The Baby Doctor

by Bobby Hutchinson

  A mental image of Luke Gilbert popped into her head. Messes would definitely drive him nuts. She wondered what sort of things really mattered to a man like him.

  Propriety. Tidiness. Decorum. Doing and saying the right thing, she thought scornfully. Well, phooey to Luke Gilbert.

  “These cookies are super,” she pronounced with a shade more enthusiasm than was called for. They were slightly charred on the outside and underdone in the middle, but Morgan chewed with honest appreciation.

  She’d find time soon to teach Tessa all the finer details of baking and cooking, she promised herself. Cooking was definitely an interest she and Tessa shared, one they could work at together.

  Working together. The words brought once again a clear-cut image of Luke’s strong jaw with its distinctive cleft, his perfectly cut black hair, his immaculate suit, and once again panic threatened.

  She could and would make her feelings known to Jenkins first thing Monday morning.

  Please, God, let Luke Gilbert find a better job far, far away from me and decide to take it.

  Chapter Three

  Morgan was called out at 3:00 a.m. that Sunday morning to deliver a baby girl. A gorgeous baby girl, she rejoiced as she crawled back into bed just before seven, weary to the bone.

  Her throat felt raw and scratchy. Too tired to get up and search for lozenges, she slid into a restless sleep, waking at eleven forty-five to the muted beat of the stereo downstairs. Her throat had gone from scratchy to inflamed, and her entire body ached. She was also shivering, which meant she probably had a fever.

  Morgan’s reaction to any illness that dared threaten her busy life had always been to ignore the symptoms until they went away, insulted by her lack of attention. All her years of training had taught her to put her own needs last. Determined to do so now, she forced herself out of bed and into a hot shower. She did feel much better when she finally made it downstairs, but a scant hour later, the vomiting began.

  “I bet you’ve got that killer flu going around,” Tessa said, watching Morgan stagger out of the downstairs bathroom for the fourth time, shivering as if the gas fireplace weren’t going full blast. “You better get up to bed. I’ll make you some mint tea.”

  “I’ll be fine by morning,” Morgan insisted through gritted teeth, clinging to the banister. “I’ll be over this by morning, I have to be. Need to get to the clinic. And you stay away from me. I’m contagious and you sure don’t need to catch this. Think of Kyla Jean.”

  Tessa had named her baby the moment she learned through ultrasound that it was a girl.

  For Morgan, the night passed in a torment of fevered dreams and urgent trips to the bathroom. Tessa came in once, bleary eyed and concerned, and Morgan lied and assured her she was getting much better.

  A firm believer in letting nature take its course, she finally gave in at dawn and took some medication, but it didn’t seem to have much effect.

  Tessa arrived at seven with a cookie sheet laden with a mug of tea and a slice of plain toast, but the very smell of food made Morgan’s stomach twist in rebellion.

  “Maybe you’d better call Rachel and say I can’t make it in this morning. Tell her to cancel my appointments,” Morgan moaned. “Tell her I’ll be there this afternoon for sure.”

  “Maybe I’d better say it’s gonna be a day or two, huh?” Tessa’s forehead creased with concern. “You don’t look so hot. Shouldn’t you be taking something?”

  “Did. Didn’t work.”

  “So what can I do?” Tessa handed Morgan a cold washcloth for her head.

  “Nothing. Get out of here. Go to school before you catch it.” She knew she sounded cranky; she totally despised being sick, but she shouldn’t snap at Tessa. She made a monumental effort at a smile and failed miserably. “Sorry for being a grump. Go now. I’ll be fine by tonight. This is just a twenty-four hour thing. It’ll pass.”

  But the fever climbed as the day progressed, and that evening she developed a racking cough. By Tuesday morning she was so drained she could hardly get out of bed.

  “You need a doctor,” Tessa declared, scowling down at her. She changed the sheets and helped Morgan into a dry nightshirt. The tea and toast she’d brought again sat untouched on the tray. “You haven’t eaten a thing since Sunday, and now your eyes are all black underneath. Don’t you figure maybe I oughta call a doctor?”

  “I am a doctor,” Morgan reminded her, but her voice quavered with weakness. “And I’m pretty sure this thing has run its course. I’ll start feeling better today, you watch and see. Lots of liquids, that’s the ticket.”

  Tessa looked doubtful, but she didn’t say anything. She brought up a fresh jug of water and some orange juice, and Morgan fell in and out of sleep all morning. She was pitifully grateful when Tessa came home shortly past noon.

  “I told Mrs. Nelson I was taking the afternoon off because you were sick. I’ll need a note tomorrow.”

  “Sure.” Would she even be able to write by then?

  “Maybe help me into the shower, Tess. I think a hot shower might do me good.” She was shivering again, and she was shocked at her own weakness and impressed at how her ribs and pelvic bones stuck out when she stripped her nightshirt off. Losing a few pounds wasn’t a bad thing, but as soon as Tessa was out of the room, Morgan leaned close to the mirror and pulled up her eyelid. She stared at her eyeball. Was it yellow? She wasn’t sure. She pinched the skin on her forearm. Maybe it looked sort of yellowish. Had she been exposed to something toxic in the lab?

  Or maybe she’d caught hepatitis B. She shuddered. She’d been immunized, but that was along time ago. What if it hadn’t taken the way it was supposed to?

  In the shower, she could barely stay upright under the hot spray, and waves of dizziness undulated over her. She didn’t even have enough energy to brush her hair when she got out She simply toweled herself off with Tessa’s help, dragged on a gown and slunk back into bed. It was a huge relief to be lying down again.

  “You still figure this is just a dose of the flu?” There was palpable worry in Tessa’s tone.

  “Course.” Morgan wasn’t at all sure. Her brain teemed with nightmarish symptoms that might be developing.

  “I’ll have a little nap and then maybe we could have some soup or something,” she said, even though the very thought of food made her gag. She could feel the fever beginning to build again, and she curled into a miserable ball under the mound of covers, her body racked by shudders.

  “Maybe you could fill the hotwater bottle for me again, hon? Cold in here.”

  Tessa gave her a long, troubled look and then headed for the bathroom, and Morgan slid back into the disjointed state that passed for sleep.

  Luke had just delivered twins, a boy and a girl, by caesarean section, to Anna Zenobin, a thirty six year old patient of Morgan Jacobsen’s. He should have felt elated because the procedure had gone relatively well, but all he could think of was the consultation with Anna before the operation, which had been nothing short of disaster.

  It was clear from the first moment that Anna considered him an inadequate substitute for Morgan. The fact was, Anna had burst into stormy tears when Luke arrived in her labor room and explained quietly that Dr. Jacobsen was ill and that he was taking her calls. And when he mentioned a caesarean, Anna had become hysterical.

  “I want Morgan,” she’d wailed. “We planned every single part of how this would go. She promised me she’d be here with me. She promised we’d try a vaginal delivery. I need her! I need her!”

  It had taken enormous patience and a great deal of time to calm her down. It took more quiet reassurance to convince her that because the membranes had ruptured, and that, in his opinion, a caesarean was now necessary, any other option would seriously compromise her babies.

  Of course Luke suppressed the annoyance he felt at being treated like a second-class bungler. Damn Morgan Jacobsen, anyhow. What was it about that little woman that aroused such fanatic loyalty in her patients? He knew himself to be eve
ry bit as competent an obstetrician, but in two short days of dealing with Morgan’s patients, he’d come to realize that each and everyone of them regarded her as some ridiculous combination of miracle worker, saint and, most preposterous of all, intimate friend.

  What was she thinking of, encouraging patients to relate on such personal terms? To him, it violated every tenet of doctor-patient ethics. And to top it all off, he got a call from the clinic just as he was leaving the hospital saying that Morgan’s daughter had phoned and asked if someone would make a house call because Morgan wasn’t getting better. And being the only doctor working late, he was nominated.

  Bloody hell.

  Luke darted between lanes, recklessly squeezing his sporty little black car into nonexistent gaps in the stream of vehicles around him. It took all his concentration, which was the whole point.

  He didn’t want to have to think.

  The address was in an old residential neighborhood near the university. The Tudor style house was big and weathered by time, the exterior covered in stained honey-colored stucco with vines growing up both stories. The property was bordered by low juniper bushes behind a wire fence. It was an attractive home, he admitted grudgingly as he opened the gate and made his way up the front path, trudging through ankle deep autumn leaves.

  The front door could have used a new coat of paint, though, he noticed as he rang the doorbell. Dogs barked inside, and it was several moments before the door opened.

  A fist seemed to smash into Luke’s gut when he saw the girl standing in the doorway. She looked about the same age as his daughter.

  “Oh, hi. You must be Doc Gilbert, right? I’m Tessa Hargraves, Morgan’s foster kid? I’m really glad you’re here. Morgan’s, like, really sick.” She scowled at the dogs, still yapping. “Major, shush. Skippy, can it, would ya? C’mon in, Doc. She’s upstairs in bed and she’s gonna blow a gasket when she finds out I called you, but I’m really worried about her, y’know?”

  This girl had none of Sophie’s soft, plump blond beauty. This girl’s arms and legs were long and thin. She was taller, too, her spiky haircut short and dyed fluorescent purple. Her face was a perfect heart shape, marred by a gold ring in one nostril, another in an eyebrow and what looked like dozens up the lobes of her ears. Sophie wore only small pearls, one in each ear.

  Tessa’s eyes were heavily made-up. Of course he didn’t allow Sophie, at only fifteen, to use makeup in that tawdry way.

  This girl wore a garish oversize yellow T-shirt over black tights, and her protruding belly made Luke’s stomach heave and clench as he automatically stepped over the threshold and into the midst of the dogs, who sniffed at his pant legs and wagged their tails. The black poodle was still yapping at him.

  “Skippy’s deaf and neurotic. You can’t shut him up once he gets goin’,” Tessa explained. “C’mon, Doc Gilbert, she’s up here.”

  Tessa’s back was narrow and childlike as she climbed the stairs ahead of him, but the weight of her belly made her waddle a bit. Sophie would walk like that before long, losing her quickness and grace as her pregnancy developed.

  His little girl, his baby, his only child, was pregnant, too. The knowledge made the hard knot that now seemed a permanent fixture in his chest tighten and burn as if acid were being dripped on his heart.

  What in God’s name was he going to do about it?

  What in God’s name could he do?

  “Morgan?” The deep voice with its distinctive accent was at first part of her confused dream. “Morgan, wake up.”

  She opened heavy eyelids and decided she was delirious.

  Luke Gilbert stood beside the bed, wearing gray slacks, navy blazer and an elegant tie against a gleaming white-on-white striped shirt. He’d placed his medical bag on the chair beside the bed, the same chair where her lacy bra and pink flowered bikini panties lay from the last time she’d dressed. She remembered groggily that her housecoat, jeans, several sweaters and a few pairs of socks were in an untidy heap on the floor.

  “What are you doing here?" Her voice sounded like a foghorn, and she knew she looked as bad as she ever had in her entire life.

  She saw him glance at the kitten, Flower, who had her head tucked under the spare pillow. Morgan noticed for the first time that there were cat hairs on the blue sheets.

  “He’s here because of me,” Tessa said in a defensive tone. “I called the clinic and asked for a doctor to come and look at you. I’m scared you’re gettin’ worse.”

  “I’d have been here earlier, but I was doing a section. Mrs. Zenobin’s twins arrived a bit early. I’ve just come from the hospital,” he said in an offhand tone.

  “Anna’s twins? You sectioned Anna’s twins?” Morgan struggled to a sitting position, feeling as if she might burst into tears. The twins’ arrival had been an event she’d looked forward to for months. She and Anna Zenobin had talked about every aspect of the babies’ delivery, and now she’d missed it. And he’d done a C-section, probably unnecessarily. Anna would never forgive her. She’d never forgive herself.

  “A boy and a girl, both good babies. The membranes had ruptured, and there was distress on the monitor. There was a bit of excitement with the girl. She’d aspirated meconium and was a bit flat by the time we got her out She’s in ICU. I checked just before coming over, and she’s doing well. We’ve got her on an antibiotic drip.”

  “You felt it was absolutely necessary to do a section?” Morgan had discussed the method of birth with Anna at length, explaining that most multiple births were sectioned, but promising Anna that if the babies were large enough and Anna had no complications, Morgan would be willing to try for a vaginal delivery.

  “Of course I sectioned her. It was a premature multiple birth, and that was the only option, in my opinion.”

  “I disagree,” Morgan said with all the vehemence she could muster. “Anna’s not a primipara. Her other pregnancy and delivery were entirely normal, and I’d promised her we’d give vaginal delivery a try if everything looked good.”

  “I gathered that’s what you’d told her. Needless to say, it caused some unnecessary upset for both me and the mother when I explained my policy on multiple births.”

  He bent over his bag to retrieve a thermometer, and Morgan felt like booting him for what she considered his pigheaded attitude.

  She felt too sick to get into an argument with him just now, but she was angry all the same. She scowled at Tessa, standing at the foot of the bed, irked with her for calling him.

  Tessa’s T-shirt had tomato paste smeared down the front, and she looked messy, guilty and worried. Her baby moved beneath the cotton, and Morgan’s anger disappeared as quickly as it had come. After all, it wasn’t anyone’s fault but her own that she was sick, and Tessa was doing the best she knew how.

  “It’s okay, love. I’m not going to die,” Morgan croaked, scowling at Luke as he took her temperature. He palpated the glands in her throat and looked into her ears, pushing aside her thick, tangled hair with cool, impersonal fingers.

  She thought of mentioning hepatitis B and decided he could damn well diagnose it without her help.

  He used his stethoscope to listen to her lungs, and she was excruciatingly aware that only a thin layer of cotton lay between her breasts and his long, elegant fingers. Even his nails were perfect, she noted sourly, square and smooth and immaculate. Morgan curled her own chipped and broken nails into fists and stuck them beneath the covers, wondering if she had the acidic, sick smell people got when they ran high fevers.

  During his examination he bent close, and unless she closed her eyes, she couldn’t help but look at him. His face was dramatic, quite spectacularly handsome, except that it resembled a carved stone mask and betrayed not one single human emotion. Even his green eyes were as cool and remote as a mountain pond.

  Morgan tried not to cough on him and wondered why someone so devoid of feeling would have settled on obstetrics as a career. Pathology seemed a much more likely match for Dr. Gilbert.

&nbs
p; “Your temperature is elevated and the glands in your neck are enlarged,” he pronounced in a distant tone. She’d heard total strangers sound more animated while discussing the weather. “There’s a virulent strain of influenza going round. I suspect that’s what you’ve got, Doctor, but I’d like to take some throat swabs and do a blood workup just to be certain.”

  He swabbed and she gagged and gave him a filthy look. She had to admit he was slick with a needle, though; he fixed a tourniquet just above her elbow, and she barely felt the prick as he drew a vial of blood.

  “Aaagh, gross.” Tessa winced in sympathy as the dark blood welled into the vial. She moved to the opposite side of the bed and gripped Morgan’s other hand with both of hers, her face pale.

  “It doesn’t hurt, sweetie.” Morgan gave her a weak smile.

  “So, like, what can I do to help her get better, Doc Gilbert?” The girl’s voice quavered a little, and she frowned up at him. “Like, shouldn’t she be eating something? I’m making this special vegetable soup. D’ya think soup’ll help?”

  Tessa’s plaintive appeal almost brought tears to Morgan’s eyes, but it was all too obvious that Luke was untouched by the young girl’s plea. “Bed rest and liquids,” he pronounced in a dismissive tone, turning away. He didn’t so much as glance at Tessa as he packed his things in meticulous order back into his bag.

  “So what’ya think, Luke? Is there a faint chance I’m going to live?” Morgan tried her best to lighten the atmosphere for Tessa’s sake.

  “As I said, rest and plenty of fluids. I’ll leave something to control the fever and vomiting.” Luke spoke without looking at her. He seemed to be staring at the thick layer of dust on the cluttered dresser, and his clipped tone held not one iota of personal concern or warmth. He hadn’t smiled once or been the slightest bit friendly, and rage suddenly consumed her. It was probably the fever that made her reckless.

  “Dam you, Luke Gilbert! Who exactly do you think you are, acting so condescending and superior?” Her voice, contralto at the best of times, had dropped to a croaky bass, but fortunately nothing had affected her volume control, and his head whipped around. At least he was looking at her now.