man who had carried her to bed and made love to her all night long. He had slipped away in the morning light. She wondered if he was just like all the other men her mother had brought home.
She wasn’t sure how she could have been so wrong about him.
But she was finished with him. She had to be for her sanity and what was left of her heart.
Tristan had requested the digital images from the twelve-week scans to be sent to him electronically so he could take additional time to examine them. Every day he would scrutinise them, looking for something he knew wouldn’t be visible that early into the pregnancy, but he did it anyway. He was searching for confirmation one way or the other. Not knowing was driving him to distraction. Not being able to protect Flick and his child was breaking him.
But also the knowledge that she hadn’t wanted him to leave that morning made it harder to fight his feelings and made him want to be with her even more. He now knew it hadn’t been just a one-night stand. And perhaps there was more than the baby bringing them together. But logic reminded him that, no matter how she’d felt about him the morning they’d woken together and perhaps even did still feel, it might change when she had all the information.
He would stay late at the hospital, poring over reports and updates about the latest medical breakthroughs in neonatal and in vitro surgical corrections of the defect. The need to immerse himself in work and research potential surgical interventions for their child drove him. He was desperate to be able to tell Flick there was hope when or if the genetic diagnosis was given to them. Until then, he had nothing of value he could say to her. He couldn’t provide comfort and he worried that his anxiety, however he attempted to mask it, would seep through his bravado and make her suspicious.
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