A Father by Christmas

by Meredith Webber

  Chuckles from the tense staff told Sophie the ER staff knew and liked this woman, who was now bent over the accident victim, examining her only slightly swollen belly.

  ‘I doubt she’s more than thirty weeks,’ she said at last, looking anxiously at the monitor, then at the head of the trauma team. ‘You’ve called someone down from the NICU?’

  He nodded towards Sophie, and the woman turned towards her.

  ‘I’m Marty Cox. You heard. What do you think?’

  Sophie didn’t hesitate.

  ‘That baby’s going to have difficulties enough starting life without a mother, let alone all the potential hazards of being born ten weeks premature. Every day makes a difference at this stage. Can you keep her on life support—even for a week or two?’

  ‘Keep her on it for six weeks and the baby has an even better chance,’ Marty agreed.

  ‘Whose permission do we need?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Maybe not permission, but we’d need the husband’s agreement, surely,’ Marty told her.

  ‘And the hospital ethics committee will want to know about it,’ the ER doctor said. ‘And the director of the ICU—he’s the one who’ll have to look after her so he’s the one who should talk to her family. It will have to be in consultation with them. Then there’s the cost…’

  Marty rolled her eyes in Sophie’s direction, checked that the ICU knew there was a problem, then promised to see someone from the ethics committee immediately.

  ‘They usually get involved when it comes to turning off life support, but in the absence of family, surely they can make an interim decision,’ Marty said, then added, ‘You’d better come with me,’ to Sophie, as the trauma team hooked their patient to full life support. ‘Your knowledge of the chances of the little one’s survival will carry more weight.’

  ‘But what if the father opts not to go this way?’ Sophie asked, after introducing herself to Marty.

  ‘I would think someone will suggest counselling to help him make the decision—there’ll be plenty of people only too willing to talk to him.’

  She grinned at Sophie.

  ‘Most times, the administrative palaver that goes on in this or in any big hospital drives me to distraction, but in cases like this they can chat to themselves all they like—it’s giving our baby a better chance.’

  ‘Our baby! I like that,’ Sophie said, and Marty smiled again.

  ‘Well, it is ours, isn’t it? Mine until it’s safely out, yours thereafter. Here’s hoping the thereafter is at least another month away.’

  She led Sophie into a lift, then pressed the button for the top floor.

  ‘The bigwigs all lord it over us from up here. Have you met the medical director?’

  ‘I met a lot of people the day of the interview. He might have been among them, but I can’t remember.’

  ‘Like the job?’ Marty asked, and though Sophie was surprised, not so much by the question but by the fact she hadn’t thought about it, she found herself answering with enthusiasm.

  ‘I love it!’

  Marty threw her a sideways glance as they got out of the lift, then raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Haven’t fallen in love with the boss, I hope,’ she said. ‘From all accounts, he’s a lost cause.’

  ‘I’ve only been here a week,’ Sophie protested.

  ‘Which isn’t really answering my question,’ Marty teased, then she led Sophie into a room furnished with a couch and a couple of comfortable-looking armchairs on one side, while on the other a very efficient-looking woman sat behind a pale timber desk, the top of which was so tidy Sophie automatically straightened her white coat.

  ‘Kate, this is Sophie Fisher, the new neonatologist on Gib’s team. Sophie, Kate Hall, keeper of the gate. Is the boss in?’

  ‘He is, but you know he hates people barging in without an appointment,’ Kate said.

  ‘And I hate pregnant women dying in car accidents, especially ones with a viable foetus still inside them.’

  ‘Oh, hell,’ Kate muttered, and pressed a button on the large phone precisely set on the right-hand side of her tidy desk. She spoke swiftly but quietly and then obeyed some unheard command, saying, ‘Go right in,’ to Marty and Sophie.

  ‘No baby?’

  Gib spoke quietly as he saw Sophie come out of the lift outside the NICU. He knew she’d been called to an emergency, and returning without a baby meant only one thing.

  ‘Not yet,’ she said, sounding so tense he put his arm around her waist and guided her towards his office, not releasing her until she sank into a chair.

  ‘Coffee?’

  Anxious grey eyes lifted to meet his.

  ‘Please,’ she said quietly, then she dropped her head into her hands and he watched her shoulders move as she dragged in deep breaths. His heart hurt as he watched her, though he knew he had to remain professionally detached. What really bothered him was how he’d got to hurting-heart stage so quickly and with so little encouragement.

  Could he put it down to lack of practice in relationships over the last four years?

  Was it just a glitch?

  He made two cups of coffee, thankful as ever for his espresso machine—a gift from the grateful family of one of his patients—then set them both on the small table in front of her and settled in the chair beside her, careful not to touch her lest the fire that burned between them flared again from last night’s embers.

  ‘The baby died?’ he prompted.

  She shook her head, breathed deeply again then raised her head, reached for her coffee and sipped it as she turned towards him.

  ‘And I don’t know if it’s better or worse than that,’ she muttered, her lovely eyes darkening with anxiety too deep to voice.

  ‘Can anything be worse?’ he said softly, wanting so badly to take her in his arms he had to hold onto the chair arms in case his hands disobeyed the orders of his brain.

  ‘That’s what I don’t know,’ she said helplessly, setting down her coffee cup and shaking her head at her uncertainty.

  To hell with brain orders! Gib shifted to the arm of her chair and put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to his body, so her head rested against his chest. He stroked the shiny, smoothed-back hair with one hand and rubbed the other up and down her arm, all the time holding her close, feeling the movement of her chest as she breathed—the beating of her heart beneath her ribs.

  This wasn’t how he ached to hold her, but it was close—so close he gave in to the ache and used the hand that had stroked her hair to tilt her head towards him. Her eyes met his but they were unreadable, not forbidding him to do what he was about to do or daring him—nor asking.

  He bent and kissed her lips, gently at first then with increasing pressure as he felt them move beneath his tender assault, responding…

  This was wrong.

  She needed—deserved—the best, and the best would be someone who was good at relationships.

  He’d been tested in that department and had failed…

  But she was kissing him back, her sweet taste seeping into him, her warmth stealing his resolve.

  She moved first, pressing a hand against his chest to ease him back—away from her. She straightened up, ran her hands over her hair then sat back in the chair, dazed eyes meeting his, then focussing—angry.

  ‘We’re at work, Gib,’ she reminded him. ‘This personal nonsense between us, whatever it is, has no place here.’

  ‘Is it nonsense?’ he asked, although that wasn’t the point at all.

  She sighed and shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she murmured helplessly.

  He reached for her again, but this time contented himself with taking her hand.

  ‘You’re right, and I won’t do that again, but physical comfort, touching, is sometimes all we can offer a person in need. A touch, a hug, a friendly kiss.’

  ‘A friendly kiss?’

  Dark eyebrows rose, then she shook her head again, straightened in her chair, retrieved her c
up of coffee and sipped at the dregs.

  Distancing herself from him, moving back to where she’d been before the kiss, she told him about the woman brought into A and E.

  ‘Is it the first time you’ve come across this situation?’

  She nodded again, then looked up at him.

  ‘I know it’s been done—in fact, I was the one who suggested it—but I’ve no idea what I think about it, Gib,’ she admitted helplessly. ‘Oh, I know it isn’t up to me—it’s up to the woman’s husband, or her family, or to the hospital ethics committee or whoever, but I’m involved so how can I not know what to think about it?’

  Gib touched her lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘Hey, we’ve all been there,’ he said gently, wanting to hold her again but knowing he’d already overstepped the line of professional behaviour. ‘And to tell you the honest truth, I still have not so much doubts as uncertainties about it. We do know for a fact that keeping the mother on life support will give that baby a far better chance of a normal life—if there’s any such thing as a normal life. But as far as the moral or ethical issues are concerned—what we think doesn’t count, Sophie. As doctors, we have to be guided by those who know and love the woman. They will make a decision based on what she would want for her baby.’

  ‘Do any of us know another person that well?’ Sophie asked, lifting her head to study the man who was helping her through this maze—the man she realised she loved, and who kissed her with a burning passion she’d never experienced, but who couldn’t offer her anything more.

  ‘Did you know your wife well enough that you can say with absolute certainty she drove into that truck? It didn’t sound that way when you told me of her death and yet you blame yourself.’

  She touched his finger where the white indentation still marked the place his wedding ring had been. Then she looked into his blue eyes and saw the pain her question had caused.

  Cursed herself, then tried to make amends.

  ‘Gib, I have a theory about mental illness. I think too often people, non-psychiatrists, fail to remember all the time that it is an illness. Consider cancer, where sometimes treatment works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, the patient dies, no matter what we do to try to help them. But although various treatments work for the majority of people with mental illness, there are still a percentage where everything fails and death becomes inevitable.’

  Standing up, she kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Stop blaming yourself,’ she said quietly, then she left the room.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘CARLY, Kristie and Angus all have rising bilirubin levels—do you want to start them on phototherapy?’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Sophie protested. ‘It’s Tuesday. My stars said I was going to have a really good Tuesday, and now you’re telling me this when I’ ve barely walked in the door!’

  The nurse monitoring the three babies smiled at Sophie’s grumble, and Sophie smiled back, not so much a return smile but at the use of all three of the babies’ names. The triplets’ parents had barely arrived from the country but already all the staff were calling their charges by their individual names.

  Sophie studied the values on the test results and, although the levels weren’t particularly high, opted to start treatment immediately.

  ‘Is the phototherapy blanket in use?’

  ‘Baby Neilsen is on it.’

  Again Sophie smiled. Baby Neilsen’s parents argued all day every day over what name to call their son, who was now five days old.

  ‘Not getting any closer to a decision?’ Sophie asked, and the nurse chuckled.

  ‘It was Michael John last night, then Bradley John by breakfast time.’

  ‘If the John part is decided, couldn’t they just call him John?’

  ‘No way, because it’s the paternal grandfather’s name, so it has to come second and the next baby, if they’re not divorced before this one leaves hospital, will have her father’s name second.’

  Sophie sighed. It was a good thing Baby Neilsen was relatively healthy, because his parents were definitely more involved with their squabble than they were with him. Although the fact that all the unit knew about the goings-on was a sign that family involvement with the neonates was working well—the environment for the babies was as ‘normal’ as it was possible within such a high-care, high-tech setting.

  ‘Use the phototherapy light for the—’ She caught herself just in time. ‘For Carly and Kristie and Angus. One at a time, starting with…’ Sophie checked the test results again ‘…Kristie. Cover her eyes and her genitals, use protection yourself, and turn her regularly.’

  Sophie caught the long-suffering look on the nurse’s face and smiled at her.

  ‘Teaching my grandmother to suck eggs—I know—but if I don’t say these things every single time, the day might come when it’s some new nurse who doesn’t know the procedure. So I’ll finish my spiel with a reminder that it causes dehydration so make sure she gets plenty of fluids. If Helen wants to nurse her some of the time, it would be good, but make sure she wears sunglasses and a cap. I’ll check Baby Neilsen—we might be able to take him off the blanket later today—and get the secretary to check with Mainte-nance about the second light. Albert said it should be back this week. It would be good if we could get all three started on some treatment today.’

  ‘I looked for you last night.’

  Sophie didn’t need to turn around to know it was Gib who’d murmured the words.

  ‘Thomas and I went out,’ she said, shuffling the triplets’ test results in her hands as if the order of the pieces of paper was of prime importance.

  ‘I did realise that,’ Gib said gravely, his eyes catching her gaze—holding it for a moment before she slid her attention back to the papers in her hand.

  ‘Did you hear the decision on your pregnant woman?’

  Sophie nodded, having learned the woman was on life support in the ICU, although she still wasn’t sure how she should feel about the situation.

  ‘I’m happy for the baby,’ she said.

  ‘But you’re still doubtful?’

  He spoke so gently she looked up at him again, offering a lopsided smile.

  ‘Pathetic, isn’t it? A grown woman—trained doctor—and I don’t know what I think about a particular situation.’

  ‘It’s not a situation the average grown woman—or even a trained doctor—has to consider very often,’ he reminded her. ‘Yet we face a similar dilemma time and time again, don’t we, with babies born too soon?’

  Sophie smiled at him, her face lighting up in the way he loved, seeming to shed radiance around her.

  ‘I have no problems at all with that one,’ she assured him. ‘In a perfect world, all our babies would survive, but that’s never going to happen. So I’ll do my best to help every one of them, regardless of how fragile or immature they are. But it’s funny, isn’t it, how some babies are fighters? Even the smallest and sickliest can be born with a determination to live, and you seem to know right from the beginning—seem able to recognise the ones who’ll never give up.’

  ‘And the ones who choose to die,’ Gib said quietly, and although Sophie knew that happened—that some preemies just didn’t have the will to live and no amount of help could save them—she wondered if he was talking about babies.

  Or about his wife?

  ‘We should have the second phototherapy lamp back within an hour, so who do you want started next?’

  The nurse had returned, ending both the conversation and Sophie’s speculation. She refocussed on work.

  ‘Carly next, but with you taking Kristie, we’ll need another nurse to watch Carly, and also someone to keep an eye on Angus when he’s left on his own. He doesn’t like being parted from his sisters.’

  ‘I’ll tell Albert to organise it,’ the nurse said, hurrying away.

  Sophie turned to find Gib was over by Mackenzie’s crib and slowly released the breath she’d been holding. Thankful to avoid a continuation
of what had turned into a strange conversation, she crossed the unit in the other direction, anxious to explain to Helen and Dan what they intended doing to Carly, Kristie and Angus, and why.

  But avoiding a colleague who worked in the same unit was impossible.

  ‘Join me for lunch—we can talk about who’s coming in to the follow-up clinic this afternoon.’

  Gib caught up with her as she headed for the lifts.

  Yesterday he’d kissed her. And the night before! Was he serious about a working lunch or should she read something more into the invitation?

  She was so uncertain where she stood with Gib—uncertain even of where she wanted to stand—she sought refuge in a lie, not even crossing her fingers behind her back.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m meeting someone, but Marilyn gave me the files and I didn’t see any problems with any of the patients she’s allocated to me.’

  He didn’t answer for a moment, then he said, ‘What about tonight? Would you trust Etty to babysit and have dinner with me?’

  No work excuse!

  Sophie’s heart began to race so hard she had to press her hand against her chest to still it.

  Had he changed his mind about involvement?

  Did she want to get involved?

  Were bananas yellow?

  There’s Thomas…

  He likes Thomas…

  Then she remembered.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t tonight. I’m seeing someone.’

  He turned away before she could explain—could tell him the silly phrase she’d used didn’t mean she was seeing someone romantically, but that her dinner date was with friends of Hilary’s, to talk about the memorial service.

  She swallowed hard and ducked through the nearest door, which, thankfully, once she’d looked around, was a women’s restroom.

  ‘Oh, Hilly, I do miss you,’ she murmured, pressing her head against the cool mirror. ‘Is it because I’m thinking of you so much this week that I’m such an emotional mess?’

  ‘Talking to yourself?’

  Marty Cox emerged from one of the cubicles.

  ‘Worse,’ Sophie told her. ‘Talking to my dead sister.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s worse,’ Marty said, washing her hands then flicking water at Sophie. ‘I think that’s quite sensible. Although my half-sisters are so ratty that even if they were dead I’d hesitate to take their advice.’