Emergency--A Marriage Worth Keeping

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘I never wanted to leave you,’ she whispered, her voice almost resigned, but Sav was having none of it, his fingers gripping her cheeks, his voice harsh with emotion as he dragged her back.

  ‘Stay, then.’ Sav’s eyes bored into hers, forcing her to focus, to listen, to hold on. ‘Stay with me, stay with not just me but with Luke and Harry, because, my God, Isla, we need you so much. Stay,’ he said again. ‘And I’ll do every last thing I can to put the “happy” back into our marriage.

  ‘I love you, Isla.’

  And he did.

  She’d known that all along.

  ‘Stay,’ he said again.

  And she mouthed the word ‘yes’.

  Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. Because life was precious and short and sweet and, despite the pain, despite the torture, it was the most precious gift of all.

  ‘Theatre’s on standby?’ Sav checked as Heath climbed into the newly created slightly wider space.

  With the passenger seat removed, the task of extricating the stretcher was, as Mike had predicted, easier now.

  But it was the most dangerous moment for Isla.

  Once the pressure was removed, she could bleed out in a matter of seconds. The stretcher that was trapping her was also possibly saving her, and no one knew this more than Sav.

  ‘From here straight to the theatre table if necessary,’ Heath confirmed. ‘Everyone’s on standby in Resus. By the sound of it everyone in the hospital, full stop, is on standby. Once we get her out, we’ll assess…’

  His voice was drowned out as the cutter started up again, Heath holding Isla’s head steady as Sav held her hand, whispering into her ear, all the while trying to drown out the horrific noise with words of love and encouragement as they worked to free her.

  ‘Hold it.’ Lifting up his hand in command, Mike ordered one of his firefighters to stop cutting and the appalling, teeth-rattling noise faded as Mike again assessed the twisted metal wrapped around Isla. ‘It’s free.’

  ‘Right, no one moves till I say so,’ Sav ordered, and for once Heath didn’t argue. Sav was a leader and, right or wrong, he was leading now, and nothing Heath was going to say would stop him.

  ‘Heath, ready with the chest tube if she needs it?’ He didn’t wait for a nod as he turned his attention to the firefighter. ‘Once we’ve lifted the stretcher, get it out and let us work. Be ready to squeeze through the blood.’

  ‘Got it.’ Mike nodded, checking for the umpteenth time the position of the stretcher, talking to his men about their ensuing movements, taking one final look around the confined area, assessing every last detail in an attempt to ensure the lift was as swift and as easy for Isla as possible. ‘We’re going to lift the stretcher directly up and then over your heads, Docs, and then it will be behind you. You’ll have to move forward a bit on my say-so, so that we can lower it, but you’ll have more room at the patient’s side.’

  ‘Got it!’ Sav nodded, his voice steady, his hand squeezing Isla’s, but despite the brave smile she could see the fear in his eyes.

  ‘Ready, Doc?’

  ‘Hold on.’ And if it was against protocol that he was in there, Sav didn’t give a damn. There was nothing Mike could do now anyway, maybe put in a complaint somewhere down the line, but somewhere down the line seemed a distant dream right now. ‘Hang in there, Isla,’ Sav whispered, kissing the pale, cold cheek, noting with infinite relief the tiny flicker of her eyelashes. ‘I love you, the boys love you.’

  He gave the nod, held his breath as the stretcher rose. He ached to get to her, but knew he had to wait just a little bit longer as the firefighters skilfully extricated the metal, lifted it up from Isla’s body and over Sav’s and Heath’s heads. They inched forward when they could to finally be by her side.

  ‘Her air entry’s better.’ Heath’s stethoscope was over her chest as Sav did a rapid assessment of Isla’s other injuries. Her stomach was bruised and distended, but her pelvis was thankfully stable, her reflexes appropriate. And even if it wasn’t great it was a helluva lot better than he had feared—he had been terrified that her chest injuries were serious, that her lungs might have filled with blood the second the stretcher lifted, that all that would be left for him to do was hold her. ‘Possible fractured sternum,’ Heath added, palpating her chest wall. ‘But no flail chest.’

  ‘She’s bleeding out in her abdomen.’ Sav’s voice was amazingly controlled. ‘We need to get her out, stat.’

  And they did.

  The heroics they had prepared for didn’t need to be put into action. Isla needed more blood, more oxygen, but most of all she needed to be in Theatre.

  Sav held her head, commanding from the top, keeping her neck in line as hands lifted her slowly out to the waiting stretcher, oblivious to the crowds gathered on the pavement being kept back by the police. Only as they lowered her onto the stretcher and wheeled her to the waiting ambulance did he finally let go and allow Heath to take over. Quite simply, he couldn’t do it any more, couldn’t be her doctor for another minute, just needed to be her husband.

  ‘Into Resus, guys!’ Heath was giving the orders, pushing the blood through as the ambulance tore through the streets, sirens from the police escort mingling with the ambulance’s own, the speed that had almost killed her the only thing that could save her now. And not one person present gave it a thought. The sole mission was to get Isla where she needed to be.

  It was Sav’s turn now to glimpse Isla’s hell.

  To sit in a bland, beige interview room and not have a clue what was going on. To brace yourself at every footstep, to choke back tears as the door opened and a quick glimpse and a kiss was all you could get as they raced her up to Theatre.

  To finally pick up the telephone and make the calls.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘HEY!’ Dark eyes smiled gently down at her, that beautiful expressive mouth trembling into a tender smile as slowly the world came back into focus. ‘What took you so long?’

  ‘Sav!’ Tears were filling in Isla’s eyes as realization crept in. Appalled, not just at what she’d been through but Sav, too, and the boys. ‘The boys—’

  ‘Are fine,’ Sav broke in. ‘I went home and told them and they’ve been in to see you, but just for a moment.’

  ‘They’ve been here?’

  It was too much, much too much. The thought of Luke and Harry seeing her like this, the fear they must be going through, but Sav understood her concerns without her even having to voice them. ‘I told them very gently, I told them you were going to be OK, but they really needed to see you for themselves.’

  She gave a tiny, glum nod of understanding, screwing her eyes closed against the tears but opening them again as Sav tentatively continued.

  ‘I figured after what happened with…with Casey, they wouldn’t believe you were OK till they saw you for themselves. I’ll bring them back in the morning.’

  And, he’d said it, had said the one word she’d needed to hear, the one word that would keep Casey alive for all of them. Her eyes filled with emotion and gratitude as his hand tightened around hers.

  ‘How’s Ted?’

  ‘Doing well,’ Sav answered. ‘They got him straight into Resus and made a burr hole. He had a large blood clot pressing on his brain, but they got it out in time. He’s still heavily sedated, but his responses are good and they’re pretty optimistic he’ll be OK.’

  ‘Physically perhaps.’ Isla shrugged. ‘We couldn’t do anything for Doug, we just had to lie there and listen.’ Tears trickled down her sore, swollen cheeks into her hair, matted still with blood, but as Sav stared down at her, he could only think that she’d never looked more beautiful.

  ‘How do you feel?’ he asked gruffly, clearly awkward at having taken the giant step forward and saying Casey’s name.

  ‘Sore.’

  ‘That’s what happens when you go hurtling around in an ambulance,’ Sav teased lightly, then his voice grew more serious. ‘You had a lacerated liver, Isla. That’
s what all the blood loss was from. I know a lacerated liver isn’t exactly fun, but the surgeons repaired it and you are going to be OK, which is a lot better than it could have been. For a while in there it looked as if the bleeding might have been…’

  ‘From my chest?’

  Sav gave a small nod, his eyes closing for a second in horror at what could have been. ‘You’ve been lucky.’

  ‘I don’t feel very lucky.’ Her voice wobbled, tears breaking into the strong façade she’d almost created. ‘Why us?’

  It was the first time she’d said it, the first time she’d given in to her anger at the world, a world that just seemed to keep dishing it out. ‘Why do these things happen to us, Sav?’

  There was no response to that, not really. Isla knew it but, not for the first time, Sav surprised her, came up with an answer when she’d have sworn there wasn’t one.

  ‘Because we can take it,’ he said softly. ‘Because we’re stronger than we think. Sometimes it might be me leaning on you, Isla, and sometimes it will be the other way round, but together we can take whatever the world throws at us. Who knows? Maybe good times are just around the corner.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Isla mumbled, not entirely convinced, but there was an urgency in her voice as she turned her head to face him. ‘I’m sorry for going to see a solicitor, Sav, sorry you had to find out from Heath. I still can’t really believe that I went.’

  ‘Let’s just put it behind us, shall we?’

  ‘Can you?’ Isla asked, finally relaxing a touch as he gave a slow, definite nod, but an attempt at a cough caused more pain than she’d have thought possible.

  ‘You’ve got a fractured sternum, too,’ Sav added, as if it was just another item on the shopping list of pain. ‘That’s why it hurts so much to cough.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Isla sighed, resting back on her pillow, tired, so tired all of a sudden.

  ‘A few bruises,’ Sav carried on, ‘a nasty cut on your cheek, but the plastic surgeons sutured it, they’ve done a great job…’ His voice was in the distance, lulling her off to sleep as the list grew ever longer. ‘And the baby’s still hanging in there.’

  ‘Baby?’ Her eyes snapped open. She was very much awake now, struggling to sit up and coughing violently, horror drenching her as she recalled the forgotten conversation in the ambulance as Heath had tried to get her to remember the date of her last period.

  ‘Lie back,’ Sav soothed, gently pushing her shoulders down, waiting for the racking cough to abate, for her to catch her breath and calm down. But there was absolutely no hope of calming down with what Sav said next. ‘A big baby!’ Tears were swimming in those gorgeous expressive eyes of his, a smile breaking out on that tired, strained face that had been through so much. He gazed down at his wife, moved a touch closer on the side of the bed to hold her gently as he carried on talking. ‘You’re nearly halfway there, Isla, eighteen to nineteen weeks.’

  ‘Oh, no, all that running, the accident…! That’s terrible…’ Panic, utter panic flooded her, but Sav was holding her, soothing her, reassuring her, as only Sav could.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said firmly. ‘That means you’re past the first trimester, well past it actually, and the baby’s that much bigger and stronger.’

  ‘How, though?’ she begged. ‘How could I not have known? I don’t even have a bump.’

  ‘You do, Isla.’ His hand gently moved hers to her abdomen, carefully avoiding the painful scar from her surgery. ‘Not a very big one, admittedly, but there’s a little life going on in there, and it would seem it’s determined to hang in, despite the odds.’

  She did have a bump. Isla could feel the small wedge of muscle as her hand tentatively pushed down. Oh, nothing like she’d had with the twins, nothing like she’d had with Casey, but there beneath her fingers were the first tiny glimmers of hope she’d felt in a long while.

  ‘How could I not have known?’ Isla whispered. ‘Nineteen weeks, I mean. I’m nineteen weeks pregnant and I didn’t even know.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Declan, the obstetrician,’ Sav added. ‘And apparently it’s not that abnormal. For some women who’ve lost a child, it’s easier to bury facts than to face them, and if you don’t believe the psychological take on things, maybe you just had too much going on in that crazy head of yours to take it in.’ He watched her blink in surprise, that face, still pretty despite the bruises and scar, shaking on the pillow as she tried to take it all in. ‘I think you did know, Isla.’

  She shook her head angrily, appalled that he might think she would hide something like this from him, but Sav pressed on.

  ‘Not consciously, of course, but somewhere deep inside I think you knew that things had to change. And you were right. I have shut you out, Isla. Things had to come to a head if we were going to give a new baby the love and devotion it deserves. Maybe that’s why you went to see a solicitor…’

  It made sense.

  For the first time the world actually made sense.

  ‘I’ll never tell him, of course,’ Sav said, ‘but Heath actually did us both a favour.’

  ‘He was great at the accident.’ Isla dragged her mind away from her own problems for a moment and thought about the man who had taken his gloves off and held her hand when the world had been so scary. ‘He was great, Sav. Heath really is a good doctor. Maybe he just lost his way a little bit.’

  ‘I can understand that.’ Sav nodded. ‘He was devastated when his wife left him and I guess losing out on the consultant’s position only made him feel worse. Anyway, he came good in the end, which is just as well, considering what’s around the corner for him.’

  ‘A consultant’s position?’ Isla frowned. ‘But there isn’t room for another. You said—’

  ‘Acting consultant,’ Sav corrected her. ‘For a few months at least, and then when we get back, if he’s done a good job, I’ll make damn sure that Martin makes room for him.’

  ‘Get back?’ Drugs, pain, emotion, exhaustion were all creeping in now, making it impossible to keep up, her eyes so heavy she had to struggle to keep them open. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To Spain,’ Sav whispered, kissing her eyes closed, talking softly all the while. ‘When you’re well enough, I’m going to take some long service leave. We’ll fly your mum and dad out and we’re all going to stay at my parents’, soak in the sun, eat more than we should, fish with the boys and talk. Talk about us and about Casey and how much we love him and how we’re going to get better…’ She didn’t know if she was awake or asleep, if this was all some delicious dream. ‘We’re going to have our bebé in Spain—a little muchacha or muchacho. I don’t care which, boy or girl will be wonderful.’

  It sounded wonderful.

  No need to open her eyes, no need to do anything except lie there with Sav holding her and picture a dream that might, just might become a reality. But one thing was troubling her, one little thing that she had to know before she finally closed her eyes and slept.

  ‘Sav.’ Peeling her eyes open, she squinted to focus. He was still there, still smiling softly down at her, still loving her as he always, always would.

  ‘What’s Spanish for push?’

  EPILOGUE

  EMPUJE.

  It would stay in her mind for ever.

  ‘Empuje, Isla.’

  ‘No puedo,’ she’d said over and over, screaming it louder and louder, but either she’d got her words muddled up or no one had really been listening. ‘I can’t!’ she’d groaned to the enthusiastic midwives and doctor. ‘It’s too hard. Mas fuerte!’

  Sitting on the veranda, or mirador as Sav’s mum called it, Isla stared at the dark mass of curls, the little pink face snuggled into her breast, scarcely able to believe she was really here.

  And not just that her daughter was finally here, not just that she was holding little Sophia to breasts that ached to feed, in arms that ached to hold a child, but that she was here in Sav’s home, happy, really happy, sitting watching the late afternoon sun dipping to the hor
izon, the sparkling Mediterranean Sea glittering before her. And undoubtedly most beautiful of all, Sav wandering back along a sandy dusty path, Harry firmly entrenched on his shoulders as Luke ran ahead, clutching a handful of fish.

  They missed him.

  Every moment of every day they missed Casey, and Sophia couldn’t, didn’t fill that gap, nothing ever would.

  Isla knew and always would, as Sav wandered back with his sons, that there should be another little guy racing ahead, or ambling behind, a head of auburn curls catching the sun.

  But there wasn’t.

  And they were learning to live with it.

  Learning to hold on to each other through the dark times and embrace the good times.

  Good times.

  ‘We’ve sold a fish!’ Luke was so excited he could barely get the words out, his sun-kissed body covered in sand, his smile as wide as his face. ‘Señora Casta said they needed extra pes—pes—pescados for the restaurant tonight.

  ‘That means fish,’ he added, proudly holding up a fistful of notes. ‘We’re going to count it, see how much we’ve made. Come on, Harry!’

  Harry jumped off Sav’s shoulders and popped a quick kiss on the top of Sophia’s head and an even quicker one in the vague direction of Isla’s cheek, before following his brother excitedly inside, the last few weeks in Spain having served not only to bring him out of his shell but propelling him at full speed into the wonderful, carefree world that a seven-year-old should inhabit, and Harry was embracing it.

  ‘They’ve had a great day.’ Sav grinned.

  ‘It sounds it.’ Isla laughed. ‘Did you set it up?’

  ‘No!’ Sav said, but his eyes were on Sophia, waiting patiently for Isla to finish burping her then holding his arms out for a long-awaited cuddle with his daughter. ‘They really did want more fish. We only had one that was big enough for her to buy, but the boys are delighted! Guess where they want to go tomorrow?’ He groaned, but it was a feeble protest. Every other part of him was smiling.

  ‘Where’s everyone?’

  ‘Gone for a walk. I can’t believe how well they all get on!’