by Lilian Darcy
She had one of those unflattering caps on, as usual, but somehow she still looked beautiful. Or not even that. It was irrelevant to him now whether she was beautiful or not. Irrelevant what any other man would think. His whole body simply said, That’s her! That’s the woman I love! and responded accordingly, with a sense of recognition and happiness and painful physical wanting and just…rightness. Pure, simple rightness, which was the most convincing indicator of all.
It was a rightness Tammy didn’t trust, according to Tarsha. ‘Laird, you’ll just have to convince her! Give it time!’
Glancing at him and then quickly away, Tammy gave an awkward greeting, then said, ‘He’s ready, Dr Burchell. I have everything on hand.’
There were too many people around, the usual unavoidable crowds in the NICU—parents and staff, desperately trying to stay quiet and calm and not get in each other’s way or bump into equipment and trolleys and baby cots. All the same, Laird dropped his voice and said to her, ‘When’s your break? Can we talk?’
‘We already have. On the phone.’
‘Look at me, Tammy.’
He could see she didn’t want to—that she didn’t dare, because she knew how much her face would tell him. Her eyes lifted reluctantly. Her cheeks had flushed and her pupils were big and dark.
‘What’s it going to take, Tammy?’
‘I don’t know. We can’t talk about it now. No, no.’ She raised a hand, warning him off. ‘We don’t need to talk about it at all. We have talked about it. And I know you’re going to try flowers and chocolates and wine and lovely words and promises. I’m more scared of those things than of anything else.’
‘Because you’re scared they’ll convince you,’ he said, with a flare of satisfaction.
‘And then they won’t last.’
‘Right, standing order from the florist and a few wineries for the next forty years, that’s easy…’
She laughed, even though she didn’t want to. ‘Don’t. We have a baby to take care of.’
‘All right, you win.’ He added threateningly, ‘For now.’
The procedure wasn’t long or difficult, and soon Adam had the nasal prongs attached and the oxygen flowing. The rate and pressure could be changed in response to his oxygen saturation levels, if needed.
‘I really hope he doesn’t have any more setbacks,’ Tammy murmured. ‘Those kidneys still aren’t great, are they?’
‘Improving.’
‘Not enough.’
‘He’s on bicarbonate of soda now, to correct his acid balance.’
‘Yes, I saw that in his notes,’ she said. ‘We just need to get him bigger and stronger, get that TPN line out and those creatinine levels down. He’s changed over the past few days. I think he’s fighting harder.’
‘So am I, Tammy Prunty,’ he warned her. ‘So am I.’
Tammy finished her shift at three o’clock on Friday afternoon. She wasn’t due to work again until Tuesday night, thanks to some juggling of hours that another nurse had asked for. It was a longer break than usual, the longest she’d taken since she’d started working here at Yarra Hospital, and she knew she should consider it well timed.
Four days without seeing Laird.
Four days without seeing any of these babies either.
Both prospects unsettled her. In the NICU, a lot could change in four days.
Despite the usual need to hurry home to give Mum some help with five kids who would be tired at the end of the school week, she found herself lingering. ‘See you next week, Alison. Hope you get some more cuddles with him on the weekend.’
‘Before you go, Tammy,’ Fran said. She had fragile little Adam in her arms. ‘Could you take a picture or two? Do you have a minute to spare? I remembered to bring the camera in today, and now I’m almost forgetting to use it.’
So Tammy stayed and took some pictures, and Alison said, ‘One day, Fran, you won’t be able to believe he was ever this small.’
‘So I’m told…’ She sighed, unable to come up with the imagination and faith that Adam would ever be bigger. And maybe, if the worst happened, he wouldn’t. His mother was thinking about it. ‘Whatever happens, we’ll have the photos,’ she whispered. ‘And I’ll be able to remember how it felt to hold him.’
Click, click, click went the camera. Tammy took a couple of Alison and her baby as well. Alison and Fran were good friends now, and intended to keep in touch after the beckoning, elusive day when their time in the NICU would end. She paused for one more look at the two mothers, wondering what she’d see in their faces next week when she came in.
‘Do we have a bed?’ Tammy heard one of the nurses at the desk asking as she passed by on her way out. ‘Royal Victoria wants to send us a mum in pre-term labour. Twenty-six weeks so there’ll be a baby coming in here.’
New babies, and babies leaving. Endings and beginnings. Tragedy and joy. Nothing stayed the same for long. Tammy had an odd feeling as she left the unit and took the lift. As if she was saying goodbye to something, only she didn’t know what it was.
She found Tarsha waiting for her in front of the gift shop on the ground floor. She was smiling, her eyes were bright, and she had just one word to say. ‘Benign!’
‘Tarsha, that’s wonderful!’ They hugged each other, laughing.
Tarsha had her car keys in her hand. ‘So we’re celebrating.’
‘Oh, lord, I’m sorry, but I can’t! I have to get home to the kids.’
‘You don’t. I’ve arranged it. A professional nanny to help your mother, and she knows all about it.’
‘A nanny? For how long? Tarsha, you didn’t have to—’
‘Trust me, I had to. May I say that wonderful word again? Benign. Isn’t it beautiful? I’m kidnapping you, Tammy, accept it now. When you walk back into that NICU of yours next week, you won’t be the same person.’
‘Because benign is such a beautiful word?’
‘Because I told you I’d pay you back for your time, and I am.’
Somehow Tammy was expecting a spa massage or a salon facial.
She wasn’t expecting Laird. It wasn’t until she began to recognise the route out to the vineyard—and she suspected that Tarsha had taken a few unnecessary turnings and side streets to disguise their destination for longer—that she realised where they were going.
‘No! Take me home. I want my car! This is your idea of how to pay me back for coming to the doctor with you?’
‘Idea?’ Tarsha’s eyes didn’t leave the road. Her smile was wicked and creamy. ‘It’s way more than an idea, Tammy. It’s a major conspiracy.’
‘Then Laird’s in on it…’
‘And so is your mother.’
‘So the nanny is supposed to be—’
‘Staying till bedtime.’
And Tammy was supposed to be staying at the vineyard all night.
Laird looked visibly on edge when Tammy caught sight of him. He was standing in his front yard, beside the steps leading up to the house, his eyes fixed on the approach of Tarsha’s car. With the afternoon sun shining in her face, Tammy guessed that the windscreen must be reflecting the light too brightly for Laird to see inside.
He doesn’t know if Tarsha managed to get me here, and he’ll be gutted if she didn’t.
Her stomach lurched at the thought that she was this important to him, that he was this certain about how he felt, that she had the power to hurt him the same way he had the power to hurt her. She trusted that neither of them would ever use it deliberately, and yet…
Give in, said a huge part of her. Let yourself feel it, too. You want to.
In so many ways, it would be so easy.
He’d seen her. She saw his sudden grin, the energy that shot through his strong body, and her stomach flipped again. The strength drained out of her legs, and Tarsha had the driver’s side door open and was out of the car while Tammy was still struggling to move.
‘I’m very good at this, Laird. She didn’t suspect a thing.’
‘You ma
de darned sure I didn’t, Tarsha,’ Tammy said weakly. Laird was still grinning.
But Tarsha had clicked open the car boot, and had her head hidden inside. ‘Here’s your overnight gear, Tammy. Your mother packed it, so you’ll have to blame her if she forgot your toothbrush.’ She put the bag into Tammy’s boneless hands and climbed back into the driver’s seat.
‘Wait…!’
‘Absolutely not! I have someone to meet off his international flight at the airport first thing tomorrow morning, and I have shopping to do.’
‘Who is she meeting?’ Tammy asked, slow on the uptake, as Tarsha drove away.
‘His name is Olivier,’ Laird said.
‘The man in Europe. He’s really coming, and she didn’t tell me!’
‘I think she still doesn’t dare to believe it’ll work out the way she wants.’ They looked at each other, and there was a frozen moment in which all Tammy could feel was the beating of her heart. ‘I don’t dare to believe it with you either,’ Laird added in a low voice. ‘Can you put me out of my misery, Tammy?’
‘No…’ But she probably hadn’t managed to hide how much she wanted to say yes.
‘Oh, hell! I’m not going to accept it!’
‘No…well, that’s nice. Flattering.’
‘It’s not flattering! It’s just a fact. And it’s going to be a damned nuisance for you, I’m warning you now!’
‘I—I know.’ Her heart flipped, making her feel giddy and happy and scared all at the same time.
‘Let’s go for a walk. I can’t take you into the house. I won’t be able to keep my hands off you. Which is idiotic, because the house is where I have all my best seduction techniques ready to go.’
‘Seduction techniques, Laird?’
‘Champagne chilling, music playing, something fantastic involving chicken and sour cream and white wine slow-cooking in the oven, purely to prove I can cook if I have to. And here I am denying us both the opportunity to impress you, because if that’s not what you bloody want…’
He gritted his teeth and sighed, and she reached out and slid her arm through his, unable to speak. They began to walk, aimless and barely noticing where their feet led.
‘I can’t force you, Tammy,’ he said. ‘I can’t even mount a strenuous argument. I…’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t have anything else to offer than what I’ve offered already. My heart and my faith. And if those things aren’t enough, I’m not going to beat you over the head with them. But I’m not going to let you go either.’
The paddocks and the vines were green and glowing in the afternoon sun. In the distance horses grazed, and in the paddock closest to the house were the two ponies and Solly the donkey. Laird and Tammy stopped by the fence and looked at them, not knowing what to say to each other, not knowing where to go next.
The animals came closer, hoping for treats. Banana put his nose over the fence and nuzzled at the pocket of Laird’s jeans. ‘Sorry, boy, no carrots or apples today,’ he said. Then he went still—so dramatically still, with his hand poised on a fencepost and an odd light in his eyes, that Tammy’s heart started to beat faster.
‘What’s wrong, Laird?’
‘People even choke on apples,’ he said.
‘Sometimes…But—’
‘Don’t you remember? That’s what you said last weekend when we had the girls here and Sarah wanted to trot. We were talking about risks, about nothing in life having a guarantee of safety, and you said that people can even choke on apples. They’re delicious and good for you, but very occasionally people choke on them. And it was such a wonderful Tammyish thing to say. Because it’s true. And it’s so simple. Such a simple rule about how to live your life, in a spirit of faith but with your eyes wide open at the same time.’
He turned to her with his face lit up, as if he’d found the answer. Maybe he had.
‘So simple, Tammy,’ he murmured, ‘and yet you won’t believe in it yourself, even now, when it’s so important.’
He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in the curve of her neck. Not close enough. She wanted his mouth on hers, so she shamelessly sought it out and kissed him, tears on her lashes, dizzy with love and fear. Was there a chance that love was going to win?
‘Be with me,’ he whispered. ‘Love me. Take the risk. We’ll take it together. It’s that simple.’
‘How can it be?’
‘It can be. It just is.’ He kissed her again, and she couldn’t hide the sweet weakness in her legs or the way she wanted to hold him and lean her head against his heart. As usual, she was betraying everything to him, and she didn’t care.
‘Oh, Laird…’
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I know it’s too soon to say any of this, and I don’t care. I know there’s a lot to work out, and I don’t care about that either. All I know is that I’ve never felt like this before, and love is the only word that fits, and everything else follows from there. Trust. Faith. It has to follow. It’s like the sun rising in the morning. Because you love me, too.’
‘You’re not even asking me, are you?’
‘No, now I’m telling you. I’m ordering you. I’m not messing around, and I’m not taking no for an answer. You love me. Repeat after me, “I love you, Laird.”’
‘I love you, Laird,’ she said helplessly.
‘There. Was that so hard?’
‘That’s the easy part.’
‘It’s the powerful part. It’s the engine that drives everything else. We’re not going to rush this. We’re not going to skimp on the details. But we’re going to get there.’
‘Where’s there? What’s happening then?’
‘You’re going to marry me,’ he predicted, with a medical specialist’s arrogant certainty, and the same blunt honesty that she’d delivered to him from the start. ‘When the time is right, I’m going to ask you, with bells and whistles and my whole heart on a plate, and you’re going to say yes, the moment I do.’
She did say yes.
Six months later.
After they’d spent many mornings at the garden centre, buying way too many shrubs and trees, and three weekends at the beach, making castles in the sand. After they’d taken all five kids on countless pony rides at the vineyard—with a few more falls and lots of carrots and apples. After they’d spent some time getting to know each other’s parents, and taken evenings out for just the two of them, tasting from each other’s plates.
He asked her to marry him at the vineyard in the autumn on a mellow, golden afternoon, and they had the wedding there, too, several months later, with Laura, Lucy and Sarah as flower girls and Lachlan and Ben firmly declining any formal role. Tammy wore a cream dress of soft lace that hugged the figure Laird found so luscious and wonderful, and Laird wore a suit that was quite definitely Armani this time, thanks very much.
It was a September wedding, out of doors on the back lawn, edged by the new roses, with Amira, Banana and Solly looking on. Oh, and several ducks, too. The weather had begun to warm up and the new pale green growth had begun to appear on the vines. Tarsha was there, with Olivier. They had wedding plans of their own, but she was driving her fiancé mad with her quest for the right designer to make her dress. They had been travelling back and forth between Australia and Europe for several months, sorting out their lives.
The details of Tammy and Laird’s new life were already in place. Tammy was selling her house in the suburbs and she and Mum and the children were moving out to the vineyard. There was a little cottage on the corner of the property, which Mum had already begun to make her own. Laird was keeping his townhouse near the hospital for times when the forty-five-minute drive between the hospital and the vineyard seemed too far for a busy neonatal specialist and his wife.
Tammy expected that she would be cajoled into taking frequent second honeymoons in the townhouse with her new husband. She’d already told her mother, ‘It’s too much for you, Mum.’
But Mum hadn’t listened. ‘You’re cutting down to two shifts a week a
t the hospital. Of course I can look after the kids while you spend some time on your own with Laird. He doesn’t want to have to come home from the hospital to an empty place in town on the nights he doesn’t drive out here. And you’re getting professional help with the house. The kids and I will have a ball with the ducks and the donkey and the ponies on our own, when you two aren’t around.’
Tammy suspected that hand-reared lambs were only a breeding season away.
And maybe another kind of hand-reared infant as well. The human kind. There was plenty of room in their lives for six ducks, a donkey, two ponies, two lambs, five children and a baby.
And yet somehow, despite all of this, as Laird had said, it was very simple, like the goodness of apples.
They loved each other, which made everything else fall into place.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-5632-6
THE CHILDREN’S DOCTOR AND THE SINGLE MOM
First North American Publication 2008
Copyright © 2008 by Lilian Darcy
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