Midwife in the Family Way

by Fiona McArthur

  The greyness she’d caught like a virus after the results and the resulting emotional battle with Gianni had sapped her strength and all she wanted to do was sit on the veranda and gaze out over the lake to find some peace.

  She stripped off her stockings and filled a glass with water before she wandered towards the back door. Such was her state of mind she even left the water by the sink.

  No flutter of apprehension in her belly warned her. No prickling of hairs on her neck and certainly no noise. Emma’s mind remained totally focussed on the decision she’d made last night. And with Grace not due home for fifteen minutes she could allow herself to be as miserable as she liked for a few brief minutes.

  She pushed open the old screen door onto the veranda. The soft sole of her foot lifted, exposed and unprotected, when instead of the hard wood of the veranda as she’d felt a million times before she felt the sinuous circular thickness of something that contracted under her instep and then the sudden sharp pinpricks of fire as the snake struck.

  The four-foot reptile arched its head and struck again as she stumbled backwards into the house and the last things she saw was the flicker of crimson under the black belly as the snake’s tail disappeared off the veranda and into the bushes.

  Red-belly, she thought still with icy-cold horror and a mounting flare of panic, but there was just a glimmer of relief. It wasn’t the deadly poisonous and vicious brown snake there’d been sightings of lately. Thank God, and thanks also that it had been her and not Grace that had been struck.

  Her brain, mashed from shock, stared unseeingly at where the snake had disappeared. On one leg she twisted to stare at the twin bite marks on her heel and ankle. The pain was building and she needed to bind her leg and stop movement. Movement would pump the poison around her body. Around her baby.

  That fear clutched at her heart.

  Emma blinked away stinging tears and reached for her mobile in her pocket but discovered she’d left it at work when she’d turned it off that morning. More brain mush.

  All she could think was she wanted Gianni but her mind couldn’t process a plan of action.

  She couldn’t stay standing there and she needed a bandage. Her head felt funny but it was probably the shock of the bite. She lowered herself carefully onto the floor and stretched her leg out in front of her.

  She needed a bandage. With a snakebite victim you were supposed to bandage from the bite down and then up again and then down again. Enough to compress but not enough to occlude blood flow. And not move. That was all she could remember. But how did you get the bandage if you weren’t allowed to move?

  The pain shot in tendrils of acid-like burning up her ankle and she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand as the sweat trickled into her eyes. Nausea hovered and she glanced around for something in case she was sick. How on earth did one throw up without moving? she thought mistily.

  All these years she’d worried about the onset of Huntington’s and here she was almost dying from a snakebite, though people didn’t usually die from black snakes, unless they frightened themselves to death, and she could see the danger of that.

  Her heart beat at her ribs like a caged bird trying to escape, and she forced herself to slow her breathing into some semblance of control.

  Black snakes didn’t usually attack unless provoked and she guessed she must have upset it when she’d stood on it. But she’d never had one at the door before. What if it had been a King brown? She’d be pushing up daisies before she knew it.

  She tried not to think about poison soaking into her blood like ink into chalk. She looked around at the kitchen. She had a strange perspective from sitting on the floor and decided it was what infants saw when they crawled around.

  She wouldn’t have minded a sip of that water she’d left by the sink but the cupboards seemed to loom away from her and she wasn’t game to move. It was scary sitting here on the floor by herself. And uncomfortable. And lonely.

  Was this what her life was always going to be like in moments of crisis because she’d locked everyone else out? She knew she didn’t like it. The lonely interim while she waited for the end that would come in some form—though not as she’d imagined it the last eight years. She could see she’d concentrated on the destination of her life more than the journey but was it something she could change now that she knew her destiny did not lie with the Huntington’s gene? It was certainly something Gianni wanted her to change. She could have had a lovely affair with Gianni after all. Maybe even a lovely marriage. Silly fool.

  The front door opened and she heard Grace’s step.

  Thank goodness. ‘Down here, darling.’

  Grace dropped her satchel beside Emma and knelt down. ‘Why’re you on the floor?’

  Emma looked again at her heel and ankle and licked impossibly dry lips. ‘A snake bit me.’

  Grace’s eyes widened and then screwed up in fright. ‘What type?’

  Emma reached out her hand and gripped Grace’s arm. ‘It’s okay. A red-belly.’

  Grace’s head swivelled. ‘Where?’

  Emma pointed to her foot. ‘On my ankle.’ Grace shook her head and kept scanning the room and Emma understood the question this time. ‘On the veranda. It’s gone now.’

  Grace sighed with relief and then looked quickly at her mother. ‘Are you going to be all right?’ She didn’t wait for an answer as she stood up straight. ‘I’ll get Gianni.’

  How strange her daughter thought of Gianni first, too. And not Andy or Ben or her other grandfather. ‘I have his mobile number in my bag if you’ll bring it.’

  Grace was back before she’d almost finished speaking. Emma stroked her arm. ‘It’s okay. Good girl. I’ll be fine.’

  She rummaged in her bag but couldn’t find the number. She knew it was there. Her head swam but shock and the nausea she’d had all day more than accounted for it. The paper crackled and she pulled it out and Grace snatched it and ran for the phone in the bedroom.

  Gianni was about to leave work when his phone rang. He flipped it open with unusual impatience. He wanted to see Emma.

  ‘Gianni?’ A little girl’s voice. ‘It’s Grace.’

  His heart rate picked up at the fear in her voice. ‘Grace? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Mummy’s been bitten by a red-belly snake.’

  It felt as though a boxer had stepped up to him and hit him as hard as he could in the centre of his chest. Then his heart started again. A snake. Not again. His worst nightmare and a vicious irony.

  He swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘Grace. Where is she?’

  Grace sniffed and he could tell she was trying to hold back tears. ‘Just inside the back door. At home.’

  ‘Hang on, little one. I’m on my way.’ He looked up at Christine, who would share the evening shift with Andy. ‘I’m bringing Emma in, she’s been bitten by a red-and-black snake. Your Australian snakes. How bad are they?’

  ‘Red-belly black snake.’ Christine rummaged in the emergency kit. ‘Not usually too bad for adults. Go bring her in.’

  Gianni brought the bandages Christine had thrust into his hands. He came through the house at speed, with Grace glued to his back after she’d opened the door for him. Emma sat and smiled tiredly when she saw him. Emma was alive and conscious and his breath eased out.

  To Emma he was the most beautiful sight in the world.

  ‘Hello there, little Emma,’ he said, and crouched down beside her. Her eyes widened to drink in the sight of him. He whistled silently when he saw the twin spots of blood and the gradual redness that was surrounding the bites.

  ‘Nasty.’ He slid the bandage out of its pack and began to bandage her ankle, down her foot and back up again. ‘We’ll do this and then I’ll take you in. I still think I can get you to hospital quicker than the ambulance will get here.’

  She winced as he bandaged over the area and his hands paused and then gentled before he continued. ‘Sorry.’

  She moistened her lips. ‘I trod on it. Accide
ntally.’

  He continued his bandaging. ‘So that’s why it bit you.’

  She nodded. ‘Twice, I think, and then it shot away.’

  ‘Christine says they’ll have a snake venom detection kit ready, but asked if you’re still sure it was red underneath.’

  ‘Yes.’ She touched his arm. She could see he was pale with fear for her. ‘It’s not the worst snake and it might not have injected much poison.’

  He nodded grimly. ‘Not like the brown apparently, who loves to dump as much into your bloodstream as possible. I hate snakes. I’ll be pleased when we get confirmation you are safe.’ He looked over his shoulder at Grace and lowered his voice. ‘You are both safe.’ Then he scrutinised her face. ‘You’re looking pale and sweaty.’

  She breathed out heavily. ‘I feel sick. It was all so quick.’ She too glanced at Grace. ‘And I’m scared, too.’’

  ‘I feel sick and I wasn’t bitten.’ He smiled grimly at her. ‘I’d rather it had bitten me than you.’

  He was serious, she realised. ‘Me, too. But you’ve had enough bad luck with them.’

  ‘An understatement. Now you sound more like your self.’ He finished bandaging and tucked the end in. ‘Right, then.’ He reached down and lifted her off the floor as if she were as light as one of Louisa’s scones. When he was upright she was in his arms against his chest.

  They should have got the ambulance. ‘Your back. I’m heavy!’

  ‘Spoken like a true nurse.’ He smiled and turned to see that Grace was behind them. ‘Come along, Grace, we’ll take Mummy to the hospital, but we’ll use her car. Can you find her keys, please?’

  Grace opened the screen door at the front and closed the main door after them as she followed. She rummaged in Emma’s bag as she walked.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to carry your mother like this for a while,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It’s a shame we have to go to the hospital.’

  ‘Why do men like women to be helpless?’ Emma couldn’t help the tinge of sarcasm in her voice but she was beginning to see why women liked it. Incredible how much better she felt already with Gianni’s arms around her.

  She closed her eyes, wishing the world wasn’t swirling because it interfered with her enjoyment of something that had never happened to her before. Her cheek rested against his shirt and she could hear his heart beat reassuringly in her ear as they crossed the veranda and went down the steps. She rubbed her cheek back and forth on his shirt and it was pleasantly scratchy against her skin. The feeling dulled the ache in her leg for a few moments and must be a good thing if it took her mind off the horror that the venom might affect their baby. ‘Promise me you’ll do this for me one day when I don’t feel sick.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ She didn’t need to open her eyes to know he was smiling. Her angle in his arms shifted as he reached one hand down to open the rear door of her car. ‘You’ll be better with your feet up so we’ll take your car. You can sit in the front, Grace.’ He turned and manoeuvred Emma in and reluctantly she let go of his neck and slid obediently backwards across the rear seat. ‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ he said, and dropped a light kiss on her forehead.

  She nodded and dragged a breath in through her nose to keep the nausea at bay. When she opened her eyes again they were there and Christine had a stretcher ready for her and Andy and Montana hovered with concern in their eyes.

  The snake-venom detection kit was waiting and Christine snipped an area in the bandage to expose the bite areas. ‘Looks like he got you twice,’ she said as she dampened a cotton bud and wiped the spots to capture the venom left on the surface.

  ‘Well, I did land on his back,’ Emma sighed, and rested her head back and closed her eyes. The world swam so she opened them hurriedly again and watched Christine. She undid the yellow tube and swished the swab around in the dilutant then replaced the lid to invert the little tube several times.

  Gianni touched her shoulder. ‘I need to insert a cannula into your arm, Emma, in case you need medication. I’ll run some fluids, as well.’ He brushed the hair off her forehead. ‘You’re still too pale and interesting for me.’

  ‘I’m always interesting,’ she murmured with only a hint of her former fire, and Gianni squeezed her fingers before he began his preparations.

  By the time the ten minutes of waiting to see which snake had bitten her was up, Gianni had the cannula in, her arm strapped and some saline running into her veins.

  ‘Positive for black-snake venom.’ Christine held the little strip of veils against the test legend. ‘And also tiger snake, but you always take the first positive well first—so that proves who your ex-friend was.’

  ‘Ex-friend is right, and I’d say he was just as scared as I was.’ Emma’s shoulders eased a little with the confirmation.

  Gianni handed over the blood he’d taken from Emma when he’d inserted the line, and Christine began to test that for evidence of venom in Emma’s blood. The answer to that would determine if she needed anti-venom or not. She doubted she would because after her initial panic she was calming down.

  It took ten minutes but that answer was worth waiting for. ‘No venom in her bloodstream on this test,’ Christine said with a wobble in her voice that communicated to all how worried she’d been.

  Gianni’s breath huffed out and Emma’s eyes met his. Their baby should be fine. ‘How is your pain?’ Gianni lifted her hand and felt her pulse, which seemed silly when she was connected to monitors.

  ‘The machine’s over there, Gianni.’ She pointed with a teasing smile. ‘And it tells you my pulse, and my blood pressure and oxygen saturation.’

  ‘Stop your complaining,’ he said, and continued to feel her wrist, but now a smile was on his lips, as well. Emma decided she couldn’t have enough hand holding today and Gianni’s seemed to work better than everyone else’s.

  She glanced at the monitor herself. ‘My pulse is still higher than normal.’

  ‘Of course. I am holding your hand.’ Gianni raised his eyebrows. ‘Then again, mine is almost double what it should be, and I did not annoy a snake.’

  That was twice he’d said that. She realised there was less colour in his face, as well. ‘Did I frighten you very badly, Gianni?’

  ‘Frighten?’ He shook his head. ‘No.’ He grimaced. ‘You scared the life out of me, but we will talk of that later when I am sure you do not need anti-venom. Two results are not enough for me.’ He glanced again at the monitor. ‘Your vital signs are stable. Enough for me to almost believe the snake did not inject much venom into you. You have no symptoms of palpitations or breathlessness and your nausea is no worse.’ He seemed to be reassuring himself more than her.

  Emma lifted her other hand, despite the encumbrances of the intravenous infusion, and laid it over his. ‘Black snakes might sink their fangs in if they get frightened but they don’t often try to inject much venom unless they’re really trapped,’ Emma said, and she squeezed his wrist. ‘Actually, the nausea’s fading.’

  ‘So is mine,’ Gianni said. They smiled at each other. ‘I’ll leave so you can give Christine a specimen of urine and we’ll check that as well as your blood again for circulating venom.’

  Gianni left the room and peripherally he saw that the rest of the ward was still busy. He really didn’t care. He’d leave that to Andy.

  He needed a moment to comprehend the absolute horror of his future had Emma been bitten by a more deadly snake. He, more than anyone, knew what a venomous reptile could do. And it had not been pretty.

  It had brought home the savagery of nature’s pecking order and the ramifications of that event from ten years ago had certainly coloured his experience today. He couldn’t imagine how he’d be feeling now if another woman he loved had been fighting for her life.

  Even the thought of that scenario made sweat dampen the hairs on his arms and increase his heart rate. It seemed he had better do something to make sure he kept Emma a lot closer to him than he had been. Enough of these games. He was going nowh
ere unless she was with him. She would be glued to his side and he would not take no for an answer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘SO YOU can go home.’ Andy said. As the emergency doctor on for the evening, it was up to him, not Gianni, when Emma could go.

  ‘Almost an anticlimax,’ Emma said, not meeting Gianni’s eyes. He’d been amazing all afternoon but there was an implacable determination in his face that spoke of unfinished business. And she thought perhaps she was ready to hear it.

  Andy explained their agreement on the findings, that the snake had bitten but not injected enough poison to affect her body systemically, and therefore that of her baby. But they would keep a close eye on her. ‘You’ll probably still get some swelling in your glands and perhaps a little discomfort up your leg. Rest up.’ He glanced at Gianni with raised eyebrows. ‘Are you looking after her tonight?’

  ‘She will keep her leg elevated, and Grace and I will wait on her this afternoon.’

  ‘More spaghetti Bol?’ she teased. It felt good to be back exchanging banter with Gianni. She’d started to lose that lightness since she’d discovered her pregnancy and the final blow had come on Sunday with the shock of her results. But it was fizzing back with the realisation that the time had come to stop pretending she didn’t want to love him. Together they would sort something out. That was what she hadn’t considered.

  ‘Montana asked if you wanted Grace to stay over with Dawn tonight,’ Andy said straight-faced.

  ‘Thank you.’ Gianni answered for her, though he did look to see if she disagreed. ‘But I think she should stay with us and be reassured her mother is safe.’

  Emma felt the glow inside her expand. That was her instinct too, and the unselfishness of Gianni’s reaction was incredibly reassuring. He was right, perfectly right, for all of their sakes. How on earth could she not love him?

  ‘Of course.’ Andy didn’t miss the byplay between them and his smile widened. ‘She’s welcome any time.’

  Gianni nodded but his eyes were on Emma. He bent down and lifted her into his arms and her fingers slid around his neck. She couldn’t not love him. She tightened her grip and he looked down at her, giving her a possessive hug. He was everything she wanted in a man and a snake had taught her that life was too short to risk happiness now.