A Nurse in Crisis

by Lilian Darcy

  She heard footsteps behind her, coming from along the corridor, and could tell without looking that it was Marshall.

  ‘Is it Sarah, Aimee?’ he said.

  She nodded, forcing back the tears. I can’t cry in front of him because then he’ll take me in his arms and…

  He didn’t, though. He’d been so scrupulous and careful about keeping his distance these past two weeks, a model of courtesy and honour. How was it possible, then, that she could still feel his tenderness and care as strongly as if she had her face pressed into his chest and his fingers caressing her hair.

  ‘Her fluid level has jumped,’ she reported to him. In many ways, words were much easier than silence. ‘The A.F.I. is fifty millimetres. She has to have it drained, and I’m so afraid—’

  ‘That it could be born early,’ he finished for her. ‘How far along is she?’

  ‘Thirty weeks.’

  ‘The odds these days are very, very good,’ he said, striding much closer to her in his concern. He was beside her now, close enough to touch, although neither of them did. She didn’t look at him either, just kept staring down at the silent telephone, fiddling with its cord. ‘Most babies born at thirty weeks not only survive but have no enduring problems at all.’

  ‘Even if they’re born with oesophageal atresia?’ she questioned harshly, making the quarter turn that would bring them face to face.

  His silence and clamped jaw told her how she had shocked him, but he recovered quickly. ‘Are they sure?’

  ‘Not absolutely.’ She looked up at him. ‘But it’s becoming a strong possibility. They think they won’t know for certain until the baby’s born, Jason said, and, of course, it’s a condition that can vary considerably in severity.’

  ‘Depending on the gap between the two unfinished sections,’ he said, nodding, illustrating the problem with his hands almost automatically, the way he would have done if he’d been explaining something to a patient. ‘The smaller the gap, the better. And there can sometimes be a fistula between the windpipe and the oesophagus.’

  ‘Yes, and they’ve said there could also be a blockage on the way out of the stomach to the duodenum as well.’

  ‘Yes, it’s all part of the same condition. A statistical abnormality, not a genetic one, it’s believed,’ Marshall said.

  He had his hand resting on the high front desk now, making Aimee aware of how much she liked the lean shape of his fingers and the knotty arrangement of veins and sinew between knuckles and wrist. She remembered all too clearly how those hands had touched her—by turns gentle, questing, ardent, feverish, sleepy.

  There was another silence. Aimee felt just a tiny bit better about Sarah and the baby. It helped just to put the situation into words, helped to know that Marsh cared, even though she couldn’t let herself respond to it as she so badly wanted to.

  ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do,’ he added at last.

  To Marshall’s own ears, his voice sounded impossibly stiff, but Aimee simply nodded and he saw that she was still struggling against tears.

  Bleakly, he thought, She hardly knows I’m here. If I’m any use to her at all, it’s purely as a doctor, because I can give the sort of reassurance about favourable statistics and the brilliance of today’s surgeons that I’ve been giving to patients or their relatives for years.

  I always mean it, and I mean it so very much when I say it to her, but she’s hardly noticed, and I can’t hate her for that. She has all this worry, and it’s not as if she’s been unfair. She decided a relationship between us wasn’t going to work, and she told me so straight away. What more could I have asked for?

  That she love me. And that I understood why it wasn’t working for her!

  He pushed away this pained cry from the heart, schooling himself against the hurt and…even worse…the sheer bewilderment.

  Aimee wasn’t like Tanya, who’d used him as far as she’d dared and had then put on a show of angry affront in order to end the charade. Aimee was a mature, sincere, caring woman, and someone who should have known her own mind. Yet she’d acted like a teenager, blowing hot, then cold.

  Yes, he was bewildered, and he didn’t dare show it, not to Aimee herself and particularly not to Rebecca because—this was ironic—he knew how angry Rebecca would be on his behalf, and he wanted to protect Aimee from that.

  Yet strangely, he thought, managing to laugh to himself, there were still some people who insisted that it was the female of the species that was illogical when it came to their emotions!

  Shaking his head helplessly, he groaned aloud.

  ‘Dad?’ Rebecca pounced on him, emerging from her office like a dragon from its lair. He hadn’t realised that she was in there, and had simply been wandering aimlessly back down the corridor towards his office, lost in the turmoil of his thoughts. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said heartily.

  ‘What were you muttering, then?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She studied him with narrowed, glittering eyes, saying nothing. ‘No, really,’ she said at last. ‘It’s not nothing. What is it?’

  ‘I’m seeing Joan Allyson this afternoon,’ he improvised. ‘She’s going on her honeymoon to Africa and I’m just running through the list of shots and pills I have to give her. It’s a little bit frightening. I hope she knows what she’s in for. If I were off on a honeymoon, I have to say I’d have settled on a nice, luxurious, self-contained cottage on the Barrier Reef somewhere, or an air-conditioned hotel in Hawaii.’

  ‘Are you planning a honeymoon, then?’ Rebecca demanded.

  ‘No. I’m not,’ he replied bleakly, and realised too late how much he’d given away.

  ‘No, somehow I got the impression that you weren’t,’ his daughter muttered with a grim expression. ‘I’d better get some lunch or I’ll faint. This baby’s growing. I wish Harry wasn’t off today!’

  ‘Rebecca, don’t—’

  But she didn’t stay to hear about what she wasn’t to do. Ducking back into her office, she grabbed her bag from the hook behind the door and marched off down the corridor with a set to her shoulders that told him more clearly than any words could have done that she was intending to behave badly.

  It was something he’d very firmly resolved not to do himself. In fact, it was the only thing keeping him going at the moment, an Englishman’s sense of honour, a stiff upper lip, and it was damned hard, so he shut himself in his office and sat for a few moments at his desk with his head buried in his hands, daydreaming that he was a man of hot-blooded Mediterranean lineage in times gone by and could throw Aimee over the back of a black stallion, carry her off into the night and make her admit that she loved him in a voice that was breathless and trembling with the force of her desire…

  Out in the waiting room, Rebecca was saying with bright, ruthless politeness to Aimee, ‘Have you set up the trolley for the removal of Mrs Fox’s basal cell carcinoma yet, Aimee? I’m going to need it straight after lunch.’

  It sounded like a veiled accusation, and Aimee flinched. ‘I’m planning to take a break now, and do it as soon as I’ve had my sandwich.’

  ‘All right. That’s fine. I’ll expect to find it ready when I get back.’

  The pregnant doctor went out the front door without another word, only a staccato rattling of the wooden Venetian blinds as terse punctuation to her words. There had been nothing amiss about the content of her conversation, but the tone left much to be desired.

  Alone in the waiting room, Aimee sagged against the high front desk, certain about what it meant.

  Rebecca knew!

  She’d been wondering if Marshall had said anything to his daughter. There had been some curious and increasingly suspicious glances from Rebecca over the past two weeks, as well as some apparently casual questions about how Aimee had spent her weekend, which Aimee had fielded as best she could.

  To be fair, Aimee had seen how hard Rebecca was struggling to remain pleasant, especially in front of the re
st of the practice staff, who might have suspected but didn’t know for certain, but just now the façade had dropped and her hostility had shown through.

  Marshall and Rebecca must have talked about it, Aimee realised. He’s either told her straight out that we’re not seeing each other any more or she’s guessed and, of course, she blames me. She’s right to, but, oh, it’s not what she thinks!

  And, she remembered, Rebecca hadn’t exactly been jumping for joy about the issue even when everything had seemed rosy. It made Aimee’s decision seem, in hindsight, like the only possible one she could have made. But to realise that Marshall’s daughter disliked her so strongly was a bitter form of vindication.

  ‘How are you today, Joan?’ Marshall asked his patient.

  She looked a little tired and unhappy, in contrast to her last visit when she’d seemed so healthy and radiant. Surely something can’t have gone wrong in so short a time? he wondered.

  Then his stomach lurched as he thought of himself and Aimee, and how suddenly that had turned sour. He still didn’t know why, and didn’t know if there was any point in trying to work it out.

  Joan sat down opposite his desk. ‘I’m a bit concerned,’ she admitted, then added, ‘I’ll be honest, I’m terrified! The mammogram I had…I got the result last Friday and something showed up. I had to go to the assessment clinic again on Tuesday and have a core biopsy.’

  ‘And you’re still waiting for the results?’ Marshall guessed. ‘I’m sorry, Joan. Waiting for something like that is terrible, isn’t it? Time goes so slowly.’

  ‘They say I should hear by tomorrow afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘You must be sore still?’

  ‘Yes, quite sore. And I don’t suppose the vaccination shots will help!’

  ‘Do you know what I think?’ he said slowly, ‘Let’s not do them today. I know you’re pressed for time, with the wedding coming up, but let’s make another appointment for Monday—wait for the results of the biopsy first.’

  Joan looked frightened. ‘I suppose…Oh, hell, if it is something, you’re saying I won’t even need the shots because I won’t be going to Africa after all.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ he admitted. ‘Although I’d been thinking more that you wanted to heal from the biopsy before you put your body through a possible reaction to the shots. Let’s take things one at a time.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ She nodded. ‘I’m getting wedding jitters. Shouldn’t be, at fifty-eight, but I am. Keep feeling as if I need to be doing ten things at once or I’ll run out of time. I tell you, anyone who thinks love is any more comfortable the second time around hasn’t actually been through it!’

  Marshall summoned a chuckle from some resourceful core of his spirits and sent Joan on her way.

  ‘Phone when you get the biopsy result,’ he said to her as she left. ‘They’ll send a copy here eventually, but I’d like to know as soon as you do.’

  Aimee was in the treatment room, tidying up after the skin cancer removal that Rebecca had just done. Rebecca handled minor surgery of this type with practised ease and efficiency these days.

  Aimee looked up at Marshall as soon as he appeared in the doorway.

  ‘I have everything ready for Joan now,’ she said.

  ‘She won’t be needing it today after all,’ Marshall told her, schooling his voice carefully.

  He reacted every time he saw her, his memory of her body in his arms so vivid, triggered by the cool, floral scent she used. It came clearly to his nostrils as she moved, despite the competing medicinal scents of the treatment room. His fingers tingled when he remembered how he’d run them through the silver silk of her hair. His mouth remembered the warmth of her neck, her face, her breasts. And he was utterly determined to let none of this show.

  ‘She’s waiting for the result of a left breast core biopsy she had on Tuesday,’ he explained, seeking refuge in the familiar clinical terminology.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Yes, there didn’t seem much point in doing her shots yet, but let’s hope we can reschedule them for next week and she’ll get some good news.’

  Aimee nodded, and he could tell that her mind had returned to her daughter and the news she was waiting for herself.

  ‘Nothing to report on Sarah yet?’ he couldn’t resist asking.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ she echoed. ‘Sorry, Marsh, I’m on tenter-hooks. Wasting company time,’ she joked feebly. ‘Jason said he’d call as soon as he could. If the drain does trigger her labour, it could happen any time in the next forty-eight hours, they’ve told him, so I’m not going to be remotely livable with for another two days!’

  As if their talking about it had made it happen, the phone rang in the treatment room at that moment. Aimee picked it up, listened for a moment, then said, ‘Yes Bev, put him through.’

  Marshall felt his feet put down roots here in the doorway. He had a patient waiting, but this would only take a minute. He didn’t even question whether he had the right to listen in like this.

  ‘Jason?’ Aimee demanded shakily. ‘How did it go?’

  She was intently focused on the call, the fine skin around her mouth tight and her pupils dilated, darkening those sparkling crystal blue eyes. ‘Uh-huh…That’s a lot…Was it? But she’s—?’ A long pause to listen. ‘OK, I’m glad they’re keeping her in. I’ll be there straight after work. Look after her, Jase…Yes, I know you will. I love you both. And that baby! Bye.’

  When she’d put down the phone, she let her hand rest on it for a moment, and Marshall noticed for the first time that she still wore her wedding and engagement rings, but on her right hand now. He wondered—looking for clues again—if it was significant. How could he have missed a detail like that for so long? Especially when he loved her fine, long fingers so much, with their tapering nails coated in clear polish.

  ‘Sorry.’

  She looked up at him, treating his presence as a natural thing, which both warmed and disturbed him. He had no real right to expect to be the first to hear the news. She shouldn’t want him to be here! If she didn’t want him in her life, why wasn’t she pushing him away as she had two and a half weeks ago? That would have made things a hell of a lot easier!

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said awkwardly, feeling himself at sea amidst all these waves of conflicting emotions. ‘Just tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘They drained off almost three litres of fluid,’ Aimee reported. ‘She had some contractions, but they’ve given her a drug to try and relax the uterus and ease the pain. Touch and go. She’s had the shakes quite badly, Jason said.’

  ‘They probably used Ventolin,’ Marshall offered. ‘That’s a side effect of it in her situation.’

  Aimee nodded. ‘OK. I didn’t know that.’

  ‘But no definite signs of labour?’

  ‘Not yet. They’re going to keep her in overnight. Jason said he could see her belly getting smaller and softer as the fluid drained.’

  ‘She’ll feel a lot more comfortable.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Aimee.’

  Oh, just listen to that priceless pearl of wisdom! he chided himself. Can’t you do better than that?

  She gave an absent smile and he got himself away before he said something even more puerile, feeling like a sixteen-year-old boy trapped in a mature man’s body.

  He hated his gender at the moment, and his upbringing. Who could he talk to? No one! Women had friends to whom they bared their hearts. Aimee had a daughter. He could imagine her in his position, talking it all over with Sarah, both of them possessed of an innate talent for expressing the complexity of it, arriving at some sense of understanding and peace.

  Had she already talked to Sarah about her own perspective? Could he attempt the same thing?

  He thought of Rebecca and at once knew it was impossible. She was too partisan, too hostile. She would condemn Aimee utterly, and that wasn’t what he needed to hear. The last thing he wanted was to end up hating her. Rebe
cca’s husband Harry, then?

  No.

  It was a notional possibility. The two of them were playing golf together this Saturday. Marshall had introduced his son-in-law to the game. Since Rebecca categorically refused to set foot on a golf course these days, he and Harry could do the heart-to-heart thing as they toiled from tee to green, but…oh, it would be ghastly! Two or three terse, masculine remarks ending in a mutual agreement that women were a mystery known only to themselves. He’d feel naked and foolish, and to what end?

  Striding with false efficiency along to the waiting room to collect his next patient, Marshall encountered the practice’s fourth partner, Grace Gaines, who said in a teasing tone, ‘Cheer up, Marsh, it may never happen,’ before doing a double take and adding far more seriously. ‘Actually, is everything all right?’

  ‘All right? I wouldn’t be dead for quids!’ he answered, using a colloquial Australian expression that he’d never used before in his life.

  Using it convincingly, too, it seemed. Grace chuckled and went on her way, seeking out Aimee in the treatment room.

  ‘Could I get you to take a patient history for me, Aimee?’ he heard her ask in a chirpy tone.

  Grace had been a different woman for the past few days, with a new spring to her step and a soft glow in her face, warming to a secret, happy smile whenever she thought no one was looking. Marshall guessed that she and her husband Marcus must have sorted out their long-standing and very real problems at last.

  Grace had lost a baby in utero just five weeks from her due date last year, and it had nearly broken her marriage apart. There had been a six-month separation, followed by a fraught reconciliation.

  Marshall was very happy for both Grace and Marcus that they’d worked things out—and he was envious, too. When you had a marriage, you could do that. Work on it. There was a shared and acknowledged base of love and commitment and past history together. He didn’t have that with Aimee. All he had was the tantalising, mocking promise of their wonderful beginning…their weekend in the mountains…their night together. And it counted for nothing now that Aimee had so firmly and suddenly closed the door on it.