by Annie O'Neil
Instantly his thoughts blackened. As if he’d come here for some R&R after a year and a half of trying to put some good back into the world.
“All you do is take.”
There was no coming back from the death of a man’s only child.
He scrubbed his hand along his neck, still hearing the heavy church bells ringing out their somber tones on the day they had laid Amalie to rest. Amalie’s funeral was the last time he’d seen Jean-Luc and the rest of the Couttards.
It was the first time they had fought. The last time they had had any contact.
“You took from my parents and now you’ve taken my daughter. No more!”
He opened his eyes to see Maggie waving a hand in front of his face. “Hello? All right in there? Time to jump in. We’ve been called out. Twenty-five-year-old mother, imminent birth. We’re about seven minutes out. Wheels up, mate!”
* * *
Five minutes into the ride, Maggie’s internal conversation was still running on a loop.
Mate?
What was it with her and calling Raphael mate? Almost as bad as Cyclops and Stevo calling him Frenchie.
Grr... Instead of bringing out that Parisian butterfly she knew lay dormant somewhere within her, Raphael’s appearance was turbo-charging the country girl she’d tried to leave behind in Broken Hill.
Then again, maybe he didn’t care what she did one way or the other. It was difficult to gauge exactly what was behind that near-neutral expression of his. Chances were pretty high that he hadn’t stayed up half the night reliving their near-miss kiss. How mortifying. She hoped her feelings weren’t as transparent as she feared.
Pretending to check for oncoming traffic, she gave Raphael a quick glance.
Still gorgeous. Still impossible to read.
But it went deeper than that. He didn’t seem present. And that was something he had always been—here, engaged.
Could a person change so much that they lost the essence of who they were?
She swallowed the lump of contrition rising in her throat. She had. She’d changed a lot since her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed days.
She glanced across again, unsurprised to find his expression stoically unchanged. Not that she could see his eyes beneath the aviator glasses he’d slipped on once they’d strapped in for the blue lights ride.
“You sure you’re all right?” She moved her elbow as if to prod him. The gesture was pointless as she was strapped into her seatbelt.
A curt nod was her response.
“This isn’t the first run you’ve had since you left France, is it?”
“No.” His gaze remained steadfastly glued on the road ahead of them.
Okay. Guess we’re not feeling very chatty today.
Not fair, Maggie. The man’s got a lot on his plate today. New country. New language. New job. Old friend...
An old friend she was having to get to know all over again.
The old Raphael would’ve been laughing and joking right this very second—teasing her about her driving, or about the fact that she couldn’t help making her own sound effect along with the sirens and each switch she flicked. He’d maybe even have started quizzing her about why her career had gone to the blue lights instead of the blue robes of the surgical ward.
Not a freaking peep.
When she’d told him to jump into the ambulance they’d done one of those comedic dances, with one person trying to get past the other, that had ended up looking like really bad country jigging. It should have, at the very least, elicited a smile.
Not from Raphael.
Not a whisper as to what was going on with him. Why he was here. Why he had downgraded himself.
The only thing she could guess was that the man was trying to put as much space as he could between himself and some intensely painful memories.
“You know, if you want to talk or anything...”
He glanced across, his brows tugged together. “About the job? No, no. I’m fine.”
“Or about other things...” She pulled the ambulance around a tight corner, grimly satisfied to see his expression change from neutral to impressed, if only for a nanosecond.
Why wouldn’t he talk to her? They’d once told each other everything.
Everything except the fact that she was a born and bred country girl doing her best to believe it wasn’t above her station to dream of life as a surgeon in Paris.
Come to think of it, neither of them had talked about their home lives much. Just the futures they’d imagined for themselves. Her host family’s beautiful Parisian home had been the base for most of their adventures. And the rest of their time had been spent exploring. With a whole lot of studying on thick picnic rugs in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower thrown in for good measure. After they’d hit the books they would roll over onto their backs, gaze up at the huge steel structure and talk about their dreams for the future.
Raphael had achieved his goals in spades. Resident surgeon in a busy Parisian A&E department. Addressing conferences around the world on emergency medicine. But then there had been an the about-face, eighteen months ago, and he had gone to work in refugee camps and free clinics in developing countries only to turn up now in Sydney.
Mysteries aside, Raphael’s life was a far cry from being a jobbing paramedic in one of Sydney’s beach neighborhoods with no chance of climbing up the ladder.
Cut yourself some slack.
She had returned from France only to be told her mother had died while she was flying home. A girl didn’t recover from that sort of loss quickly. And then there were the add-on factors: the shock of discovering her mother had known she was ill when she’d handed Maggie the ticket to Paris, the expectation of her grieving father and brothers that Maggie would step into the role her mother had filled—the role her mother had made her promise she would never, ever take.
Cramming her dream of moving back to France and becoming a surgeon into the back of a cupboard, she had cooked and cleaned and washed an endless stream of socks for her family while they got on with the business of living their lives...
It had taken her years to break out of that role. And she had finally done it. She was living life on her own terms. Sort of. Not really... Four weeks of her year were still dedicated to sock-washing, floor-scrubbing and casserole-making, but it was a step. Who knew? Maybe one day she would be the world’s first ninety-year-old junior surgeon.
She glanced across at Raphael, saw his jaw tight again as they wove their way through the morning traffic. It wasn’t her driving that drew his muscles taut against his lean features. There was something raw in his behavior.
If it was ghosts he was trying to outrun, he looked as though he’d lost the battle. It was as if they had taken up residence without notice, casting shadows over his blue eyes.
If only she could help bring out the bright light she knew could shine from those eyes of his.
A little voice in her head told her she’d never succeed. You don’t have the power to make anyone happy. That can only happen from within.
“So...” Her voice echoed in the silent ambulance as she tried to launch into the work banter she and Steve had always engaged in. “When’s the last time you delivered a baby outside a hospital?”
“Is there not a midwife attending?”
Raphael’s tone didn’t carry alarm, just curiosity. As if he were performing a mental checklist.
“There’s been a call made, but it’s usually luck of the draw as to who gets there first. We’d be fighting rush-hour traffic to get to the Women’s Hospital, so I don’t think we’ll have time to load her up and take her there. They said the birth was imminent when they rang. That the mum is already wanting to bear down.”
Raphael nodded, processing.
She doubted it was the actual delivery of a child that was cinching his brows together.
No guessing. You do not get to guess what has been going on in his life. He will tell you when he is good and ready.
She shot him another quick look, relieved to see that the crease had disappeared from his forehead.
Work would get him on track. It was what pulled her out of the dumps whenever she was down. It was what had finally pushed her up and out of Broken Hill.
That twelve-hour drive to Sydney had felt epically long. Mostly because she had known she’d never wanted to go back and that it would be the first of many round trips. They weren’t as frequent now...
Instead of saying anything in response, Raphael looked out of the window as they whipped past apartment block after apartment block on their way to the Christian housing charity that had put in the call.
Unable to bear the silence, she tried again. “The mother is Congolese, I think. Democratic Republic of Congo. A recent refugee. My Lingala’s pretty shoddy. How’s yours?”
The hint of a smile bloomed, then faded on his lips.
“Was there any more information about the mother? Medically?” he qualified.
“Nope.” Maggie deftly pulled the ambulance over to the roadside. “We’ll just have to ask her ourselves.”
* * *
A few moments later the pair of them, a gurney, and the two birthing kits Maggie had thrown on top were skidding to a halt in front of a group of men standing outside a door in the housing facility’s central courtyard.
“She’s in here.” One of the lay sisters gestured to an open door beyond the wall of men.
Like the Red Sea in the biblical tale, the men parted at the sight of Maggie and Raphael, letting them pass through, a respectful, somber air replacing the feverish buzz of what had no doubt been a will-they-won’t-they-make-it? discussion.
Abandoning the gurney out in the courtyard, Maggie grabbed the birthing kits, but stepped to the side so that Raphael could enter the room first. The distant mood she had sensed in him had entirely evaporated.
Inside, curtains drawn, a crowd of women in long skirts and brightly patterned tops shifted so they could see the beautiful woman on a bed that had either been pulled into the sitting room for the birth or was there because of constant over-crowding. Either way, the woman’s intense groans and her expression showed she was more than ready to push.
She was pushing.
“I’ll do the hygiene drapes if you’re all right to begin the examination,” Maggie told Raphael.
“Good. Bien.”
Out of the corner of her eye she watched as he unzipped one of the kit bags, quickly finding the necessary items to wash and sterilize his hands and arms in the small, adjacent kitchen, re-entering as he snapped on a pair of examination gloves. His movements were quick. Efficient. They spoke of a man who was in his element despite the dimly lit apartment and the crowd of onlookers.
But there didn’t seem to be any warmth emanating from him. And that surprised her. It wasn’t as though he was being mean, but... C’mon! The woman’s about to have a baby. A little bedside manner would be a good thing to use around now!
The women, as if by mutual consent, all pressed back against the wall, necks craning as Raphael made his way to the expectant mother’s side.
“You are happy with an audience?” Raphael asked the woman in his accented English, and the first proper smile to hit his lips all morning made a welcome appearance.
Finally! So it is there. Just hard to tap into.
The expectant mother nodded. “Bien sûr. Voici ma famille.” She groaned through another contraction.
“Ah!” Raphael gently parted her legs and lifted the paper blanket Maggie had put in place across the woman’s lap. “Vous parlez Français? Très bien.” He turned to Maggie. “You are all right to translate on your own?”
Maggie grinned. Trust Raphael to have his first patient in Oz be a fluent French-speaker.
A seamless flow of information zigzagged from the mother to Raphael to Maggie and back again—including the woman’s name, which was Divine.
Maggie smiled when she heard that. What a great name! As if the woman’s mother had predestined her daughter to be beautiful and feminine. Maggie was all right as far as names went, but Daggie—as her own family insisted on calling her—made her feel about as pretty as if she were called Manky Sea Sponge.
“Can you believe it?” Raphael was looking up at her, his brow furrowed in that all-work-no-play look she was still trying to get used to.
“Divine? Yeah.” She offered the mother another smile. “It’s a beautiful name.”
“This is Divine’s fourth pregnancy.”
Ah. That was the vital bit of information he had actually been alluding to. She’d heard. Registered. Moved back to the pretty name. Was he going to be like this all the time?
Three pregnancies without any problems meant this one would likely be a cinch.
Maggie shifted her features into a face she hoped said, Wow! Impressive! Not, Four children before you’ve turned thirty? No, thank you.
Her mother had been down that path, and look at all the good it had done her. A life of cooking and cleaning in the Outback before being hit by an A-Grade cancer cluster bomb. Pancreatic. Lymph. Stomach. At least it had been swift—though that hadn’t made it any less of a shock.
“First time for a home birth?” Maggie asked, to stop herself from exploring any further her instinctual response to a life of full-time parenting. She’d been down that dark alley plenty of times, and this was definitely not the time or place for a return journey.
“Non...” Divine bore down, her breath coming in practiced huffs. “I have never had one of my children in hospital.”
“Just as well,” said Raphael neutrally, in French, “because you are crowning. I can see your baby’s head now.”
Cheers erupted from the women around, and to Maggie’s complete surprise a chorus of joyous singing began.
Raphael indicated that Maggie should kneel down beside him as he kept pressure on the woman’s perineum to prevent any uncontrolled movements while first the forehead and then the chin and finally the child’s entire head became visible.
Finding herself caught up in the party-like atmosphere, Maggie beamed up at Divine, congratulating her on her ability to get through the intense moment without any tears or painkillers, and out of the corner of her eye watched Raphael check for the umbilical cord and its location.
“Are you up for one more big push?” Raphael asked over the ever-increasing roar of song. “We just need to get those shoulders out.” His voice was gentle, but it conveyed how strong the determined push Divine gave would have to be.
Divine tipped her head back, then threw it forward, her voice joining in extraordinary harmony with the women around her as she bellowed and sang her way through a super-powered push.
Raphael held the baby’s head in one hand, turning it towards the mother’s thigh, and gently pressed down with the other to encourage the top shoulder to be delivered as Divine bore down for the one final push that...oh, yes...yes...would bring her new son into the world.
“Felicitations, Divine. You have a beautiful little boy.”
Maggie was shocked to hear Raphael’s strangely vacant tone. Why wasn’t he as lifted and carried away by the raucous atmosphere as she was? No matter how often she tried to be blasé about moments like these—it was impossible. And to play a role in this miracle of a child coming into the world surrounded by song...
She might not want one herself just yet, but it was just so...so happy. One of those truly magical moments a paramedic could have. It brought a tear to her eye every single time.
She swiped away her tears as swiftly, expertly, Raphael suctioned the baby’s mouth and nose, giving Maggie a satisfied nod to tell her that the amniotic fluid was a healthy color. Maggie handed him a fresh towel to vigorous
ly and thoroughly dry the baby, then waited with another dry towel to swaddle the infant before gently placing him on his mother’s chest.
The cooing and murmurs of delight that followed wafted and floated around them, and Raphael delivered the placenta at the very moment the midwife opened the door with a cry of, “G’day ladies, I’m finally here—no thanks to the traffic. Shall we get to it?”
Laughter, cheers and yet more singing broke out as the midwife’s expression changed to one of delighted wonder when the little boy took his first proper wail.
A few more minutes of cleaning up took place while the rest of the women began handing round plates of food.
Raphael and Maggie turned to go, but stopped upon hearing Divine calling for them. Raphael went over to the side of the bed where the little boy was, and after a bit of insistence finally accepted the child into his arms.
Again those shadows shifted and darkened his eyes. It heartened Maggie to see that the shadows weren’t so dark as to mask his genuine pleasure at seeing the child was healthy and well, but there was something there. Something that colored even the happiest of experiences.
“What is your name?” the woman asked in her heavily accented English. “I am so grateful for your help. For my son, I must know your name.”
Maggie shot him a quick look. It wasn’t unknown for people to name their children after a person who had helped them in a significant way. She couldn’t contain a grin. Barely twenty-four hours into his new life and already he’d brought a child into the world who might bear his name. What a way to make an impression!
One look told her he wasn’t nearly as delighted by the prospect as Maggie was.
“Raphael,” he said finally.
The answer was reluctant, and his posture followed suit when Divine’s eyes lit up at the sound of his name. He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, silently communicating that under no circumstances did he want his name to go to the child.
As clearly as Maggie had read the message, so too did the new mother. She gave Raphael’s arm a grateful squeeze, then stretched her arms out to him so she could hold her son close again.