A Doctor's Christmas Family

by Meredith Webber

  Bill’s explanation was clear and concise, though his voice sounded like a gravel pit.

  ‘Then I’ll take care of her. As her doctor, I mean. You’re just a parent now,’ Esther told him, as staff rallied, shifting one of the less ill patients so Chloe could have a room of her own, bringing up a crib from Paediatrics.

  Bill nodded, and his lack of argument made Esther realise just how exhausted he must be, having been up all night with his sick child.

  ‘Go and have a sleep in the on-duty room,’ Esther told him. ‘Chloe’s too sick to know if you’re here or not, and it will be easier on you if you’re out of the way while I take blood and start an IV for her.’

  Bill looked at her as if he wasn’t sure who she was, but Jill took his arm and led him away, telling him he needed food and rest, shepherding him out of the ward.

  ‘Now, listen, Chloe,’ Esther said to the sick baby. ‘We’re going to get you better here—and fast. I’m Esther. You’ve met me before, we played with the toys, and you and I are going to fight this, darling one.’

  She slid her hand down the baby’s feverish face, then started work, taking blood for testing and for typing and cross-matching, the first to confirm it was dengue, and to check on what needed replacing most urgently, and the second so she could have whole blood standing by, should Chloe need it.

  Although only one patient had suffered encephalitis and convulsions as the disease had progressed, it was Esther’s worst fear for Chloe. It was terrifying to think this beautiful child might be brain-damaged as a result of the illness, and if Esther felt such anxiety at the possibility, what must Bill be feeling?

  She worked steadily, starting fluids as Chloe was obviously dehydrated, calibrating everything she gave her carefully, aware this was a very small person they were treating.

  ‘We need an extra staff person,’ she said to the sister who took Janet’s place on the morning shift. ‘An RN at least, to sit with Chloe. And, no, it’s not because she’s the temporary boss’s daughter, but because she’s an infant and you know how quickly their condition can change.’

  The woman nodded and said she’d find someone. Leaving Jill, who’d offered to stay on until more help arrived, with Chloe, Esther checked on the other patients, ordering more platelets for Mr Risk and suggesting that the young boy, Ryan, could be discharged later that day.

  Then, satisfied all was well for the moment, she poked her head in the door of the on-duty room and saw Bill fast asleep. For a brief few seconds she allowed herself to look at him, her heart aching for him as the dark stubble on his chin and the almost purple shadows beneath his eyes told her how tired he was. More than anything else she longed to take away his pain—though she knew this was impossible.

  No one could carry pain for another.

  She walked away, wondering if she should phone Gwyneth to say Bill was sleeping here. Though Gwyneth had probably been up most of the night as well, and she might be sleeping now. Better to leave it for a while, Esther decided, returning to the desk in the middle of the ward to see if the test results were back.

  They were—well, not the results of the ELISA test which would, with the diminished capacity of the hospital, have to wait until technical day staff were here, but blood values and blood type.

  Chloe was blood group B, rare but the note said there was blood, cross-matched—tested for compatibility—available for her. Marcie must also have been B to have passed this second rarest of the blood groups to her daughter. Maybe Marcie had some Asian or African heritage, where B group blood was more common. Bill was O, the universal type, something Esther remembered because he’d insisted on giving blood to her when she’d lost the baby.

  The thought made her square her shoulders. She’d lost one baby of Bill’s, so Chloe had to live. It was as simple as that.

  Back in Chloe’s room, Jill had handed over to a young nurse, who was sponging the little form with gentle, soothing movements.

  ‘Bill used to leave her in the crèche sometimes when my son was there,’ the young woman said, looking up at Esther with tears in her eyes. ‘She was such a lively little girl, and look at her now.’

  Chloe’s eyes were open and, though she was looking at Esther, there was no spark of recognition. Maybe she should phone Gwyneth and get her up here, she thought, but before she could decide, something else struck her. She turned to the nurse.

  ‘The crèche! Where’s the crèche?’

  The nurse looked startled, suggesting Esther’s question had been more a demand.

  ‘On the ground floor. It was positioned there so the children could play outside. There’s a wonderful play area, with shadecloth sails over the sandpit and water-play areas.’

  ‘Watch the baby, and get the desk to page me if they need me. I won’t be long.’

  Esther shot out of the ward, pulling off her protective clothing as she went. She jabbed the elevator button, then, as both the units were on the ground floor, decided she’d be faster running down the stairs.

  In the foyer, a sign she’d never noticed indicated the crèche was beyond the little gift shop, and Esther headed that way. With the city emptied of most of its population, it wasn’t surprising to find the two carers present had only three children to mind.

  ‘Normally, we’ve a staff of five and up to twenty kids a day, with two more staff in the babies’ room and up to six babies at a time,’ the older woman explained to Esther, but she wasn’t taking a lot of notice of explanations, looking around, seeing the fly screens on all the windows.

  But through the windows she could see shrubs and bushes in the outdoor play area, perfect hiding places for mosquitoes, and if toys were left outside, maybe forgotten under a bush, little plastic buckets or cups filled with water from the rain, mosquitoes would have a perfect breeding ground.

  ‘Do you check the area for discarded toys every day—make sure there’s nothing that can hold water left outside, spray for mosquitoes and put repellent on the children?’

  She fired the questions at the women who looked startled, then comprehension and with it horror dawned on the face of the older woman.

  ‘A child’s sick with this dengue? A child from our crèche?’

  Esther wasn’t surprised to find they knew about the dengue. They’d have known even without the radio messages about using repellent, because hospital grapevines worked so well.

  ‘Chloe Jackson was admitted this morning.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ the women exclaimed in unison, then the leader took over explanations while the other muttered, ‘Poor Bill!’

  ‘Chloe’s always in the babies’ room and they haven’t been taken outside since Hugo. In fact, we’ve had so few children coming in, and the weather’s been so lousy, we’ve rarely gone outside in the last fortnight, and when we do we use repellent—on the children and ourselves.’

  ‘I really thought you would,’ Esther said, ‘but I needed to see the place. And though dengue isn’t confirmed with Chloe, I’m sure that’s what it is. She was here yesterday—’ was it only yesterday? ‘—and she would have been infectious then. By that I mean if she was bitten by a mosquito at that stage, then that particular insect is now incubating the disease to pass it on to someone else. Maybe another child. Do you ever get mosquitoes inside?’

  This time the younger woman answered.

  ‘We’d be dishonest if we said no. We do, but we kill them as soon as we hear or see them. We don’t like to spray too much in here. So many children these days have allergies, and those that don’t are subjected to far too many chemicals in their food and environment. We try not to add more, but since the outbreak we’ve been extra aware of the risks the little beasties carry.’

  ‘You should spray the rooms well before you leave tonight, and just in case one escaped your notice, you might warn parents to be on the lookout for symptoms in their children. Same symptoms as mild flu, but if they run a temperature at all, get them to a doctor.’

  Esther left the women discussing the proble
m and made her way, by elevator this time, back up to the fourth floor. Bill had been trying to avoid panic among the sparse population of the depleted city, but the parents of the children using the crèche deserved to know their children might be at risk. And even if no mosquito had bitten Chloe at the crèche when she’d been incubating the disease, she had been bitten somewhere, some time, to contract it.

  The dreadful thought that she might be the first of a number of ill children struck Esther as she walked back into the ward to find Bill by Chloe’s crib.

  ‘You said you’d watch her,’ he said as she walked in, and though she knew it was exhaustion and anxiety feeding his temper, she also knew she couldn’t let him get away with this behaviour.

  ‘Hey! She’s being watched. With you out of action—and don’t tell me you’re not—I’m in charge not only of Chloe and this entire ward but also of trying to find out what’s happening here. Chloe’s right out of the loop as far as the hot spot of the epidemic’s concerned. I’ve just been down to the crèche in case she picked it up there and other children might be about to fall ill.’

  She saw what little colour Bill had in his cheeks fade to an ashen grey.

  ‘Dear God,’ he whispered. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. If we have more children getting sick…’

  He bowed his head in his hands, and his shoulders slumped forward in an attitude of such dejection it was all Esther could do not to go to him and take him in her arms, offering the comfort of her body in this time of his need.

  But there was no time. She had to eradicate this before it spread further, and she had to check on her other patients, and then there was Gwyneth. Was she sitting by the phone, waiting to hear news of the baby she adored?

  ‘Have you contacted your mother?’ she asked Bill, knowing from his straightening posture he was gathering himself back together.

  He turned to Esther, frowning for a moment, then shook his head.

  ‘I should have thought…’ Guilt sharpened his voice.

  There’d been too much of that around lately, Esther thought as he added, ‘I’ll phone her now.’

  ‘No, she might be sleeping.’

  Esther glanced at her watch and was surprised to see it wasn’t yet nine o’clock.

  Nine o’clock!

  ‘Give me your keys and I’ll slip over there. That way, if she is asleep, I can leave a note and not disturb her,’ she said to Bill. ‘It won’t take long and with any luck I’ll catch Byron at the same time and get him to go on with the questioning out at Robinson. I’ve got forms made out, so all he has to do is fill in the answers.’

  Bill didn’t argue, any thought of not involving the corporal in the questioning washed from his mind by his baby’s illness. He passed Esther the keys, then turned back to Chloe.

  No slight pressure of fingers in the exchange, no goodbye even, but what could she expect? Remorse would be dogging him for not being at home earlier the previous evening, and remorse liked to apportion blame, so in his head Esther was equally at fault.

  She sighed as she made her way back down to the foyer, but once outside she couldn’t help but cheer up. The heavy clouds had rolled away, leaving gleaming sunshine in their wake. The brightness and warmth softened the devastation of the scene around her, and she knew it would bring ease to the battered spirits of the people who toiled to set the city back to rights.

  It was hot—sauna hot as the sun drew moisture from the sodden soil—but heat was cleansing.

  And conducive to mosquito breeding, she reminded herself as she unlocked not Bill’s car but Gwyneth’s—parked in Bill’s space and recognisable because it had been parked next to his in the apartment car park.

  Back at the apartment building, a woman was sweeping the downstairs foyer. She introduced herself to Esther as Margie.

  ‘I do the cleaning in all the foyers and round the pool area and I do cleaning for some of the apartment tenants as well,’ she explained.

  ‘You do a good job,’ Esther told her, not wanting to be rude but anxious to check on Gwyneth then get back to the hospital. ‘I’ll stop and talk some other time—right now I’m in a rush. If a soldier comes in, could you ask him to wait? Thanks.’

  She hurried into the lift, then shifted from foot to foot as it slowly rose to the highest level.

  There was no answer to her light tap on the door, so she unlocked it and went in. They could do with Margie up here, she thought, surveying the evidence of Bill’s sleepless night in the living room. Coffee-cups, baby bottles, wet clothes and discarded diapers were littered everywhere. Gwyneth must be asleep. She’d never have let a room stay this untidy for a few minutes, let alone hours.

  Deciding she could spare a little time cleaning up the worst of the mess before she left, Esther made her way quietly down past the room designated hers. Opposite Chloe’s room was a door, but pushing it open she caught the male scent of it—pine and earth—and knew it was Bill’s. Gwyneth’s must be the last one off the corridor.

  She was right about that, but wrong about everything else. Gwyneth wasn’t sleeping but unconscious, lying across the bed in a pool of bloody vomit.

  Esther lifted the phone, grateful to find a list of emergency numbers beside it, and dialled directly for an ambulance, then she set about cleaning up the desperately ill woman, thinking how typical of Gwyneth it was that she’d not mentioned even feeling slightly ill, though she must have felt sick for days. She’d simply soldiered silently on, doing her duty to her son and his baby daughter.

  Though she did it out of love more than duty, Esther reminded herself as she bathed the woman’s face, unfamiliar in its slackness, and found a clean nightdress to put on her. Esther knew her well enough to know she’d be mortified if she regained consciousness and found she was wearing a soiled nightgown.

  Gwyneth’s eyelids were fluttering open as the ambulancemen arrived.

  ‘You’re going to hospital. Bill’s there. He’ll look after you,’ Esther told her. To the men, she added, ‘She needs fluids fast. Can you start an IV and hook her up to a bag of Ringer’s before you leave here?’

  Gwyneth looked wildly around, grabbing Esther’s hand and holding tightly to it.

  ‘I can’t go to hospital—there’s Chloe,’ she said, almost incoherent with fever and anxiety, barely noticing the men who lifted her onto the wheeled stretcher and began to work on her other arm.

  ‘Chloe’s already there. We’re looking after her,’ Esther assured the frightened woman. ‘She’s going to be all right, and so are you.’ She paused then bent down and kissed Gwyneth on the cheek. ‘That’s a promise,’ she said.

  She waited until the ambulancemen manoeuvred the stretcher into the lift, then returned to the apartment. Five minutes, that was all it would take to throw the dirty bed things in the wash and do a superficial clean-up.

  She grabbed the phone, dialled the hospital number, asked for the ICU and got the sister she’d met earlier.

  ‘I’ve more bad news for Bill,’ she explained. ‘His mother’s ill. She’s on her way in now in an ambulance. I’m following and will take over her care as soon as I get there, but you’ll need to notify A and E she’s coming and get someone there to do the admittance procedures and also stabilise her before sending her up to you. Bill shouldn’t be treating his relatives.’

  Not that he wouldn’t, Esther acknowledged as she replaced the phone then found gloves under the kitchen sink and began to bundle up the dirty laundry.

  It took six minutes, but to a non-discerning eye the place didn’t look too bad. Downstairs, she found Byron waiting patiently, chatting to Margie who was polishing the front windows.

  Esther explained the crisis situation, then what she wanted him to do. She led him down to the basement, where she headed for Bill’s car. She’d swapped keys upstairs because she’d left her questionnaires in the bigger vehicle the night before. Byron was nodding at her instructions and asking sensible, appropriate questions that made her thankful she had an intelligent offsider.<
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  ‘Margie was telling me she lives out at Robinson,’ he said. ‘She saw us on the telly last night.’

  ‘Hot damn!’ Esther muttered. ‘I hadn’t thought of Margie, or others like her who might be working in other parts of town. We’ve got to do more than find out where it’s coming from. We’ve got to isolate all potential carriers then get them away while we do a massive mosquito eradication programme, or people are going to be returning to the city and walking into a potential death-trap.’

  She was speaking more to herself than to Byron, and when she realised he was still standing there beside her, she fluttered her hands at him.

  ‘Go! I’ll be at the hospital, on the fourth floor. But you don’t have to come up there. When you get back, ask someone at the front desk to call me down. We’ve got to get on to this and fast, Byron, before more people die.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  RUNNING on adrenaline now, Esther drove back to the hospital, stopped in A and E to check on Gwyneth, then, as Bill came charging in, she left, touching him briefly on the arm and telling him she’d be upstairs.

  She doubted he’d even noticed her presence, his eyes on his mother, lying pale and depleted-looking on the stretcher, while the doctor on duty checked her out, writing down his findings on the admittance sheet. At least Bill was there to give them all the personal information.

  Back upstairs, Esther checked on the status of the seriously ill patients with the sister on the desk. They had four now, five with Chloe, who were attached to ICU monitors, and another seven, no, six now Ryan was going, patients who were less ill and had been moved down from the sixth floor.

  Esther began to wonder if her idea of putting all the dengue patients into isolation down here had been as sensible as it had seemed at the time. With the sixth-floor transferees doubled up two to a room, they had one room left, but Gwyneth would need twenty-four-hour monitoring, so she’d take that one, and they’d be in trouble if more cases appeared.

  But other worries were bombarding her brain. Gwyneth and Chloe falling ill suggested the dengue was spreading beyond the people living out at Robinson and a few of their relations who lived in other parts of the city. She had a responsibility to the patients in hospital, but an even greater responsibility to the people working to clean up the city and—should the disease spread further—to the people of the entire state.