Sienna spun away to where the kettle sat on the bench top, her stomach twisting at the picture of big, hulking Douglas and the pint-size face attacking his finger. She’d already had Douglas scour a cereal bowl and quarter fill it with boiled water to cool while they waited for the supplies to arrive.
Now she began to tear open the cover from the feeding bottles, rinsed them and the teats with dishwashing detergent and water at the sink, before half filling a pot with boiling water and submerging them in there.
‘This one won’t wait for me to sterilise everything. You can boil them on the stove in the water for a few minutes to do that, but we can certainly make it all very clean.’ She glanced at Douglas. ‘I’ll run you through it in case I get called away later.’
‘Why would you get called away?’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe the mother could need me urgently? Just listen, will you?’
Douglas narrowed his eyes at her and she knew she’d made him suspicious. Nothing she could do about that now.
‘Wash your hands if you’re preparing a bottle. Always put the water in the bottle first instead of pouring water on top of the powder. Always scrape off any excess milk powder to make the scoop level before you add it. Otherwise the ratios are wrong and baby can get constipation or chemical imbalances.’
He shook his head. ‘Geez. I thought it was simple.’
She glanced at him, still holding the baby in that endearingly awkward way. ‘It is simple. Just follow the rules. You’re good with rules.’
He looked down at the tiny screwed face sucking fiercely on his finger and the snuffly angry noises that were growing louder. ‘Better hurry.’
‘Okay.’ Sienna sighed and tipped out the soaking water, using the lid on the pot to keep the bottles clean, then set it down. She went to the fridge where the previously boiled water had cooled and brought it across. Filled the bottle to the thirty-mil line and added a levelled scoop of the formula. ‘You shouldn’t add formula to still boiling water. It needs to be cooled first.’
He watched her sit the freshly made bottle of formula in a cup of cold water to cool it more. ‘How come you know all this?’
‘I’m a doctor.’ She sniffed. She shook the bottle and tried a few white drops on her wrist before dropping it back into the cool water for a few seconds longer. ‘Actually, my midwife sister gave me a lecture when we were in Red Sand last year. Said I should know. I don’t have an issue with remembering things.’
He almost smiled at that and she could see that some of his tension had eased as he leaned back slightly in the seat. ‘Good to know one of us has some basic knowledge.’ The crook of his elbow had softened from ramrod stiff, and his other hand had finally stopped gripping the blanket so hard. Poor Douglas. It really did hit her funny bone to see how uncomfortable he was. Then she felt mean.
‘You’re doing very well.’
‘It was hell until you got here. I tried your mobile.’
She shrugged. ‘I have to put it on silent at night. Too many calls from the ward I can’t help them with while I’m away.’ She checked the temperature of the milk again and handed him the bottle, which he reluctantly took but stood up.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I do have to start looking for the mother. She could be ill after the birth.’
Chapter Twenty-six
Maddy
Maddy had managed to shower shakily, get rid of her stained clothes, and drink some badly needed tea before Jacob even knew she was home. She could still hear him snoring – so she had to move fast if she wanted to get away.
The house reeked of empty bottles and spilt beer, so she knew he’d have a hangover this morning when he woke and she did not want to be there then. Maybe he did regret when he was mean to her, but she was past worrying about that now. She glanced around the kitchen and sighed for all the dreams that had turned into a dark collection of cloudy and painful memories.
She never wanted to be in this house again.
She wanted her baby and couldn’t stop thinking about that last look – a wrapped bundle in a cardboard box – before she’d knocked and stumbled away from the police-residence door. How hard it had been to run.
As she collected her few belongings, the early-morning silence of Jacob’s house exploded with the sound of heavy knocking at the door and Maddy’s heart pounded in fright as well.
Jacob roared from the bedroom as surly as a bull, and Maddy ran to the door to quieten the noise, flinging it open to see Alma still with her hand raised. Maddy could hear him stomping towards them. She shuddered and tried to shut the door so Alma wouldn’t see.
Unexpectedly, Alma pushed past, stepped into the house and beside Maddy, just as Jacob burst into the hallway. He jerked to a halt.
He toned it down a fraction, slowed his pace and assessed the unforeseen intruder. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I need Maddy,’ Alma said and Maddy wilted at the startling championship.
Jacob sliced the air with his hand. ‘No. She stays.’
Alma lifted her own chin. ‘She has to come. The doctor needs her.’
Like a petulant child, Jacob folded his arms. Expecting to get his way. ‘Not happening. She’s needed here, too.’
Alma said, ‘She’s coming with me.’
Already on the edge of control, his face contorted. ‘No!’ The base of his fist hit the wall beside him and the whole house seemed to reverberate with his anger. ‘No. She’ll stay here or else!’
Maddy shrank instinctively away and she felt Alma glance at her before she stepped in front of her, looked up at Jacob with her rigid chin high in the air, and said fiercely, ‘Or else what?’
Maddy held her breath. They all stood there like some frozen scene in a bad movie until Jacob sent Maddy a smouldering, threatfilled look that said you watch out for later, spun on his heel and stomped back into the bedroom and slammed the door.
She and Alma sagged a bit and she sent thanks for the fact she was already dressed and didn’t have to go in the bedroom for clothes.
Maddy realised Alma had also solved the problem of how she would find out what was happening. Though what Alma would do when she discovered the truth remained a looming black-clouded mystery. Maddy pushed the thought away. She didn’t care. It was not her immediate concern.
She cast one final glance at the closed bedroom door. Neither was Jacob.
When they arrived at the police residence Sienna met her at the front entrance. She waved them in. Maddy felt the searching look as if she’d been waiting for them to arrive, but Sienna just said brightly, ‘Come in, you two. The baby is fine.’
Maddy felt like kissing the woman in front of her because her being here meant her baby was safe. And she’d said she was fine. Relief rushed through her in a surge of gratitude.
In fact, Maddy definitely felt like kissing Alma for getting her here and away from Jacob. And maybe a quick hug as well for the policeman, who was holding her precious bundle, though she couldn’t quite see her little face.
Her heart swelled. Her bundle. She’d known her baby would be safe with the policeman and she’d prayed fiercely that the first person he called would be the doctor. But she hadn’t expected to be able to get here herself so quickly. Not when she’d left her baby on the doorstep without explaining and when she’d had to escape from Jacob at the house.
None of that mattered. The most important thing remained the safety of her baby. That and Jacob not finding out whose child this baby was.
She stopped when she came to the doorway and saw a minute face, a minute face so different already from when she last saw it, less wrinkled, more rounded and sucking ferociously at the bottle the big policeman held. His face cleared when she came in.
The sergeant said, ‘Maddy. How about you wash your hands and hold the baby while I start what I need to do.’
She glanced at the kitchen sink, nodded and hurried to do what he asked. She turned around to see the doctor speaking softly to Alma and her stomach sank.
&n
bsp; Maddy lifted her head. Straightened her shoulders. No, what people thought and what happened to her didn’t matter now. Her baby was being looked after. Was safe and wrapped and being fed, looked nothing like the sticky red-faced baby she’d wrapped up in the scratchy blanket.
To deflect the idea that she was about to be outed, she said, ‘What’s her name?’
Before he could answer, Alma and the doctor came in and Sienna said, ‘Can I borrow you just for one minute please, Madison? Alma can get on with the feed.’
Maddy could feel the drop in her stomach, the need to hold her baby, the desire to run, but also the urge to try to explain why she would do something horrible like leave her own baby in a doorway.
She saw the policeman frown, and glanced with a question in his eyes at the doctor, who said very quietly, ‘Hold that thought.’
What thought? Maddy wondered, trepidation growing, but Alma had bustled in. ‘I’d love to feed the wee darling, you just hand her over to me.’
In a daze, Maddy followed Sienna into the small bedroom she used as the office and the door shut.
‘It’s okay. Unless I have this wrong, she’s yours, is that right, Madison?’
Maddy stood there stunned. All her planning had been useless. She nodded miserably.
The voice stayed gentle, reassuring, but determined to find the facts. ‘What time was she born?’
The world slowed and she felt the words but had trouble getting them out. It seemed so long ago. Was it only a few hours? ‘About three-thirty.’
Maddy had sat there with the wet baby against her belly until it had begun to squirm and whimper. She sat like a robot but with a sudden strange energy flooding her body about making her baby safe. She could remember hugging the baby close as she glanced around the desolate and disused back room. Safe meant giving this baby up to be with someone protective until she could get away. There wasn’t anyone safer in this town than the policeman. Yet inside she still felt frozen with what she’d done.
‘Are you alright? Have you bled much?’
Maddy blinked. Returned to the room and the woman in front of her with a thud. Blood? Yes, there had been blood, but not as much as she’d thought there would be. ‘Except when that afterbirth came, not much more than a period.’ She remembered wrapping the mess in the newspaper and dropping it into the hole she’d dug, covering it and pulling the rock over it. Like a criminal hiding evidence.
‘You’re a very lucky woman you didn’t bleed. Your boyfriend wasn’t with you?’
‘No.’ Her tense shoulders slumped. She didn’t have the mental energy to talk about Jacob. ‘He’s not to know!’
Sienna nodded as if she’d expected that. ‘We’ll get to that later.’
Maddy had to make it clear. ‘I didn’t plan the baby. Didn’t know she would come so soon.’ She didn’t want Sienna to judge her badly. ‘I didn’t know for a long time. Couldn’t face it for a time after that either. But I’d put some things in the place I had her. I’ve seen a baby born.’ She had to make Sienna understand. ‘I never wanted to hurt my baby. I just wanted to keep her safe.’
‘I think I understand. That must have been terrifying.’
‘Now it is. But then I just thought it was something I had to go through.’ She shrugged. ‘I grew up on a farm. I knew how it worked. And the animals never seemed to be hurt afterwards by it. I just kept telling myself it would stop when the baby came.’ That she wouldn’t die.
Sienna turned and picked up a towel that lay on the dresser, then spread it out on the single bed. ‘I’d like to feel your tummy if you’ll let me. It’s how we can tell that the uterus is contracted. Have you passed urine since the baby was born?’
Maddy could feel the heat in her cheeks as she lay down on the towel. ‘Yes. There’s a fair bit of blood when I go.’
‘That’s normal.’ Maddy lifted her top and after Sienna rubbed her hands together to warm them she placed them on her belly and dug in a few centimetres. Then she nodded as if she’d found what she’d expected. Despite her embarrassment Maddy glanced down. It looked almost normal again now except the doctor’s hand seemed to go in a long way and bounce out again.
Then the doctor took Maddy’s hand and put it on her rounded curved stomach and pushed in through the stretched skin so Maddy could again feel the strange lump under there.
The doctor said, ‘You can feel the hard uterus. Because it’s hard, or contracted like a big lemon, it won’t bleed. Sometimes, if there is a fragment of placenta left inside it silently fills up with blood and your bleeding gets heavier. If that happens it feels like a squashy grapefruit. You need to rub firmly to expel the clots and make the uterus in your belly hard like the lemon again.’
Maddy nodded.
‘The bleeding will slow in the next day or two if all the placenta came in one piece. I don’t suppose you still have it?’
‘I buried it.’
Sienna nodded with a strange smile on her face. ‘You are amazing, you know that?’ Then she went on. ‘We have some maternity pads. If you need to change them every hour that’s too much bleeding. What about down below? Does it sting?’
Maddy ducked her head. ‘No.’
‘I’d feel better if I could be sure you haven’t torn yourself down there. That sort of trickle bleeding can quietly cause trouble. But you can say no if you want to.’
Maddy shrugged and climbed off the bed to remove her underwear. A few moments later they were done. The doctor had looked – Maddy had ‘grazes’ that would heal and the bleeding was fine. It was embarrassing that the doctor had seen the bruises on her legs, but maybe she hadn’t. She hadn’t said anything.
Maddy climbed off the bed and dressed. Now she could go back and feed her baby.
‘Do you want me to tell Sergeant Mackay that you are the baby’s mother?’
Maddy nodded. ‘Please. And I’ll tell Alma. But we can’t tell anyone else.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
Alma
Alma’s fingers shook as she held the baby in the crook of her arm and she could do nothing but think of another baby thirty years ago. The ache in her chest glowed like an uncovered coal from one of those old wood stoves she had in her kitchen once upon a time.
A coal you could uncover, and poke, and it would burst into flame and start the pain all over again for a new day. When she looked at the little crumpled face, the heat in that glowing shaft of pain flew straight to her chest and for a second there she thought she might be having a heart attack. Then the pain settled as the facial features of the baby returned to those in the present day.
Yes, she’d held a baby like this before, felt the warm weight in her arms, the heat from the small body seeping into her like a hot water bottle on a winter’s night. She soaked in the sensations, sniffed the distinctive smell of a new baby, a scent she would never forget and thought she’d never smell again, wanted to bury her nose in it. She watched with fascination the diminutive chest rise and fall under the scratchy blanket she realised came from her hotel, listened with awe to the grunty, gulpy, gorgeous noises as the baby drank and sucked and swallowed, and spread her wrinkled and age-spotted hands to savour the warmth and baby bulk of her. And sobbed inside.
Alma closed her eyes. Her baby had ‘fallen’ from the bed where she’d tucked her in. It was all too heartbreakingly late to regret her stupidity. To regret the sad, tragic, horrific accident that was her fault. She should never have left the baby with him.
She didn’t judge this baby’s mother. Since that day she’d tried hard not to judge anyone for their choices because she didn’t know their story – just like they didn’t know hers. She couldn’t believe she’d been so blind not see the signs of Maddy’s pregnancy. Or how hard it must have been to stay safe beside the man she lived with. Poor Maddy. Poor baby. She understood.
In painful hindsight, she should have left her baby at the door of the police station, too, until she’d got away. Her baby might have been alive still.
The do
or to the spare bedroom opened and Maddy and the doctor came out. Maddy looked sheepish, as well she might, thought Alma somewhat grimly, but she lifted the bottle from the baby’s mouth and stood up for Maddy. Holding the baby out. ‘You take her, Maddy.’
Then, with resolution for a temporary solution, and with the determination to find a more permanent one, she suggested gently, ‘From today, and as long as you want, you can both move in with me.’
Maddy shyly smiled. Bereft of bottle, the baby opened her mouth and began to yell, truly indignant with the interruption to her food, and Maddy hastily gathered her up and replaced the teat.
Alma heard the doctor’s sigh of relief. She cast her a furious look. As if she’d let these two go back to that man. Maddy and her baby needed her and Alma would not let them down.
‘Okay if I take breakfast next door and bring back the rest?’ Sienna said. Then to Maddy, ‘Maybe we can talk about breastfeeding next time?’
‘Absolutely. We’re fine here.’ Alma nodded vigorously. ‘Maddy will eat when she’s fed her baby.’
The door closed as Sienna left the house carrying the bulging bag, and Alma wouldn’t have minded being a fly on the wall for that conversation. She had no doubt the doctor would sort her man out. Taking food was a good start. Alma turned back to Maddy.
‘And you, young lady, how are you?’
‘Sienna said I’m fine.’
Alma closed her eyes and tried to shut out the thought of Maddy alone in the night giving birth. ‘Where . . .?’
‘I made a place. In an empty building. Just in case. I really didn’t think it would happen this soon.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to think badly of me. I won’t go home.’ She stared at her daughter’s face so close to hers. ‘She’ll never go back there.’
The Baby Doctor Page 16