The Doctor's Surprise Bride

by Fiona McArthur

  It was the warmth that surrounded them that fascinated Eliza. Here with Jack she felt safe and relaxed and amazingly at home with a man half an hour ago she hadn’t been sure she should even be visiting. How the heck had that happened?

  So this was what it was like to really connect with someone.

  She’d never felt anything like this towards either of the men she’d been going to marry. How frightening to think she could have settled for the wrong man and missed this total connection.

  ‘Stop thinking!’ Jack’s voice intruded and she turned to face him. ‘Don’t think of anything but us at this moment because people wait their whole lives for a minute of this feeling—let’s dissect it later.’

  Eliza nodded and she put her hands around his neck and stared into his eyes. ‘You’re right. Sometimes I think too much. Sitting here feels wonderful.’

  ‘It’s going to get better.’

  ‘Show-off.’

  When Jack kissed Eliza for only the second time it was a homecoming. His lips on hers, the gentle fan of his breath on her face and the rub of his cheek against hers created more magic. When he pulled away to smile and then kiss her again, she laughed with the joy of it. The wonder of his hands cradling her face as he tried to convey how much he treasured her was the moment that splintered the last of the ice around Eliza’s heart and she felt the tears sting her eyes.

  ‘I’m terrified. What if something happens to take this away? I’ve waited my whole life to believe in love.’

  ‘Shh. Let me kiss you.’

  They kissed until the sun went down and then he took her hand and drew her into his bedroom, austere and practical with dark heavy furniture, but Eliza didn’t notice.

  The green dress fell to the floor, along with his shirt and trousers, and soon they were naked. He took her hand and led her to the old-fashioned bed where she lay like a pagan princess as he turned away briefly to protect her from pregnancy.

  In a way she was glad of this moment to breathe and ground herself in what had become such a storm of emotion. A tiny flicker of doubt almost broke through but then Jack was back and they touched with heated skin on heated skin. They lay still for a moment just feeling the velvet between them until Jack raised one hand and stroked her breast.

  ‘So beautiful. So lush and yet you are so tiny. I’m afraid I’ll break you.’

  Eliza ran her hand over the solid curves of his chest, ‘Gorgeous,’ she said. ‘I’m not afraid at all.’ And kissed his throat.

  Then they meshed, sliding, hands caressing and mouths seeking. A wondrous blur of sensations with joy and discovery that had no place in time. No haste, but not too slowly, until Eliza cried out and Jack hugged her close with his own damp eyes.

  She’d never dreamed it could be like this, so much a moment of togetherness and bonding. She lay snuggled in his arms and accepted that with Jack she’d found her place.

  Before dawn, Eliza slipped out of bed and showered. Jack made her a coffee and then kissed her again, and the next time she looked at the clock she knew that by the time she’d driven home, fed the animals and dressed for work, she would be late.

  ‘I have to go now, Jack. I’ll be late.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, grinning, and then his phone rang. It was a callout and he’d have to go as well.

  Eliza drove home and the dawn had never seemed so beautiful.

  Eliza was in the shower when the phone rang.

  ‘Eliza? It’s Mary. My waters have broken, the ambulance is up in the bush somewhere with Jack and Mick, and the pains are coming every three minutes. I don’t think I can drive.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, Mary. Have your bag ready and…’ she did a quick calculation of the five minutes into town and then the ten out to Mary’s ‘…I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.’ That only left her time to throw on a pair of trousers, a T-shirt and her running shoes.

  When Eliza pulled up in a cloud of gravel in front of the McGuinnesses place the lights were still on all over the house and Mary was waiting on a chair beside the door.

  She didn’t get up when Eliza climbed out of her car and by the time she’d made it to her side, Eliza could see she was in strong labour.

  ‘Well, I guess you’ll have your baby at Bellbrook. Seems only natural.’

  Mary tried to smile but beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. ‘I honestly thought I would have time to get to Armidale.’

  ‘Let’s concentrate on getting you somewhere achievable, like my car. I’ll even let you sit on my white seats.’

  Mary swallowed a bubble of hysterical laughter and took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know if I can walk.’

  Eliza hadn’t worked in labour wards for nothing. ‘Of course you can walk! Up you get.’ She slid her hand under Mary’s armpit and heaved her out of the seat.

  ‘You’re quite strong for a little woman, aren’t you?’ Mary gasped, and Eliza chuckled.

  ‘You have no idea.’

  They made it to the car before the next pain, and Mary smiled weakly when she saw that Eliza had covered her seats with a pile of towels. ‘Hopefully I won’t soak through those.’

  Eliza shut the door on her and sprinted round to the driver’s side. ‘Least of my worries at the moment. Let’s get you into town.’

  Eliza passed Mary her mobile phone. ‘Get Rhonda to prepare for the birth and to try and get a message through to Mick and Jack. I’d really like those two to be here for you when the time comes.’

  ‘Me, too, but I don’t like their chances.’ Mary moaned.

  Eliza shot her a look as she accelerated around a corner. ‘Hang on, Mary. It’s much nicer if you can do this near a bed.’

  They arrived at the hospital with a squeal of brakes and Rhonda was at the door with a wheelchair. It took three of them to get Mary out of the car and about sixty seconds to get her into a spare room that Rhonda had set up as an emergency labour room.

  Eliza was privately glad they weren’t going back into the emergency room they’d had the drama in earlier.

  ‘Thanks, Rhonda,’ she said, and Rhonda nodded. Eliza had another thought. ‘Do we keep Syntocinon or Pitocin here for after birth?’

  ‘It’s drawn up and on the bedside cabinet.’

  ‘You’re an angel because we’re going to need it soon.’

  To Mary she said, ‘Let’s get you into a gown and onto the bed, Mary. I’d love to have a feel of your tummy and a listen to your baby’s heart rate, if that’s OK.’

  As soon as Mary was settled, Eliza quickly palpated Mary’s large belly and established that baby was lying head first, and on his mother’s right side. Then she used the old-fashioned trumpet-shaped foetal stethoscope, one end of the metal tube resting against Mary’s tummy and the other against Eliza’s ear. She glanced at her watch and counted the galloping heart rate that trembled in her ear.

  ‘One hundred and fifty. Perfectly normal despite the fact that someone pulled the plug out of his or her bath and they’re sliding towards the exit sign.’

  ‘Only a midwife would say that,’ Mary gasped, as the next pain surged over her. ‘I feel like pushing.’

  Murphy’s law, Eliza thought, and prepared for the birth.

  Out loud she said, ‘That’s fine, Mary. Just listen to your body and do what it tells you to do.’

  ‘It’s telling me to push.’ Mary sucked the air into her lungs and proceeded to do just that.

  ‘Well I didn’t have to worry about getting your dilatation wrong because I can see a little patch of brown hair—your cervix is certainly out of the way.’

  Another screech of brakes outside heralded the arrival of Mick and Jack, and the door burst open to admit the dishevelled men.

  Mick was wild-eyed and black with soot from head to foot. ‘Oh, my God, Mary, my love, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you.’

  Mary just grasped her husband’s hand and pushed again.

  Jack took one look at the progress Mary had made already and rushed to the basin to wash his black
hands.

  He spoke over his shoulder to Eliza. ‘Have you got oxytocics for after the birth?’

  ‘Yes. Rhonda has it all prepared. If you’re not ready soon, I’ll have to catch this nephew or niece of yours so get your gloves on, Dr Dancer.’

  Jack grinned at Eliza and briefly a flash of warmth flared between them before he pulled his gloves on hurriedly. Once he was gloved, Eliza stepped back and picked up the camera from Mary’s bag.

  Within two minutes Mary and Mick’s new daughter was lying on her mother’s stomach gazing up at her mother like a possum. Eliza took a quick series of photos and everybody sighed with relief, although Eliza wasn’t happy with the new baby’s colour. She shifted the tiny oxygen tubing nearer the newborn’s face.

  Mary stretched down and kissed her daughter on the forehead. ‘I want to call her Amelia.’

  ‘She looks blue.’ Mick’s voice was strangled by the overload of emotion from the last few minutes.

  She did. Eliza placed her hand on his arm. ‘So would you if you’d come through the tunnel that fast. Give her a couple of seconds to catch her breath and we’ll check her out.’

  Eliza glanced at Jack as she reconnected the oxygen bag and mask onto the tubing and gave a few clearing inflations as she held it over Amelia’s face. The baby girl was still pale and although blue-tinged hands and feet were normal with newborns, Amelia’s tummy was as blue as her lips. Her central cyanosis was deepening.

  Jack was distracted by extra bleeding that suddenly gushed at the business end of the bed with the imminent delivery of the placenta, and Eliza prayed that Amelia would be fine. She’d seen something similar a few years previously and that ending hadn’t been good. Amelia didn’t look fine.

  ‘I need you up here, Jack,’ she said quietly, and her words sliced into his concentration. He blinked and focussed on the baby. ‘I think you should listen to her heart,’ Eliza said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MICK looked from Eliza to Jack and then at his daughter. Even as a layman he could tell something was deeply wrong.

  He went to speak but Mary laid her hand on his arm and gripped him. ‘Wait,’ she said, and there was a deep resignation in her voice that frightened him more.

  ‘What’s going on?’ His voice had risen and Mary squeezed his arm sharply.

  ‘They don’t know! Give them time to find out, love.’

  He subsided but the tears formed in his eyes as he looked at his daughter. She was deeply blue and her respiration rate had risen despite the oxygen that Eliza held to her face. Now Eliza was assisting the respirations with squeezes of the bag, but Amelia’s blueness continued to deepen.

  ‘Her heart sounds are all over the place. Apart from the patent ductus, she has back-flow into every chamber. Probably stiff lungs as well, as the ventilations aren’t working well.’

  Urgently Eliza assisted Jack to insert an endotracheal tube—to ensure the most efficient oxygenation to Amelia—but it didn’t help.

  ‘Get MIRA on the phone.’ Jack shot the order at Eliza, and she nodded and sped over to the emergency phone number list and grabbed the hand phone.

  ‘My poor baby,’ Mary said, and her eyes filled with tears. Mick looked from Jack, to Mary, and then to Eliza—as if one of them at least would give him hope. All the faces said the same and it was unthinkable.

  ‘What’s that? What’s going on? Do something, Jack,’ Mick cried.

  ‘MIRA is the mobile infant retrieval team in Sydney, Mick, to see if there is anything else we can do.’ He kept his eyes on the new father—Mary knew all this too well.

  ‘They are our only hope. I think Amelia has serious congenital heart and lung problems that make it incredibly hard for her to live outside the uterus. Inside the uterus, she was fine while Mary was supplying the oxygenated blood via the placenta. The blood didn’t need to go through the parts of Amelia’s heart and lungs that aren’t functioning. Now she has been born she can’t get enough oxygen to her brain and other organs because her heart and lungs aren’t working anywhere near properly.’

  Eliza handed the phone to Jack. ‘It’s Dr Hunter Morgan from MIRA, Jack.’

  Jack closed his eyes for a second to clear his brain and then spoke into the phone to explain Amelia’s problem.

  All they could do was listen to Jack’s end of the conversation. ‘We’ve done that. And that. Yes. No. No improvement. All of that, too.’ He looked at them all and the pain in his eyes was mirrored in theirs.

  Jack’s voice had risen slightly. ‘Isn’t there any thing else we can try?’ There was a long pause. Jack’s voice dropped and the final words were a whisper. ‘I see. Thank you,’ Jack said. ‘We may as well take it out, then.’ Jack looked at Eliza and mimed removing the ET tube.

  ‘Goodbye.’ He put the phone down.

  Eliza closed her eyes and then opened them to do what was asked. It was the little things like this that broke you up. Amelia’s little face returned to normality without the plastic tube distorting her features. It was good the tube was gone for her last few minutes.

  Mary nodded and she bit her lip so hard a drop of blood appeared at the corner. She gathered her daughter closer to her heart and held on for dear life. Her daughter’s life.

  Jack turned to the parents. ‘I’m sorry, Mick, Mary. There’s nothing I can do.’

  Mick shook his head. ‘You’re sorry? What do you mean, you’re sorry? Get a chopper. Get them to fly her somewhere she can get help.’

  Mary stroked her husband’s arm. ‘It’s too late, darling. Even the best hospital in the world couldn’t save her. She stayed alive to meet us but now she has to go.’

  Mick looked at his wife as if she were mad. ‘Go? Go where? You can’t just let her die.’

  Rhonda fled from the room. Jack watched her go and wished he could go, too. He couldn’t take any more from this day. This was too horrific—but Mary and Mick needed him. He looked across at Eliza and thanked God she was here to at least share the burden.

  She looked quite composed, in fact. He found that irked him. Of course she was composed. She’d even looked composed when she’d woken in his arms that morning. We’re all just ships in the night for her. But this was tearing his guts out and Mary was looking at him as if he’d tell her she was wrong and her daughter would be alive this time tomorrow.

  ‘Amelia’s going to die, Mary,’ he said in a strangled voice, and before he knew it he was kneeling beside the bed and weeping as if his heart were broken. Weeping for Mary and Mick and Amelia, and for himself and baby he lost three years ago. The three of them formed a hand-holding circle around Mary’s baby as she turned darker and darker and her breaths turned to gasps.

  Eliza looked on, excluded by their closeness and crying inside for all of them. But someone had to steer the ship and she quietly went about the business of preparing for the worst.

  She cleared the room of the debris from the birth, gathered fresh clothes for Mary and made tea and coffee for Jack and Mick.

  Eliza was the one who dressed Amelia in beautiful clothes so she could lie with her mother. She gently suggested Mary have more photos and handprints taken to treasure in the future, which she then proceeded to take.

  She arranged for the minister to come and baptise Amelia and talk with the parents and greet the relatives that began to trickle in with the news. And the sun brought the heat of a new day.

  Mary and Mick were lying together on the bed with their hands around their cooling baby daughter, and Jack left the room like a zombie and shuffled his way to his car.

  He couldn’t believe this had just happened. What should have been a joyous event was a tragedy he didn’t feel he would ever get over. Good people like Mary and Mick shouldn’t have to endure this. Nobody should have to endure this loss.

  The events of this morning brought back all of the pain of losing his wife and son, and the combination had meant he’d lost it in there. He’d promised himself three years ago he wouldn’t cry. In front of everyone! In front of Eliza
who had been the professional one!

  ‘You can’t drive home, Jack.’ Eliza spoke quietly beside him and he turned towards her with stricken eyes. He tried to speak but couldn’t and Eliza moved to wrap her arms around him, but he stepped back.

  Eliza felt as though he’d slapped her. ‘I know you are devastated, Jack. We all are.’

  Finally he found the words and all the anger at the repeated unfairness of fate spilled from his lips in a torrent of grief aimed directly at Eliza. ‘You don’t know anything. You were as cool as a cucumber in there. You’re all on the surface, Eliza. You’re like Lydia, no depth. I can see that now. Stay away from me.’

  Eliza felt the air whoosh from her lungs as if she’d been stabbed in the solar plexus. ‘You don’t mean that, Jack. I care for Mary a lot…and I care for you.’

  ‘You care for Eliza, full stop. You can handle anything—so handle this. I’m not coming in today and maybe not tomorrow either, and I’m taking the weekend off as well.’ And with that he wrenched open his car door and climbed awkwardly into the seat. He didn’t look back and Eliza watched in disbelief and horror as he drove away from her with his harsh words indelibly printed in her brain.

  Eliza wanted to run. And hide. Hide like her father had and like she always did from situations that were too painful.

  Jack had the power to hurt her because she’d fallen in love with the wrong man—again. Only this time it was a hundred times worse than before.

  If Jack thought she was unaffected by Amelia’s death then he hadn’t ever really seen her. He was just another man who had leant on her and not been interested in the real Eliza.

  Eliza’s neck drooped as the weight of Jack’s outburst hung over her. She lifted her eyes and stared at the glint of sunlight that was his car in the distance.

  Jack was wrong about her, but that was his problem. And she couldn’t run. Normally, working for the agency allowed her to leave but this time she wouldn’t go. Mary needed her and the hurtful, harmful things Jack had said didn’t change that.

  He might think they were true, and the old Eliza might have thought she had been rejected again because she was worthless, but this time she’d stay as long as Mary needed her.