The Honourable Midwife

by Lilian Darcy

  He’d been as wilfully blind as Claire in many ways. He’d been so sure about the building strength in what he felt for Emma, but how much of it had been, as she’d suggested, about his desperate need for an escape? How perceptive could he be at the moment about his own feelings and his own future?

  He couldn’t trust either his certainty or his pain.

  People often went through a transitional relationship after surviving a divorce, but Emma deserved far better than to be his temporary therapy or his vacation from real life. He wouldn’t hurt her any more than he already had, and they both needed to be clear on that.

  Talking to her was quite simple, as it turned out. He limped through another ten minutes with Claire, and at least she agreed to proceed with the divorce. He urged her to think again about what she really wanted, then headed for the hospital to take his turn at the weekly prenatal clinic.

  Here, pregnant patients under the primary care of the hospital midwives were given an extra check-up by a doctor at certain points in their pregnancy to make sure that any unusual problems were caught. He discovered as soon as he arrived that Emma was rostered as the assisting nurse today, and took his opportunity at once.

  ‘I’m sorry, Emma, about the other night.’

  Emma froze as soon as she heard his voice, then looked up slowly. She sat at the desk where the morning’s patients would come to check in, with a pile of files in front of her. There were already two women waiting and a couple of children playing noisily with toys in the corner.

  She hadn’t heard Pete’s approach across the carpeted floor. He’d reached her before speaking, in a low tone that only she would hear. Now his eyes were fixed on her face, their warm brown depths smouldering like unseasoned wood.

  ‘Pete.’ His name escaped her lips like a bubble floating upwards in water. She didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘You were right in what you said,’ he went on. ‘I pulled you into my life at the wrong time. For both of us. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I was out of line. I hope you can forgive the clumsiness, and the blindness—of the way it started, and the way it finished.’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered awkwardly, afraid of being overheard. ‘Of course I can. I understand the reasons.’

  ‘And that you can get on with your life.’

  ‘That’s harder,’ she blurted out, too churned up to be anything but honest.

  He gave her a suffering look. ‘Actually, you shouldn’t forgive me,’ he said.

  ‘I told you I did. You just asked me to.’

  ‘That was shallow. And unreasonable. One day perhaps I’ll forgive myself.’ With patients waiting, there wasn’t any more they could say. For the best, probably. They’d only be going around in circles. Emma was about to hand him the first patient file, but then he added in a different tone, ‘I had a call from Alethea Childer’s cardiologist in Melbourne, by the way.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Not the best news. She has an infection. The kind of setback she didn’t need when they were hoping to proceed with her second surgery soon.’

  ‘No, she didn’t need anything like that! That’s so disappointing!’ Emma blinked back tears. Already vulnerable to emotion, the news about tiny Alethea cast her spirits down still further.

  ‘So far, she’s fighting it,’ Pete said, ‘but, of course it’ll delay her discharge, and it’s tough on Rebecca and her mother.’

  ‘They’re both still there?’

  ‘Yes, and planning to stay as long as it takes. I’ve told them I want to see that baby the day she gets home!’

  ‘Me, too,’ Emma agreed, hardly aware of what she was saying. Her throat was still tight. Any second her eyes would brim over, and what would the waiting maternity patients think? She couldn’t give way to her feelings now! ‘She was a darling, those few days we had her. A real fighter.’

  ‘She still needs to be.’ They looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment, then he cleared his throat. ‘Do you have a file there for me? We’re running a bit late now.’

  ‘Yes, um, OK, your first patient is Mrs Gouzvaris, whose glucose tolerance test result came back too high yesterday,’ Emma said quickly. ‘Here’s the file, and she’s waiting. Her English isn’t great.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He looked at the waiting patients, and correctly guessed which was the one he wanted—an attractive dark-haired woman with a few threads of silver in her hair, Emma had noticed. ‘Mrs Gouzvaris? Come through, will you?’ he said.

  Emma struggled through the rest of the clinic and was painfully relieved when it was over. A week went by, in which she only saw Pete a couple of times at a distance. Kit and Gian had set a definite date for their wedding now, not the Saturday they’d asked their friends to pencil in but a Friday evening several weeks later, in early December. They would then fly to Sydney for a long-weekend honeymoon.

  Emma received her invitation in the mail when she got home from work on a Thursday afternoon. ‘Emma and guest,’ it said. But there was no one she wanted to bring. Only Pete. She didn’t seriously consider asking him, and realised almost at once that in any case he’d be bound to receive an invitation of his own. He and Gian were good friends.

  Although the wedding was still weeks away, she dreaded the idea of seeing Pete in such a setting. She’d already promised Kit that she would wear her Paris dress, and even if she didn’t, if she wore some dowdy sack in an unflattering colour, weddings were…impossible occasions, really, when you were alone and not happy about it.

  In telling Pete that they couldn’t deepen their involvement with each other until and unless he’d sorted out the unresolved issues between himself and Claire, had Emma drawn too firm a line in the sand? She didn’t know the exact date on which Pete would be legally free, but it must be soon.

  She began to hope that he would phone the moment it happened. That he’d zoom round to her house in the open-topped red Ferrari she and Nell had joked about weeks ago, with the divorce papers fluttering in his hand, when she just happened to be perfectly dressed. Add a bouquet of crimson roses. Sunset. Violins. Pete would whirl her into his arms and—

  Ugh. Hopeless.

  Emma laughed at herself over the fantasy, and did her best to put it aside.

  ‘Well, if it had been me, I would have gone to Sydney for a wedding dress,’ Caroline told Kit. ‘But you’ve proved it’s not necessary. You look just gorgeous!’

  Caroline clasped her hands over her heart as she spoke. She had pink cheeks and sparkling eyes and a dreamy, far-away smile on her face, which made it clear that Emma wasn’t the only one who ever had romantic fantasies and wistful hopes. Caroline hadn’t been jaded by her long-ago divorce. She’d defiantly become more of a romantic than ever.

  ‘Yes, it’s perfect, Kit,’ Emma agreed.

  Even cynical Nell drawled, ‘You’ll do, girl. If I cry at the wedding, you know I’m going to hold you personally responsible. I hate it when I cry at weddings!’

  ‘And you always do, Nell,’ Caroline pointed out cheerfully.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me!’

  ‘But does it fit right?’

  Kit craned and twisted in front of the long mirror in the master bedroom at her fiancé’s family farmhouse. The place was in a state of upheaval at the moment as Gian and Kit’s possessions had just been moved in and Federica Di Luzio’s had been moved out, to her son’s two-bedroom unit in town. The wedding was only a week away.

  ‘It fits as if it grew on you,’ Caroline said.

  ‘Mrs Seccomb said if it felt too tight around the waist she’d let it out. I don’t know if that was a hint.’

  ‘Oh, are you, Kit?’ Caroline shrieked. ‘Pregnant? That’s—!’

  ‘No. No.’ Kit flushed darkly at once, and she looked very uncomfortable. ‘That’s not what I meant. A hint that I was getting chunky. And Federica has been teaching me all these wonderful Italian recipes, so—’

  ‘Trust me, Kit,’ Caroline said, ‘if it was a hint, it was about a very particular k
ind of weight gain. I know June Seccomb. She always assumes brides are pregnant and makes sure they know that it’s never too late to let out the dress. Now, are you sure?’ Caroline wore a cajoling smile.

  She meant it as a tease, Emma could see, but Kit cut her off at once, far too quietly.

  ‘Stop, Caroline,’ she said. ‘Don’t, please. It’s probably time I told you this. Told all of you.’ There was a sudden silence, and a change of atmosphere in the cool bedroom. ‘It’s unlikely that Gian and I will be able to have a child of our own. So…I know it’s kindly meant, Caroline, but, please, don’t tease about it. I—I had a long struggle with infertility in a previous relationship, before Gian and I even met, and we’re going to have to look at IVF and other forms of assisted reproduction to even give ourselves a chance.’

  Caroline hid her face in her hands for a moment, then raised her head again. ‘Lord, I’m so clumsy!’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry, Kit, I had no idea!’

  ‘Why should you? I don’t tell people very much. Gian’s known for months. It was a problem for a while.’

  ‘For Gian?’ Nell said, frowning.

  ‘No, for me. I couldn’t believe, for a long time, that it wouldn’t destroy our relationship. It destroyed my last one. But Gian is different.’ She smiled. ‘And I realised that in the end.’

  ‘I don’t want to sound crass,’ Nell said. ‘But you’ll have Bonnie, too.’

  ‘No,’ Kit said firmly. ‘She’s not a substitute. She’s herself. I was telling Gian that—yelling it, actually—when it all clicked into place for me. If Bonnie is just Bonnie, and Gian is just Gian, then I couldn’t encumber him with James’s blind spots and weaknesses.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Nell agreed quietly. ‘He’s a good man.’

  ‘If we loved each other, which is…uh…a given at this stage, but it wasn’t a few months ago, then I had to credit him with the ability to behave differently to James. Anyway, that’s the story, and I’m glad you all know. OK, now I’m going to be like Emma when she first got back from Paris.’ Kit grinned. ‘Can we get back to what’s really on my mind? The dress?’

  ‘It’s not too tight, Kit,’ Emma said. ‘It really is perfect.’

  Perfect, she thought later on alone at home, even though Kit’s life wasn’t. She had a man whom she loved and was about to marry, she had a beautiful home to make her own, and she had a gorgeous little adopted daughter.

  And I’ve been assuming that her life was perfect, Emma realised. She’d even had some moments of raw, miserable envy which she’d been ashamed of at the time, and was even more ashamed of now. But it’s not perfect. Which only goes to show…

  What? She wasn’t quite sure. That you could look as radiantly happy as Kit and Gian did, even when life sent you lemons? That problems could sometimes be accepted even if they couldn’t be overcome?

  She guessed that she and Kit and Nell and Caroline wouldn’t talk again about Kit’s infertility. Kit had given out some pretty strong signals that she wouldn’t want to. But Emma suspected that Kit’s revelation this afternoon had brought all four of them closer in some way, and given them each something different to think about.

  Nell hadn’t said much after Kit had put the dress away and made them all a pot of tea. Caroline had announced, ‘I want to phone Josh, make sure he’s OK by himself at home, and tell him I’ll be there soon.’ Kit’s revelation had probably reminded Caroline of the precious legacy of her failed marriage. She always spoke so proudly of her son.

  ‘He’s going to be my “and guest”, Kit,’ she’d said today. ‘Did you notice on our RSVP?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve put his name on our list.’

  ‘And he’s even going to dance with me. Mind you, he initially wanted a dollar a minute to do it, but he dropped his price in the end!’

  How did Kit’s revelation reflect on me? Emma wondered. Thinking about it for a few minutes, she realised it had given her some courage, and some hope, albeit a faint one, that she and Pete still had a chance.

  ‘I was hoping we’d have a baby on my shift,’ Mary Ellen Leigh told Emma at the hand-over the following afternoon. ‘Janelle was doing so well at first, but the contractions have eased off since she stopped walking around. It’ll be another couple of hours, I should think. But so far it’s all routine for a first baby. Head down, at zero station, occiput anterior position, good strong heartbeat. The cervix is fully effaced and dilated to around five or six centimetres as of fifteen minutes ago.’

  She detailed more information about the patient’s current condition and prior history, all of it straightforward.

  ‘Thanks, Mary Ellen,’ Emma said when she’d heard everything.

  ‘They’re a nice couple. She’s been seeing Pete Croft through the pregnancy, and wants him at the birth if possible. I’d say she’ll be delaying his dinner.’

  Pete! Emma hadn’t come across one of his patients in here for a while.

  She opened her mouth to say something about his girls. It was their dinner she’d worry about. Pete could handle a rumbling stomach. But his childcare arrangements weren’t her concern, and in any case she didn’t want her fellow midwives speculating about the nature of their relationship.

  As far as she knew, no one suspected that they’d almost trespassed into an involvement a month or two ago. This made her current turmoil and uncertainty a little easier to take. She didn’t have to field awkward questions or mistaken assumptions.

  ‘Enjoy your weekend,’ she told her departing colleague, and went in to see her new patient.

  Janelle Hancock was in her early thirties, and worked at a pharmacy in the centre of town. She and her husband were committed to an intervention-free birth, and had good odds of achieving their goal. Chris Hancock finished timing a contraction and told Emma, ‘Down to six minutes apart. They were two minutes apart earlier. What’s going on?’

  ‘They’ll probably pick up again if you could walk around some more, Janelle. You’re obviously getting a bit too comfortable here on the bed!’

  ‘Ha! Comfortable?’ Janelle sniffed and laughed and groaned.

  ‘Could you try it for a bit? If it doesn’t feel good, we can do something else. A shower?’

  ‘We haven’t tried a shower yet,’ Chris said.

  ‘OK, a walk and a shower,’ Emma coaxed. ‘Nice if we could get you to your room and settled with the baby by dinnertime. You’ll be hungry then.’

  ‘I don’t believe that, but all right.’

  Emma and Chris helped her up, and she did several laps of the corridor. The contractions picked up rapidly, and by the time she got back to the shower, she was ready for its relaxing effect.

  ‘This is the worst one yet,’ she gasped.

  Emma got the water running to the right temperature, then left Janelle and Chris alone for a few minutes. Janelle let the hot water run over her back and abdomen, while Chris got half-drenched holding her up and giving her a rub. Out at the nurses’ station, Emma phoned Pete. He’d been told earlier in the day that Janelle’s labour had begun, so she knew he’d be prepared.

  ‘Not long now,’ she told him, finding it hard to maintain the right balance between professionalism and warmth. ‘You’d better come in.’

  ‘On my way,’ he answered.

  ‘We’ll see you, then.’ She wanted to ask him about the girls. Were they with him, or with Claire? Would it matter if this birth took an unexpected turn and he had to spend longer here than he’d planned?

  But it wasn’t her problem.

  It could have been. She might have been fully caught up in his life by now, if she hadn’t said no to him the night of Liz Stokes’s delivery.

  Or she might have pulled both of them into an even bigger and more painful mess of regret.

  ‘I really don’t like this!’ Janelle’s moan spilled from her room as Emma returned to her. ‘I can’t get comfortable. Don’t just stand there, Chris. Oh, here it comes again.’ She heaved lungfuls of air in and out with desperate force, trying to ease
pain too severe to talk through. At last the contraction ebbed, but another one began to build almost immediately, and she moaned again. ‘Oh, it’s not stopping…’

  She was leaning over the bed, with Chris massaging her shoulders ineffectually. Poor man, it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t be of much use. Janelle had gone into transitional-stage labour, when the last few centimetres of dilatation took place much more rapidly, and each contraction shoved the baby’s head deeper into the tight girdle of the pelvis.

  Pete would get here only just in time.

  ‘Something’s happening,’ Janelle gasped a few minutes later. ‘I think I need…I can’t stand up.’

  ‘Do you need to push?’ Emma asked. ‘Are you feeling pressure?’

  ‘Yes…No…I just need to get comfortable.’

  She’d begun to panic and sweat. Emma tried to read the language of her restless body. Which position to suggest? She obviously wasn’t comfortable on her feet. Some women ended up squatting, or kneeling on the bed on all fours. Many still preferred the traditional position that doctors had dictated in the past—on their backs, with legs drawn up and pressed open.

  Janelle leaned on the bed again, just as Pete came through the door. He took in the situation at a glance, and realised she was very close to delivery.

  ‘Like this?’ he muttered to Emma.

  ‘I haven’t suggested anything yet,’ she answered. ‘She says she’s not comfortable, but…’ She stopped.

  Janelle had begun to strain with all her might, leaning head and chest and forearms on the bed. Chris was beside her, trying to support her and whispering words of encouragement.

  ‘Think it’s going to be like this,’ Pete said. ‘Janelle, can you reach down and tell me if you can feel the baby?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Try for me. Just have a go. Nothing lost if you can’t manage it. Let’s see if it’s crowning. I think we’re nearly there.’

  ‘OK, I’ll try.’ The contraction eased, giving her more confidence. Her hand was clumsy and groping, but she managed a smile after a few moments. ‘Yes, I can feel it! I can feel it!’