The Heart Surgeon's Proposal

by Meredith Webber

  Maggie looked up at him and smiled.

  ‘Have faith,’ she said, ‘but speaking of the Barrons’ problems, how is Mr B.?’

  ‘He should pull through. He’s a bit overweight, but he’s relatively young. The worry isn’t the first heart attack, but the likelihood of a second.’

  ‘And then a probably fatal third!’ Maggie finished for him. ‘Though surely, with drugs, and possibly a lifestyle change, the second and third can be averted.’

  Phil nodded, his eyes now on Pete’s monitors, which were showing a drop in the oxygen saturation in his blood. He touched the computer, then brought up the drug schedule. The intensivist had already given antibiotics for the peritonitis, but they’d take time to work.

  ‘The fluid in his abdomen must be pressing his diaphragm upwards and compromising his lungs. I’m going to have to draw off some of the fluid. I’ll need some for testing anyway,’ he said. ‘It might be easier on him to do it while he’s still sleeping. How long have I got?’

  Maggie looked at her watch, calculated the amount of drug she’d given Pete, his weight, other medications he was on and gave an estimate of fifteen minutes.

  Phil asked the nurse who’d followed him into the room for the equipment he’d need, then with Maggie still holding Pete’s hand and talking to him, and with the nurse assisting, he drew off two large syringes of fluid, putting some into smaller vials and sending them off to the pathology lab.

  ‘Do you know if they have Dial an Angel or a similar organisation here in Sydney?’ Maggie asked, but before he’d even made sense of the question, she answered it herself.

  ‘No, of course you wouldn’t. Probably don’t even know what Dial an Angel is.’

  ‘I do, so. It’s an organisation that provides help for people who need it, mainly in the house, help with kids and housework and suchlike. But if you’re thinking of it for the Barrons, and your organisation is like ours, it’s probably not affordable for them.’

  ‘No, but there are ways and means,’ Maggie said, smoothing her hand up and down Pete’s thin arm.

  She looked up at Phil.

  ‘If you’re finished here, could you send Annie in—if she’s still in the rooms, that is? She’ll know how to go about things.’

  Phil hadn’t a clue what she was up to but he had finished, and as Maggie seemed to have no intention of leaving to have dinner with him, or for any other reason, he may as well go and talk to Annie.

  He was at the door before she asked the question he’d expected earlier.

  ‘Where’s Evan?’

  ‘He had to go,’ Phil said, and hoped Maggie wouldn’t pursue it. Hoped so much he nearly crossed his fingers as he had done when wishing for something as a child.

  Not pursue it! This was Maggie!

  ‘Go where? And why?’

  ‘Back to the Children’s, I guess, and why, because he’s a worker like the rest of us. He probably had a child waiting to go under even while he was over here dallying with you.’

  ‘It’s eight o’clock at night, so an op’s unlikely, and he came so we could talk about the anaesthetic,’ Maggie reminded him. ‘Though when I phoned, he said he was coming anyway, wanting to see Pete and talk to him about pain.’

  ‘Well, there you are,’ Phil said, delighted Maggie had handed him an excuse. ‘With Pete so ill, then his father collapsing, Evan probably felt he was in the way here at Jimmie’s.’

  Maggie nodded, and though it didn’t seem to be a nod of total acceptance Phil took it as such and slipped away.

  It wasn’t as if he’d thumped the man, he comforted himself as he walked through to their rooms. All he’d done had been to let slip the information that he and Maggie were engaged, though he was in trouble for telling people before her family had thrown them a party and made an official announcement.

  He’d felt slightly guilty, feeding Knowles this lie, though not about the lie, more about the fact he knew absolutely nothing about Maggie’s family, and didn’t even know if they’d want to give a party or make official announcements.

  He had a feeling such arrangements, like the man asking the woman’s father for her hand in marriage, were things of the past.

  Annie had already heard the news of Mr Barron’s collapse, and agreed that something needed to be done to help the family.

  ‘I don’t see what you can do,’ Phil told her, but she bustled off to see Maggie anyway.

  Maggie was excited. Annie knew just the right organisation to contact to arrange help for the Barrons, and though they’d agreed to wait until one of them had talked to Mrs Barron before making final arrangements Annie had gone off to find out exactly what was available.

  ‘But you’re his anaesthetist, you shouldn’t have had to sit with him,’ Mrs Barron said to her as she came anxiously into Pete’s room.

  ‘I wanted to,’ Maggie told her, ‘and I wanted to talk to you as well.’

  She indicated the little boy, now sleeping naturally and less flushed as well, a sure sign the antibiotics were clearing the infection.

  ‘I knew you’d come to see Pete once you were satisfied Mr Barron was in good hands, so I stayed on.’

  She pulled the second chair close to the one she was using, then swapped places so Mrs Barron could hold her son’s hand.

  ‘We all know the trouble you’ve had juggling your family at home with the hospital visits and Mr Barron’s work, and with this, you must be nearly frantic.’

  Mrs Barron smiled at her.

  ‘I don’t think frantic comes anywhere close,’ she said, blinking away a tear. ‘I know I have to be strong because so many people are depending on me, but I’ve always depended on Joe. He’s been my rock. I’d never have got through all the problems little Pete’s had without Joe being there, telling me all the time we’ve got to see it through.’

  Maggie put her arms around the other woman and let her cry for a while, then, as Mrs Barron straightened, Maggie told her about the charitable organisation that could arrange support for her.

  ‘It has to be what you want,’ she said. ‘Help that will make things easy for you. It could be a live-in person to take care of the kids or someone to come in to clean and cook. Someone to drive you to and from the hospital, or money for taxis, someone to drive the kids to school if you like. Whatever you need, these people will give it to you until you’ve got Joe back home again. After that, too, if you need support for a little while.’

  Mrs Barron looked at Maggie as if she’d gone mad.

  ‘But there are loads of people in the world far, far worse off than us. I’ve got Mum, who will come and stay, and while I know doing everything will be too much for her, it gives me peace of mind to know she’s there. Joe, too—he wouldn’t like to think a stranger was with the kids.’

  ‘Then maybe someone to clean and cook, do the washing and ironing and leave your mother free to see to the children. Would you accept that?’

  Mrs Barron nodded, but she was frowning mightily.

  ‘Why us?’ she asked, and Maggie smiled at her.

  ‘Because you need help and you need it now. Think about it, about what would help.’

  Maggie watched her face and knew she was weakening.

  ‘If someone could come in the morning at eight and take the kids to school, then give Mum a hand around the house, I could spend the nights at the hospital and stay with Joe and Pete in the mornings, then go home in time to collect the kids. That way I can give them time in the afternoons and see to their homework, and fix their lunches for the next day.’

  She looked at Maggie.

  ‘Are you sure these people exist? And they’re free?’

  ‘They exist, and while they charge for their services, the organisation will pay, not you. We’ll make sure we get someone with a car big enough for all the children and your mother, because you’ll both feel better if she goes in the car to the school the first week or so.’

  ‘Week or so? They might come for more than a week?’

  Mrs Barron
began to cry again, and as Maggie comforted her, holding the weeping woman and patting her on the back, she raised her eyes to the ceiling beyond which she still believed heaven existed, and said a quiet thank you.

  Big miracles, like getting Pete and Mr Barron better immediately, were beyond her but, thanks to what had been a tragic loss ten years ago, small miracles were within reach.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘COME on, I’m taking you home.’

  Maggie looked up from the computer and pushed her fingers through her hair. Her earlier high, when she and Annie had arranged for an ‘angel’ to help out at the Barrons’, had disappeared, mainly because her search for something similar to what had happened today had proved fruitless. All she’d found out was that peering at the screen for an hour gave her a pain in the neck.

  ‘I don’t know!’ she complained to Phil. ‘Computers are good, but they can also lead you on endless wild-goose chases. I’d pick up something in search results that sounded similar and follow it through, only to find it was a different matter entirely—fibrillation in octogenarian patients or fibrillation as a result of metabolic disturbance.’

  He’d come closer and rested his hand on her shoulder as he, too, peered at the screen. Any of their colleagues would have done the same thing, but only Phil’s touch warmed her skin and eased the stiffness in her neck.

  Until she realised why he was so interested in the information on the computer—not fibrillation at all. Frustrated at not finding anything similar to what had happened with Gemma, Maggie had run a quick search on personal medical matters, and although the search engine hadn’t delivered any results when Phil had first walked in, they were all up on the screen now—page one of one hundred and eighty-four—all concerning spontaneous abortion in the first trimester of a pregnancy.

  Phil’s grip tightened on her shoulder and he crouched beside her.

  ‘You haven’t lost the baby, have you? Today? You shouldn’t be here. Why didn’t you say something?’

  He was so pale and seemed so upset Maggie stopped any further speculation by putting her hand across his mouth.

  ‘I haven’t lost the baby,’ she told him, then hesitated, took a deep breath and added, ‘but I might. That’s why I really didn’t want to say anything, Phil. To you or to anyone else. Back when I was still a student, I was married. Jack was my first boyfriend—we’d been together at school, then at uni, we got married, I got pregnant…’

  ‘You lost the baby?’ Phil guessed, hoping he sounded OK when in reality his mind and body were coping with some strange reactions to the news Maggie had once been married.

  Surely that hot, tight sensation in his gut couldn’t be jealousy!

  And coming on top of the shock discovery—however wrong—that she’d lost the baby, it was almost too much to cope with right now!

  He decided to ignore all the internal commotion going on and concentrate on what she was telling him.

  ‘That one and the next. But by the time I lost the second one I wasn’t married any more, and I was also determined to get back on track with my career, so I didn’t do anything about investigating why it had happened.’

  She hesitated and Phil could read the fear lurking in her dark eyes, and again experienced a physical tightening of his gut—though this time for Maggie, for how she must be feeling.

  ‘Now I wish I had,’ she whispered. ‘Wish I’d found out if there was some reason why I miscarried twice. Wish I knew if it was likely to happen again…’

  Phil eased up from his crouched position and put his arms around her, drawing her to her feet so he could hold her properly and offering her the warmth and comfort of his body.

  But while physically he was offering comfort, mentally he was nearly as upset as she was. They might lose this baby? That would be bad enough, but with no baby there’d be no reason for Maggie to marry him, and that thought bothered him more than the losing-the-baby possibility.

  So, they’d better not lose the baby.

  ‘Did you find anything? On the computer?’

  Maggie obviously understood what he meant, for she pushed away from him.

  ‘You saw the screen—the results have just come up. I hadn’t looked at anything, let alone found anything.’

  Phil heard the strain in her voice and pulled her close again, thinking now of practical matters.

  ‘About a million hours ago, we were on our way to the canteen for dinner. Did you ever eat?’

  She shook her head against his chest.

  ‘I got over being hungry.’

  ‘Me, too, but that’s not good for either of us. Let’s close this computer down, order something nutritious and delicious to be delivered, and go home. By the time we get there, the food will be on its way. We’ll eat then go to bed. We can do a search tomorrow.’

  He tilted her chin so he could look into her eyes.

  ‘We could even consult an obstetrician—there’s sure to be a couple somewhere around the hospital. But for now let’s go home.’

  ‘Now you’re saying the word,’ she said, to hide the melting sensation in her bones his ‘let’s go home’ had caused.

  He smiled.

  ‘Home? I guess I am—and do you know what, Mags? It feels like home. Or it does when we’re not at odds with each other.’

  He brushed his lips against her forehead and crossed to Annie’s desk, where a list of all the local restaurants that delivered food was taped on the outside of the hospital phone directory.

  ‘Italian?’

  Maggie nodded. She was still absorbing what he’d said about their house feeling like a home and telling herself not to get too excited about it. He’d already told her he could feel ‘at home’ wherever he was working.

  ‘Delivery in three-quarters of an hour. That will give us time to pop in on Pete before we leave—if you don’t mind.’

  They walked briskly through to the PICU, and Phil, rather than disturb the sleeping boy, or his mother who was dozing in the big chair by the bed, stopped at the desk and checked the monitor to see how his charge was doing.

  ‘Temp’s down, oxygen sats up, more fluid building in his abdomen, but we’ll drain some more off during the night if it affects either his heart or his lungs,’ the intensivist who’d joined Phil at the desk said.

  They were turning away when Mrs Barron came out.

  ‘Oh, Dr Walsh, I wanted to thank you again for the angel. I visited Joe and he was conscious but worrying, and as soon as I told him about the angel, the nurse said all his readings got better.’

  She gave Maggie a hug, sniffed back a tear and beamed at Phil.

  ‘This is some woman you’ve got yourself,’ she said, then she returned to continue her vigil by her son’s bed.

  ‘Angel?’ Phil queried as they went down in the lift.

  ‘Annie and I arranged some home help for Mrs Barron, so she’s not worrying herself to death about the family at home while she’s visiting the hospital.’

  ‘Most places I’ve worked, it could take weeks to organise home help. Unless, of course, you’ve got the wherewithal to pay for it, which I doubt is the case for the Barrons.’

  ‘There are ways and means,’ Maggie told him, not wanting to get into those particular ways and means.

  ‘What ways and means?’

  So much for not wanting to get into it.

  ‘Annie and I are “locals”—well, she’s a local and I’m from Melbourne, but it’s the same country and a number of the same organisations exist in all the states.’

  ‘You’re waffling!’

  They’d reached the hospital exit and Maggie stopped to pull on a jacket, Phil once again taking it from her hands and holding it for her to put on.

  He couldn’t resist the urge to hug her, once again wrapping his arms around her bulky, jacketed figure and drawing her close to his body. Then he freed her and in case she thought he’d lost the track of the conversation, he gave it a nudge.

  ‘Ways and means?’

  ‘I kno
w this charitable trust that does small things like pay for home help in emergency situations. Annie found the helper and I’m arranging the finance for it. That’s all.’

  He was sure it wasn’t all, but she wouldn’t tell him more—not until she was ready. She was as stubborn as she was persistent, his Mags.

  His Mags? Now, where had that come from?

  The food arrived soon after they got home, and they sat together in the kitchen, eating what was now a very late dinner.

  ‘I was hungrier than I realised,’ Maggie said, tucking into a bowl of pasta with a chicken and pesto sauce, taking a break occasionally to help herself to some salad as well.

  ‘Eating for two,’ Phil teased, then regretted it when he saw the fear in her eyes. Fear for this baby, or remembered fear?

  A different fear clutched at Phil’s heart. Annie, they now knew, had lived in fear of an abusive husband, and with reason as the man had found and shot her, luckily only wounding her. Was this Maggie’s fear as well?

  ‘What happened, Maggie, that you weren’t married any more when you had the second miscarriage?’

  She looked surprised, then frowned and toyed with her fork, twirling it in the bowl.

  ‘We’d known each other for ever, it seemed,’ she said quietly. ‘At school and then at uni—Jack doing engineering, me medicine. He wasn’t well and we put it down to exhaustion. He was working part time as well—we both were—so he didn’t see a doctor soon enough. He had leukaemia, acute, the prognosis terrible because it had been discovered too late. What he wanted most was to leave something behind. Something of himself—a child to go on living for him. We got married and I fell pregnant before he began radiation treatment, and just to be safe we also had some sperm frozen so if anything happened with the first pregnancy I could have another go.’

  ‘And you miscarried twice!’

  Phil took her hand and held it, his heart aching with pity for the young student she had been.

  ‘He died?’

  Maggie nodded.

  ‘He died before he knew I’d lost the second baby. That was the only good thing—the timing of the loss. He died thinking the baby was OK and he’d live on in his son.’