Prognosis Christmas Baby

by Andrews, Amy

  In bed eight was a four-week-old baby boy who’d had a tracheostomy for a critical airway a few days before. He’d been born with a rat’s-tail trachea, interfering with his ability to breathe properly. He was coping well with his operation but needed to stay on the unit for a week to ten days for one-on-one management in the initial post-op stage.

  Bed eight had seen six patients since Ruby’s death a month ago but still the tragedy lingered in Maggie’s soul. Some kids, some cases touched you more than others and made her wonder what the hell she was doing here.

  Luckily the patients since Ruby had all been in and out reasonably quickly helping to restore her faith.

  Linda had put a Christmas CD on as they worked and it chimed happy, snowy, merry tunes and Maggie concentrated on them instead. It even managed to partially drown out the duff-duff of Toby’s oscillator.

  Maggie yawned, bone tired as she threw some tinsel around the base to cover up the rather utilitarian plastic bucket the tree was propped in. The vague queasy sensation she’d quelled earlier returned with a vengeance.

  God — night duty sucked!

  ‘Don’t yawn,’ Linda griped. ‘It’s contagious.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Maggie grimaced. ‘I know I say this every night duty at this time, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired.’

  Linda frowned at her. ‘You burning the candle at both ends? You’re always tired lately.’

  Maggie busied herself in the box, scrabbling for more decorations. ‘It’s nights,’ she dismissed casually. She wondered if Linda would be shocked to know she was indeed burning that candle and who she was burning it with.

  ‘No. It’s daytime too,’ Linda insisted.

  Maggie blushed and was pleased to still have her head in the box. She hadn’t been getting much sleep the last month. Maybe a few hours a night — if that.

  ‘Just getting old,’ she joked.

  ‘Hey, forty is not old,’ Linda protested. ‘It’s the new thirty. Besides, you’re only as old as you feel, or the man that you’re feeling anyway.’ Linda laughed raucously at her own joke.

  Maggie flicked her gaze to Nash and caught him as he sneaked a glance her way, a grin on his face. ‘Come on,’ she said, deftly changing the subject. ‘Let’s use all this leftover tinsel to decorate each bed space. We can string it along the curtain rails.’

  An hour later the unit was looking very Christmassy. Red and silver tinsel was entwined and looped through the curtain rails as well as along the desks of the central station and down the corridor. Colourful ‘Merry Christmas’ banners were stuck up on the windows at each bed space and the Christmas cards the unit had already started to receive were displayed on the main swing doors.

  ‘I love Christmas,’ Maggie sighed as she and Linda stood back to admire their handiwork.

  ‘Not bad for a couple of hours’ work,’ Linda agreed. ‘What do you reckon, Nash?’

  Nash looked around at the transformed clinical environment. ‘I think you two could get jobs as elves,’ he said, and tried really hard not to think about Maggie in a tiny elf costume. And failed.

  ‘You got your tree up yet, Maggie?’ Linda asked.

  ‘Nah. Not much point with just me.’

  Nash saw the wistful look in her eyes as her gaze roamed around the room, reflecting the twinkling tinsel. She sounded a little sad and he suppressed the urge to stand and draw her into his arms.

  ‘We had ours up two weeks ago. The kids’ nagging was driving me insane,’ Linda said with a laugh.

  Maggie’s gaze briefly settled on Nash’s and he gave her one of his public smiles where his face said one thing but his tropical-island eyes said something much more intimate. She looked away, not wanting him to see the stupid jealousy that had seized her thinking about Linda and the six kids she was going to spoil rotten Christmas morning.

  The yearning never went away.

  She could work and work and bury it deep but someone talking about their kids or a mother pushing a pram in a street and it all came crashing back.

  ‘Well, I’m going to get something to eat before I throw up,’ she announced, the horrible nausea persisting.

  Would this night never end?

  ‘I’ll join you,’ Linda volunteered.

  Waiting in the kitchen for the toast to pop was torturous. It smelled amazing as only toast could do to a stomach under revolt. Maggie placed her hand on her belly. ‘Ugh. I think I really am going to throw up.’

  As often as she felt like this on night shift, she’d never actually vomited.

  Linda frowned at Maggie’s pale face. ‘Well, if I didn’t know all about your fertility problems I’d ask the obvious question. Tired. Nauseous. You haven’t skipped a period, have you?’

  A surge of laughter bubbled up her throat. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  Linda quirked an eyebrow. ‘Have you?’

  Maggie stared at her colleague like she’d just grown horns. ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ Maggie spluttered. It was preposterous.

  Totally preposterous.

  But the ruptured condom was suddenly all she could think about. Her fatigue vaporised. She squinted as she searched her memory for her last period.

  ‘You are late,’ Linda the Shrewd piped up.

  ‘I’m forty,’ Maggie dismissed, desperately trying to quell the stupid flutter of hope that had taken up residence in her heart. The toast popped and she removed it and started buttering it automatically. ‘My period’s been a bit all over the shop the last six months or so. Probably just peri menopausal.’

  Linda looked at her dubiously. ‘If you say so.’

  Maggie nodded and was pleased when Linda let it drop. Because she couldn’t. For the remaining hour of the shift it was there. Taunting her. Mocking her.

  A baby. A baby. A baby.

  And it didn’t matter how many times she disregarded it and told herself to stop being foolish, she was infertile —infertile, for God’s sake — it wouldn’t quit.

  A baby. A baby. A baby.

  It whispered its promise to her insidiously. Glowing like a candle in the darkness. Shining like a beacon of hope. Which was crazy.

  Beyond crazy.

  She’d been diagnosed with idiopathic infertility in the prime of her life. How on earth could she conceive at all, never mind in the dying days of her dysfunctional fertility cycle? It didn’t make any sense.

  But she knew, as she grabbed her bag from her locker, that she was going to stop by the chemist’s and buy a pregnancy test. Not because she believed it but because she didn’t.

  Couldn’t.

  A simple test would tell her the inevitable in two minutes and then she could stop all these ridiculous thoughts and get some sleep.

  ‘Maggie.’

  Maggie stopped short as Nash greeted her in the corridor outside the staff change rooms.

  Nash. Oh, no. Among the maelstrom of thoughts in her head she hadn’t even considered Nash.

  Nash checked behind him, making sure no one was within earshot. ‘I have something to do after I knock off so I won’t be around till about ten.’

  Maggie, still dazed, her mind racing, didn’t notice the vagueness of his statement. ‘Oh, okay, sure.’

  That was good. It would give her time to get the ridiculous test out of the way, quash the insane thoughts and have a couple of hours’ sleep before he joined her.

  He looked over his shoulder again. ‘Do you want to give me your keys so you don’t have to get out of bed to let me in?’

  His voice had dropped a couple of notches but Maggie barely noticed over the baby, baby, baby chant going on inside her head. ‘Sure.’ She rooted around in her handbag and handed him her spare set of house keys.

  Nash frowned. Maggie, who had insisted on the secrecy, didn’t seem too cagey about handing over her keys to him. She usually got cranky if he so much as smiled at her at work.

  ‘Are you okay?’
r />   Maggie’s head shot up. ‘Yes, why? I’m fine,’ she babbled. ‘Just fine.’

  Nash chuckled. She looked tired but also wired and definitely a little spaced. She was almost delirious. Lord knew, he’d felt that way many a time after a long night. ‘Drive carefully, Maggie May.’ He knew she lived close but driving after night duty was a real hazard.

  She gave Nash a tight smile, thinking about the location of a chemist’s that opened early. ‘See you later.’

  Nash frowned again at Maggie’s back. Maggie May was a definite no-no at work.

  What the hell was wrong with her this morning?

  Maggie felt sick just looking at the test as she pulled it out of the pack. Sick and nervous. But was it a positive result that was making her feel that way or a negative one?

  She put it on the kitchen bench. She’d been to the toilet before leaving work and doubted very much if she could produce any urine for the test right at this moment. So she made a cup of tea, relying on the diuretic effect of it to work its magic on her bladder.

  Sitting on her back deck in the morning sunshine, the December sun was already packing quite a punch. Maggie tried to concentrate on her lovely garden which was bordered with native trees and shrubs she’d lovingly planted with her own hands.

  Usually, it filled her with such joy but her mind kept wandering to what colour she was going to paint the nursery and, for a little while, she let herself indulge in the fantasy. When she finished her cup she went and poured another, torn between wanting to do the test and being terrified of the result.

  If it was negative, which of course it was going to be, she knew she was going to be bitterly disappointed. She shouldn’t be. It was wrong to want it and it was a dream she’d given up on long ago. But the yearning in every fibre of her being this morning was almost a physical ache.

  God, she’d gone through a decade of this — negative pregnancy tests — waiting for that magic second line or the dot to turn blue or whatever new-fangled gimmick the test boasted to relay the happy-sad news to its user.

  How could she go through it all again?

  The second cup of tea disappeared and Maggie forced herself to stop being such a coward and just do it. She made her way to the much closer main bathroom, not trusting herself to walk the extra distance to her en suite without chickening out.

  She followed the directions but when she held it in her hands afterwards, Maggie couldn’t bear to look. She couldn’t bear to see the little red sign in the window.

  Not again.

  Leaving it on the cistern, she washed her hands and fled back to the deck to muster some courage.

  ***

  Nash had a smile on his face as big as Tasmania when he opened Maggie’s door. He crept in with his booty, not wanting to wake her.

  Not yet anyway.

  Unlike him, she didn’t have to work again tonight but he knew better than to disturb those first few catatonic hours of sleep after night duty.

  Quietly, he placed the pre-decorated, four-foot Christmas tree on her coffee table and plugged the lights into the nearest power point. They glowed in multi-coloured splendour and he hoped Maggie was going to love it.

  She’d looked so sad earlier that morning when she’d admitted to not bothering to decorate the house for Christmas because she lived alone that he’d resolved then and there to rectify the situation. Maybe that’s why she’d been a little preoccupied? Maybe contemplating another lonely Christmas had made her a little melancholy.

  Well, not this year.

  This year she had him and he was going to make it a Christmas to remember.

  He smiled again, heading for the main bathroom, not wanting to risk using her en suite. He wondered how long she’d sleep for and couldn’t wait for her to wake up. Should they make love first or should he drag her outside and reap the rewards of her gratitude then?

  He smiled as he zipped up and reached for the flush button, noticing for the first time the round plastic disc-shaped device sitting on the cistern. Nash frowned as he reached for it. It took a few more seconds for him to figure out that he was indeed seeing what it was he thought he was seeing.

  What the...?

  The Christmas tree was instantly forgotten as he strode from the bathroom, pregnancy test in hand, and stalked into her bedroom. He could feel a white-hot ball burning in his stomach like acid reflux.

  Not there. Where the hell was she?

  Her car was outside so she had to be home. His pulse galloped at his temples and reverberated through his head in great, angry crashes. His grip tightened on the test, feeling it creak as the plastic protested the pressure.

  No wonder she’d been so screwy. How long had she suspected?

  ‘Maggie?’ he called as he stormed through the house. ‘Maggie?’

  Maggie, still trying to summon the nerve to go and look at the result, felt her heart stop as Nash’s voice carried out to her. She stood and turned to face the door as Nash stepped out onto the deck and she knew by his face it was already too late.

  ‘You want to tell me about this?’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Maggie was too shocked for a moment to do much of anything other than stare at his beautiful face, tense and shuttered for the first time since she’d known him.

  Then her gaze flicked to the pregnancy test he was holding up and she saw a little pink sign and she was too stunned to speak.

  ‘Well?’ Nash demanded.

  His voice cracked through her momentary paralysis. She reached for it, taking it from him, staring at the test window with the pretty pink plus sign.

  Pregnant.

  A baby. A baby. A baby.

  Her hands shook. But how? It couldn’t be. It had to be wrong. ‘It’s positive,’ she said, looking at him for confirmation, feeling like a dyslexic toddler.

  ‘I can see that,’ he said grimly.

  ‘But...how?’ More with the two-year-old questions.

  Nash’s jaw tightened. ‘I guess it was when the condom broke’

  Once. Damn it! Once! Every other time they’d used nice, new, never-fail condoms.

  Maggie could see he was talking, hell, she could hear him. But none of his words made sense.

  Didn’t he remember she was infertile?

  ‘No. I mean...How...? I can’t...I’m not supposed to be able to fall pregnant.’

  Nash took the test off her and held it up. ‘Wrong.’

  God...she was pregnant. Maggie blinked, momentarily shuttering Nash’s very unhappy face. She knew he had every right to be angry, but wrapping her head around this was taking some time. And despite it all, her insides were singing.

  Yes, singing. A baby. A baby. A baby.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Nash growled as Maggie pushed past him, scurrying into the house.

  ‘I’m taking the other test.’

  Nash stared after her. What the hell? Following her, he found her pawing through her handbag in the kitchen. ‘The other test?’

  ‘They didn’t have any single test kits,’ she said, locating the other pink box and heading for the toilet.

  ‘There’s no point,’ he said, following her. ‘it’ll be the same.’

  Maggie turned around. ‘It’s wrong. It has to be.’

  She was trying not to get excited. Trying not to get carried away. How many tests had she done in the past convinced she was pregnant? How many times had her hopes been raised, only to be dashed so wretchedly?

  Nash sighed, resignation already taking a firm foothold in the mountain of his blind panic. ‘It’s not. You don’t get false positives. Only false negatives.’

  If he’d had any idea how much Maggie wanted to cling to that, he would have kept his mouth firmly shut. But she’d been down this road one too many times. She was forty, for crying out loud.

  And infertile.

  ‘It’s wrong,’ she insisted, before closing the door in his face.

  Because if he was right, if the test was right, it would be just too surreal.

&
nbsp; Nash paced outside, his brain churning, thoughts tossing around like garments in a tumble-dryer. He checked his watch. A minute later he checked it again. What the hell was taking her so long?

  ‘Maggie.’ He banged on the door. ‘What on earth are you doing in there?’ he growled.

  How long did it take to wee on a stick?

  Maggie startled. The flow she was trying to coax instantly disappeared. She couldn’t believe her bladder was choosing this moment for an attack of performance anxiety. She could see the shadow of Nash’s pacing footsteps in the polished floorboards under the crack of the door which was putting her urinary tract under a lot more pressure.

  ‘Give me a break,’ she said crankily. ‘I only did this twenty minutes ago. It’s not a bottomless cup.’

  ‘Do you want me to turn a tap on?’

  Maggie glared at the door. ‘I want you to go away.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  Great! Maggie shut her eyes and concentrated. Hard. On waterfalls and pouring rain and dripping taps. And warm, yellowish fluid of another origin. Surrounding her baby. Nourishing it. Cocooning it. Protecting it. Rocking it to sleep.

  She smiled at the thought and finally found the release she was after.

  This time she looked straight away, preparing to count to one hundred and twenty Mississippi’s before she saw a change in the test window. But it was there already.

  Another pink plus sign.

  Maggie stood for a few seconds, just staring at it, until another bang on the door interrupted the sheer incredulity she was feeling.

  ‘Damn it, Maggie.’

  Opening the door, she found Nash looking equal parts harried and annoyed. And when he quirked his eyebrow at her she said, ‘I’m pregnant,’ and promptly burst into tears.

  ***

  Nash stood, temporarily paralysed, as Maggie’s face crumpled and great heaving sobs screwed her face into a mask of utter grief.

  Oh, God. Not tears. How could he be angry with her when she was so heartbroken?