The Heart Surgeon's Proposal

by Meredith Webber

  She was talking sense, but Maggie knew she was also waiting for a contribution from the woman who was supposedly engaged to Phil—herself. But she had nothing to contribute. She loved him, and knew more about him now than she had when they’d moved in together—knew things about him she doubted many people knew. But most of what went on in his head was a complete mystery.

  There were no lights on at Maggie’s place when she and Annie walked home an hour later.

  ‘They must both be down at my place,’ Annie said. ‘Come home and have a bite to eat, and find out what’s happening.’

  Not wanting to go into the dark, empty house, Maggie agreed, although she doubted Phil would be at Annie’s, a doubt confirmed when they walked in.

  ‘He’s taken leave, packed a bag and left for the airport. Reckons if he’s standing there, a seat will turn up on a flight to London sooner or later.’

  Alex explained this while he poured them each a glass of white wine.

  You’ll just have to forgive me this lapse, Maggie told the baby, taking the glass and sipping gratefully at the wine.

  ‘Why London?’ someone said, only realising who the someone was when Annie and Alex answered together.

  ‘Because his family’s there,’ they chorused, and Maggie knew she couldn’t tell them he didn’t have a concept of ‘family’ in the way most people did.

  But, still, they were his family, and maybe in times of stress everyone turned to family, no matter how dys-functional they were.

  He certainly hadn’t turned to her!

  Although he’d left her a note.

  ‘Take care of yourself, Mags. I’ll be back. Love, Phil.’

  Love, Phil! Her brothers signed their emails with ‘Love, Jonah’ and ‘Love, Ryan’, even Tom occasionally added a ‘love’ to his sign-off ‘T’. That kind of ‘love’ meant nothing.

  ‘Not quite the kind of note you clutch to your heart and treasure for ever!’ Maggie muttered, but she did fold it into four and tuck it into her pocket, patting it from time to time as she walked up the stairs to prepare for bed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SOMEHOW Maggie got through the next few days. Even before the court case drama blew up, Alex had asked Annie to juggle their operating load so he could give Phil some time off, so only simple operations were scheduled.

  But having a less frenetic workload gave her more time to think, and she found herself missing Phil so badly she began to wonder if love had to be a two-way street for a marriage to work.

  To make matters worse, the hospital’s insurance company had appointed investigators, who were gathering information for a legal defence against the negligence claims. With Phil gone, they were targeting herself, Rachel and Kurt, making it obvious they were gunning for Alex’s team and willing to throw the unit to the wolves in order to save the hospital’s reputation.

  ‘It’s stupid,’ Alex said, when he and Annie called in for a coffee after dinner. Knowing Maggie was lonely, they’d brought Minnie with them and suggested she stay with Maggie for a while. ‘The hospital’s defence team should be concentrating on the facts—on things like statistics showing the number of babies born with such defective hearts die anyway. On statistics showing the results of operations on neonates. They should be doing that, not badgering my staff about what happened during the op.’

  ‘Their story is they have to know everything that happened because the other side could bring up something, and if they don’t know about it, they can’t argue against it.’

  ‘Seems a strange way to be doing things,’ Annie said, reaching out to pat Minnie who was snuggled up on Maggie’s lap.

  But Alex looked interested.

  ‘Was there anything went on? Do you think there could have been a problem during the op?’

  ‘The baby was on bypass for a long time. Kurt mentioned it at the time. And Rachel manually kept his heart beating just before he went on pump, but I’ve seen her do that when you and Phil were operating.’

  Maggie paused and looked at Alex.

  ‘I don’t think we should be looking to blame our colleagues, even those from other hospitals,’ she said quietly.

  Alex nodded.

  ‘You’re right, but neither should we cover up mistakes. That’s happened too often in the past in the world of medicine. The old joke that doctors can bury their mistakes has a lot of truth in it. Be fair, be honest in all you say, but try also to be detached. Tell it like it was without worrying about consequences. Think of the consequences of covering up a colleague’s incompetence.’

  Maggie nodded.

  ‘I know what you’re saying, and I’ve been totally honest about my recollections of the op. I’ve let them see my notes, but I can’t and won’t make judgements about the other staff’s abilities or conduct. I know what I did and what Evan, who was the anaesthetist in charge, did, and I watched other stuff from time to time, and heard things like Kurt’s comment, but I wouldn’t have a clue if the surgeon tied the right kind of knot or not.’

  Annie laughed, easing the tension that had grown in the room, but no amount of laughter could ease the tension that pervaded the unit over the next week.

  ‘We can’t go on like this for the rest of the year, or for however long it takes for the case to get to court,’ Maggie said to Annie as they walked the two dogs in the park the following Saturday. ‘Everyone’s so up-tight, something’s got to give.’

  ‘At least Pete and his father are both on the mend,’ Maggie reminded her, although she too had wondered how long they could go on before something fired the tension into an explosion that would tear the whole unit apart.

  ‘It would have been easier if the hospital administrators had stuck by us and tackled the case head on, rather than trying to weasel out of it by blaming us.’

  ‘Why can’t they blame Ellis?’ Maggie asked. ‘He’s a consultant, not on staff.’

  ‘Because he’s the one that suggested the parents sue. I imagine they were so upset he used the suggestion to divert them. Probably didn’t think they would, because he’s not going to come out of this too well.’

  ‘But it’s Phil whose career will really suffer,’ Maggie said, the sadness she carried within her pressing against her breastbone so she had to hold her hand against it for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ Annie said, finishing the conversation, because there was nothing more to say.

  Somewhere someone was making a terrible noise. At first Maggie thought it was in her dreams, but when she finally shook herself out of a deep sleep, she realised it was Minnie, barking furiously at the front door.

  Clambering out of bed, Maggie grabbed her old chenille dressing-gown and wrapped it around her body. A quick glance at the clock told her it was well past midnight, and the fact that she could now hear knocking at the front door suggested it was unlikely to be a burglar asking to be let in.

  Downstairs, she quietened Minnie by picking her up, then she turned on the porch light and peered through the spyhole. A bit of a blue and red striped tie, white shirt and suit lapels came into view, but try as she may she couldn’t see a face.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called through the heavy door.

  ‘Callan Park.’

  She must be hearing things. Or the man wasn’t very good at aliases. Even people from Melbourne knew the old mental asylum in Sydney had been called Callan Park. These days it housed a number of small organisations, but that didn’t explain the man…

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Phil’s brother, Callum. Callum Park.’

  Oh!

  ‘Phil’s not here.’

  That wasn’t right, yelling such an unwelcoming statement through the door, but recent events had her dithering uncertainly.

  ‘Phil’s on his way,’ the stranger said. ‘We could only get one seat on the flight I came on, so he’s following. He’ll be here tomorrow morning but if you’d rather I went to a hotel, that’s all right. But I’ve sent the cab away…’

  Phil’s on his way. The words rang like
music in her ears and she opened the door.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Callum, who was frowning at her in exactly the way Phil so often did.

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said, his beautiful voice making the words seem special. ‘I should have phoned first, or asked Phil to phone. You really shouldn’t be letting strangers into your house at any time, let alone at one in the morning.’

  He looked so like Phil she smiled at him, and lifted Minnie higher for his inspection.

  ‘Not even when I have my fierce watchdog to protect me?’

  ‘Ah! This, I assume, is Minnie.’

  He reached out to fondle the squirming dog.

  ‘Why are you here? What’s happening? Where’s Phil been that he’s flying in in the morning?’

  ‘He’s been home,’ the man who looked like Phil said, then he leaned forward to kiss Maggie on the cheek. ‘To see his family,’ he added, then lifted his bag and looked expectantly at the steps. ‘Spare bedroom upstairs?’

  Totally bemused by now, Maggie nodded.

  ‘Last door on the left,’ she said. ‘The bed’s made up.’

  ‘Great!’ Callum announced, and he headed up the stairs. ‘I can never sleep on planes, no matter how long they make the bed.’

  Too awake—too excited—now to be able to consider sleeping, Maggie carried Minnie through to the kitchen, where she put the dog back in her basket, then opened the fridge, hoping to find something to munch on while she considered this latest development in her life.

  Though it wasn’t in her life, it was in Phil’s.

  His brother had come to visit—so what?

  But no amount of plain talking to herself would banish the feeling of excitement simmering inside her.

  Phil was coming back—that was part of it. But he was coming home as well, she felt sure of it.

  Then the wetness came, and she knew exactly what was happening. She rested her head on the door of the fridge and cried.

  Although her previous experiences of miscarriage had been so long ago, she still remembered how it would progress. She couldn’t stay leaning on the fridge for much longer.

  On leaden legs she made her way up to her bathroom, turned on the shower, stripped off her clothes and stood under the cascading water while her hopes and dreams, and an embryo barely three centimetres long, were washed away.

  Her tears mingled with the cleansing water—tears for the baby, for Phil and what might, in time, have been. Then she began to shiver—the water was running cold. She left the refuge of the shower stall, dried herself, pulled on a comfortable old flannel nightdress and crawled into bed.

  Later today—no, today was Sunday, tomorrow—she’d see a doctor, book in for a curette, do what had to be done and maybe even arrange for tests to find out why she couldn’t carry a baby.

  Though she doubted she’d worry about the tests…

  She doubted it would ever be important.

  Her heart felt as if the blood was seeping out of it—her life washing away with that of the tiny embryo.

  She woke to find the day had begun without her, bright sunshine streaming through her window.

  Too bright, too sunshiny! It should have been raining—gloomy as her mood. Dull as the ache in her chest.

  She pulled on her dressing-gown and headed downstairs. At least she could drink real coffee now. Cups and cups of it.

  And focus on her career again—on saving the lives of other babies.

  She was at the bottom of the stairs before she heard the voices and remembered she had a visitor. But voices? Was he talking to himself?

  Minnie! He’d be talking to Minnie.

  But such common-sense explanations didn’t cut it with her body, which was showing all the signs it usually did when Phil was in the vicinity.

  Phil—what would Phil think?

  He’d be relieved.

  He’d have to be.

  The thought made her even sadder and she swallowed hard.

  No self-pity!

  Neither would she dash back upstairs—to hide or even to change into something more attractive.

  Maggie continued doggedly on her way.

  Phil was sitting in his usual chair, Minnie on his lap, his brother opposite him, and, most surprising of all, Annie and Alex were also at the table.

  But it was Phil who saw her first, his face breaking into a smile that faded as she watched. Then he was on his feet, depositing Minnie on the floor, walking towards Maggie and taking her arm, guiding her out of the kitchen, out of earshot and away from watching eyes, then taking her in his arms and holding her close for a long, long minute.

  He cuddled her close, murmured her name then kissed her on the top of her head, before easing away so he could look at her.

  ‘Mags! What is it? Are you OK? Is it the baby?’

  Maggie couldn’t answer. Oh, there were heaps of things she’d have liked to say. Why should anything be wrong? would be a starter, and Why should you care about the baby? should follow straight after it. But her voice wouldn’t work and Phil must have realised it for he folded her once again into his arms and whispered, ‘Oh, love,’ in such a broken voice it was all she could do not to burst into tears all over again.

  ‘When did it happen?’ he asked, still holding her tightly.

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Damn that Ellis. I should have been here. Mags, I’m sorrier than I can ever say! Sorry I wasn’t here, but sorry too about the baby.’ His voice cracked as he added, ‘Our baby!’

  Maggie let him hold her, drawing strength from his arms and warmth from the genuine sense of loss she could hear in his voice. Then his arms tightened and he was talking again, saying things she’d never thought to hear—saying things she hardly dared believe.

  ‘But there’ll be other babies, Mags. For both of us—and if there aren’t then we’ll still have each other.’

  He tilted up her chin and kissed her on the lips.

  ‘We will have each other, won’t we?’ he whispered, his usually confident voice shaky with emotion. ‘Because I love you, Maggie Walsh, with all my heart and mind and soul. You asked me for my love once and I backed away, offered no guarantee, but that was before I realised how important you are to me—far more important than a fantasy cottage with fantasy roses climbing over the door. More important, Mags, than life itself.’

  He held her for a long time, rocking her back and forth, then he lifted her into his arms, carried her up the stairs and tucked her back into bed, taking control both of his emotions and the situation—being practical—talking all the time.

  ‘Stay there. You’re sheet-white. You don’t look after yourself properly. I’ll get you something. Coffee and toast? I’ll send the lot in the kitchen down to Annie’s house to talk and we’ll have this place to ourselves. Stay right there. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.’

  Maggie stared at him, still trying to make sense of what was happening.

  All of what was happening…

  ‘You love me?’ she whispered, and won a funny, twisted kind of smile from Phil.

  ‘So much you wouldn’t believe,’ he told her, the half-smile still hovering around his lips. ‘But food first. I’m famished, too. I don’t know how that can be because I did nothing but eat on the plane.’

  He bent and kissed her—hard—then left the room.

  Maggie stared up at the ceiling, wondering how one person could be so sad yet so happy at the same time. And she was really perfectly OK—physically—so why had she submitted to Phil’s fussing?

  Especially when a meeting of some importance was obviously going on downstairs.

  But Phil was here—he’d said he loved her and now he was bringing coffee and toast, so she snuggled down deeper into the bed and waited for him to come back.

  ‘Callum’s a barrister who did medicine first then switched to law so he’s become an expert in medico-legal work,’ Phil explained, much later, when he was lying back against the pillows on the other side of her bed.

&n
bsp; They’d talked about her miscarriage, established she’d do all the right things as far as seeing doctors went and held each other close again to ease the ache of loss. Then practicality had exerted itself and they’d demolished a large plate of toast and strawberry jam. Now Maggie was savouring her first real coffee in ages and watching the man she loved as he sought for the words he wanted to say to her.

  ‘You made me think of Cal,’ Phil added, turning so he could kiss Maggie’s cheek. ‘You and your talk of home and family. He’d been in my mind for a while—he and Laura, my sister. So when this blew up, I thought I’d go and see him, to talk about the case but also to talk about other things. About our upbringing and family and what it meant to him and Laura. The problem was, we hadn’t ever talked about it. We’d been close as children—united against the world when we were small—but then we all went off to boarding school and saw so little of each other that the sibling closeness seemed to fade away.’

  Maggie put her coffee cup on the bedside table and moved so she could hold his hand, her body pressed closer to his, although she was in the bed and he was on it.

  Phil kissed her cheek again, as if in thanks, then lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.

  ‘I let it fade away, Mags,’ he said. ‘I told myself it didn’t matter. Oh, I always saw Cal and Laura when I was in the UK—we’d have a drink, a meal, but that was it. We never talked.’

  Maggie turned to look at him and saw the tiredness of travel in his face, but below that there was warmth, as if he’d found something special that had been missing from his life for a long time.

  ‘You talked this time?’ she prompted quietly.

  Phil beamed at her.

  ‘Talked and talked, all three of us. We even dragged Mother in at the end and talked with her as well.’

  He hesitated and then added, ‘I found I had a family after all.’

  Maggie swallowed the lump in her throat—couldn’t blame hormones this time—and tried to concentrate on where this conversation had begun.