Mending the Single Dad's Heart

by Susanne Hampton

  Walking to her car that night, Jessica felt so many mixed emotions, but predominantly sadness and a sense of loss. She had one more day before she turned her back on the town she knew she would never visit again.

  ‘Jessica, wait.’

  She turned to find Harrison standing only a few feet from her.

  ‘I don’t want it to end like this,’ he told her.

  Jessica stared at the man who had broken her heart—and before she’d met him she hadn’t even known her heart had mended enough to love again.

  ‘How did you want it to end?’

  ‘Not at all, to be honest, but I knew it had to.’

  Jessica shook her head. She wasn’t buying anything he was saying but she was confused why he had bothered to chase her down.

  ‘You are bigger than this town. You deserve this opportunity in Adelaide.’

  ‘Please don’t tell me that you know what I deserve after what happened.’

  ‘I did what I thought was best...’

  ‘For yourself. One night with me and you were done. I stupidly thought that what we shared meant something...’ she began and then stopped.

  ‘It did but there was no point trying to make it something more. You were always going to leave.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more,’ she said, holding back tears.

  ‘No matter what you think now, I want you to understand before you go that the night we shared did mean something.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said as she turned and walked away. But not enough to ask me to stay.

  * * *

  It was just after ten the following evening. Jessica’s last day in Armidale and she was watching television and thinking about heading to bed. The day had gone well. She had not seen Harrison and that brought both sadness and relief to her.

  She had closed the chapter on what they had shared.

  She looked over at her suitcase and carry-on bag; both were packed and she felt a sense of organisation coming back to her life. A nice pair of trousers, a shirt and jacket for the plane trip were hanging in her room for the trip. If the cases were lost again, she wouldn’t be turning up in jeans and a jumper on her first day in Adelaide. She had learnt that lesson the hard way in Armidale. Along with another one. She would lock her heart away for ever.

  Suddenly her phone vibrated on the table. She picked it up and saw it was the hospital. She wondered if she had left something there.

  ‘Dr Ayers, it’s Jane from ER.’

  ‘Hello, Jane, is everything all right?’

  ‘No, not really. We have a young boy who has presented at the hospital with suspected appendicitis. I’m sorry to bother you; I know you’re no longer on staff and you’re leaving Armidale tomorrow morning but this is an emergency.’

  ‘Isn’t Dr Wainwright on tonight in ER?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’m a little confused as to why you need me. I’m sure Dr Wainwright can handle the case. Unless he has a particularly heavy patient load this evening.’

  ‘No, we’ve only got two other patients but he’s asked me to call you, especially. He knows it’s late but he’s hoping you might be able to come in and assess the young boy. He said he can meet you in the car park so you don’t walk in the dark alone.’

  ‘Please tell him that I don’t need him to meet me anywhere. But what I do need is to understand why I’m required. Are there complications? I need some context to this request.’

  ‘I’ll pass you on to Dr Wainwright...’

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ Jessica cut in but it was too late. The last thing she wanted was to hear his voice before she went to bed. She didn’t want to be kept awake by thoughts of him. She was doing her best to forget she’d ever laid eyes on him.

  The nurse had handed the phone over. ‘Jessica, it’s Harrison.’

  Jessica took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She hadn’t thought she’d ever hear his voice again.

  ‘Jessica, are you there?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Harrison; what’s this about? It’s late and I don’t understand why I’m needed. You have enough experience with suspected appendicitis.’

  ‘I have, Jessica, but this case is quite different. Believe me, I wouldn’t be disturbing you if it wasn’t urgent.’

  ‘Why—what’s different about this patient? Why can’t you manage him with the resources you have?’

  ‘Because...’ Harrison began and paused ‘...because, Jessica, he’s my son.’

  Jessica was dumbfounded and almost dropped her phone. Harrison had a son? They had spoken at length and he’d never thought to mention he had a son? That was a significant piece of information to have kept to himself. Why had he hidden that from her? She felt sick to the stomach. How could she have got it all so wrong? She’d thought she knew him but she didn’t know him at all. Why would he hide something so significant from her? He had chosen what he wanted to tell her and clearly kept a number of things to himself. Suddenly he was a father. Where was the child when she’d stayed over? God, how could she have been so stupid to fall for someone like him? Again, she had chosen a man who had lied to her by avoiding a hugely important detail about his life.

  ‘Jessica?’ Harrison’s voice on the line brought her back to his call. He needed something or, more accurately, his son did.

  ‘Where was your son the other night?’

  ‘At my parents’. They look after him when I...’

  ‘Have women sleep over. So, what happened between us was premeditated on your part?’ Jessica told him flatly.

  ‘No, I didn’t plan any of what happened between us...nor do I regret it.’

  ‘Then that makes one of us, because I do,’ she spat back angrily. ‘And, while we’re being honest, do you have a wife as well?’

  Harrison did not reply to her question. There was nothing but a deafening silence on the line.

  ‘Oh, my God, you do. You have a wife and a son!’ She’d thought she couldn’t feel worse than the morning she had left his home but she realised she could, because she suddenly did.

  ‘Bryce’s mother is overseas.’

  ‘So that makes it okay to sleep with me? An ocean apart means what happened between us doesn’t count?’ Jessica felt her blood run cold. Harrison had a wife and he had the audacity to admit it now. It was Jessica’s worst nightmare all over again. She felt herself spinning close to the edge and could barely breathe. ‘I slept with a married man.’ Again.

  ‘Stop, please, Jessica; it’s not like that. You didn’t sleep with a married man. Bryce’s mother lives overseas. We’re only days away from the divorce being finalised.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s true. I wouldn’t lie to you.’

  ‘Really? You never told me you had a son before now. You led me to believe you were single.’

  ‘I’m a single father, Jessica. Well... I will be by next week. You didn’t sleep with a married man. You slept with a single father.’

  ‘This is all getting too complicated,’ she told him with her mind struggling to process everything she had heard. ‘Even if it’s true, why didn’t you mention your son to me? There were plenty of opportunities.’

  ‘I guess I was just protecting him.’

  ‘You were protecting your son from a paediatrician?’

  ‘I know that sounds ridiculous...’

  ‘Because it is.’

  Harrison hesitated again. ‘I had my reasons, maybe stupid ones, but...’

  ‘Don’t go there,’ she said angrily. ‘Let it go. I’m past it, Harrison.’

  ‘I will go there later. I’m not letting you think that any of what I did or said or didn’t say was about you. It was me and I’m trying to let go of the past, I really am.’

  Jessica was still not convinced. ‘Please just tell me what you want.’

>   Harrison drew a breath. ‘My son is in the ER now. I need a second opinion from a doctor of your calibre. Believe me, I didn’t want to put this pressure on you but you’re the best doctor I know. I’m worried.’

  ‘There’s really no point us talking about this...’

  ‘Please, Jessica.’

  ‘I mean there’s no point us talking because I’m on my way...but, just so you know, I’m doing this for your son, not you.’ With that, Jessica hung up and grabbed her car keys and overcoat. Despite how she felt about Harrison, she would be there for his son.

  * * *

  Harrison was waiting in the dark car park for her but she chose to ignore any recognition of chivalry, asking only for the cold hard facts about his son’s condition. There was nothing more between them.

  ‘Thank you for coming out.’

  ‘Again, this is because I love children and it’s why I chose paediatrics. This has nothing to do with how I feel about you. If it did, I’m not so sure I would be here.’ Jessica walked briskly in the direction of the main doors of the hospital.

  ‘I know I deserve your reaction,’ he told her. ‘And, as soon as I can, I want to explain why I behaved the way I did. I owe you that.’

  Jessica drew a strained breath, not from the pace of their walking, instead from having to be around Harrison. She’d thought she would never have to lay eyes upon him again and that had suited her just fine. She struggled to speak now, as being near him had brought back so much of what she wanted to forget, but she knew she needed to channel her lingering anger to get through whatever lay ahead. She didn’t want to hear his excuses because there was nothing to be gained from it.

  ‘I’m past that, Harrison. I don’t care about your reasons. It means nothing to me now. What I care about, in fact all I care about, is your son. Nothing else.’

  ‘I’m truly grateful...’

  ‘Please, I don’t want to hear anything close to that from you. Just give me the background now,’ she said as she picked up speed to get inside. It was starting to rain and she didn’t want another of Harrison’s chivalrous yet shallow gestures of perhaps taking off his jacket to shield her. She would rather drown.

  ‘Bryce was complaining of a pain in his stomach last weekend and then he lost his appetite. I incorrectly assumed it was nerves about starting school and me being overseas recently.’

  ‘What else?’ she asked, filtering out all the superfluous information. Adrenalin was kicking in. There was a little boy’s life potentially at stake.

  ‘The pain subsided during the week, so I thought nothing more of it, but it started again yesterday morning and escalated during the day.’

  ‘Understandable, stomach aches are not unusual at that age, but you wouldn’t have called me here at this hour if it wasn’t serious, so tell me all of the symptoms and the time frame. Any diarrhoea?’

  ‘My mother picked him up when the school called her around lunchtime. He’d soiled his pants and was very embarrassed. The school nurse cleaned him and provided him with some second-hand clothing but, understandably, he wanted to go home,’ he replied as they entered the automatic doors of the hospital and continued at breakneck speed into ER. ‘He’s been at their house for two nights, as he always is if I’m on a late shift, and they didn’t want to bother me. They thought it was something he ate. My father finally called me two hours ago when he saw Bryce struggling to get out of the bath and walk into his bedroom. My father’s retired but was a military doctor and knew something wasn’t right.’

  Jessica looked him up and down and didn’t hide her disdain. He had an entire family in the town and he’d never bothered to say a thing. She wasn’t his keeper and they hadn’t known each other for long but, in Jessica’s mind, in an open and honest conversation some, if not all, these things would have come up unless he was purposely hiding them.

  ‘Jessica, I know I’ve screwed up everything with us and I will try to explain and, if I can, make it up to you but right now I need your help.’

  ‘And you have it. I’m here to help.’ At odds with how she was feeling, her voice was unemotional. ‘He’s five years of age, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, five years and three months.’ He intuitively followed suit, kept to the facts and dropped any reference to them.

  ‘Any other medical conditions?’ she asked as they entered the ER.

  ‘No. He’s your average young boy. Good weight for his height. The pain has escalated so he’s on IV pain relief.’

  Jessica quickly scrubbed in, donned a gown and gloves and entered the bay to find a little version of Harrison lying on the bed in a tiny hospital gown. The similarity was uncanny and a little unnerving.

  Calmly she approached the little boy. ‘Hello, Bryce. I’m Dr Jessica. I work at the hospital with your daddy and I heard you had a tummy ache.’

  ‘Uh-huh, it was bad but the medicine made it better.’

  ‘Was it very bad?’ she asked, noting the IV that was administering pain relief.

  ‘Very, very bad,’ Bryce replied with the saddest of faces.

  ‘May I have a look at you and try to find out why your tummy’s hurting?’

  Bryce nodded his mop of thick black hair, again just like his father’s.

  Pushing away the clear similarities, Jessica continued, ‘Did you feel pain anywhere else?’

  ‘Just my tummy, near my belly button.’

  Jessica turned to the nurse. ‘Is there any fever?’

  ‘His temperature is slightly elevated. Thirty-nine point five.’

  ‘More than likely from the infection,’ Jessica replied as she took a stethoscope, warmed it in the palm of her hand for a moment then listened to his chest. Happy with what she could hear, she turned to the nurse again. ‘Have you taken bloods to see if the white cell count is elevated?’

  ‘Yes, just waiting on the lab now.’

  ‘We may not have time to wait for that result; please go and put a rush on them.’

  The nurse raced from the bay, leaving Harrison and Jessica alone with Bryce.

  ‘Can he raise his right leg?’

  ‘Not without pain,’ Harrison replied. ‘That was the catalyst for me calling you.’

  Gently she lifted Bryce down and began an external examination. There was extra tenderness on his lower right side and nothing elsewhere in his abdomen. She gently replaced the gown and, once the nurse returned, Jessica signalled to Harrison to step outside the bay with her.

  ‘Bryce is presenting with many of the symptoms of appendicitis—the raised temperature, diarrhoea and tenderness near the site. It’s not overly common in someone of Bryce’s age, but also not unheard of. I think we need to consider an emergency appendectomy rather than risking it rupturing overnight,’ she told him as she pulled her gloves free.

  ‘It can’t wait till the morning?’ Harrison questioned her.

  ‘From what you’re telling me, the symptoms have been present for a few days, if not a week already, so my educated guess is we don’t have that much time to decide. The bacteria are rapidly multiplying and, with that pressure, Bryce’s appendix could rupture.’

  ‘There’s still the possibility that it’s not appendicitis.’

  ‘There’s always a possibility with any diagnosis but for me that possibility is too small,’ she countered. She could sense the fear in Harrison’s voice and understood why he had those doubts but she had to push back. Erring on the side of caution was riskier than operating. ‘Fairly soon, if I’m right, the decision will be made for us and if that happens then we’ll have a whole different set of issues, including the risk to other organs from the resulting peritonitis. And then the emergency surgery will be far more complicated.’

  ‘What would you do in my place?’

  ‘I just told you...’

  ‘Jessica—’ he cut in, then continued in a very controlled manner ‘�
�I want to know what you’d do if you were not his doctor, but instead his mother. What decision would you make then? Jessica, I’m scared, more scared than I’ve ever been. I don’t want to get this wrong. I can’t lose my boy. I need your help.’

  Jessica was knocked sideways by Harrison’s honesty and vulnerability. Only a few hours before she hadn’t known Harrison had a son, and now he was asking her what decision would she make if she was the boy’s mother. She wasn’t anyone’s mother and might never be, so the question was a difficult one. Even more so coming from Harrison. But, as a paediatrician, it wasn’t the first time she had been asked a question like this. And each time she understood it wasn’t to absolve the parent of their responsibility; it was just a question about gaining perspective. This time was very different though because it was being asked by a man who a few days ago she’d thought might be her world, her future, her everything. A man who’d made her believe in her own judgement and love again, for the briefest of times. But he was also a man who’d turned his back on her. A man who’d broken her heart. And one she wanted to hate. But now, standing so near and learning more, she found that hard to do.

  ‘Harrison, I know it’s overwhelming to make a decision for someone you love, but you’re the only one who can make it. And if he was my son—’ she paused and drew a breath ‘—I would make the decision to operate tonight.’

  Harrison nodded. She could see there was still a battle raging in his head and his heart as he clenched his fingers and an anxious tic stirred in his jaw.

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ he told her.

  ‘You’ve made the right decision,’ she said and, instinctively and without thinking, she placed her bare hand on his arm in a comforting and reassuring way.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said, suddenly putting his hand over hers.

  Jessica froze. She hadn’t expected that reaction. From a parent, she would understand and not react, but the feeling of Harrison’s warm skin against hers brought memories flooding back—memories that she didn’t want to deal with again. She pulled her hand free; she was the one who needed space now.