Dr. Campbell's Secret Son

by Anne Fraser

  ‘I want you and Calum to come with me.’

  ‘And you thought that seducing me was the best way to persuade me to throw everything I’ve worked for away? That once I’d been back in your bed, I couldn’t resist following you? Where was the discussion? When were my needs to be considered? Or Calum’s, for that matter?

  ‘Hey, I haven’t finished,’ Jamie protested.

  Incandescent with anger and something else—hurt and disappointment, not just for herself but for Calum—Sarah’s eyes fell on Jamie’s walking boots lying in a corner. Before she could stop herself she had grabbed one and flung it at him, narrowly missing his head.

  ‘Oh, but I think you—we—are finished,’ she said, turning on her heel. ‘Don’t even think about turning up at my place tomorrow. You can forget any family walks. From now on, if you want to see Calum you can arrange it through your solicitor, although how you are going to manage access from Africa is beyond me.’

  And with a last final glare at Jamie, who was regarding her with disbelief, she closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  Sarah used her key to creep into her mother’s flat. Calum lay on his back in the travel cot, arms flung above his head, abandoned in sleep. Her heart twisted as she looked down at her son while bending to smooth a lock of hair from his brow. What had he done to deserve a father who seemed as disinterested in him as hers had been in her?

  Calum seemed a little warm to her so she removed a blanket. She was reluctant to disturb him by picking him up to take him back to her flat so she switched on the baby monitor beside his bed instead. That way, if he woke during the night, or in the early hours of the morning, she’d hear him and with a bit of luck would get to him before he woke her mother. She spent a few more minutes with Calum before returning to her flat.

  Her heart thudded as she made out a tall figure standing by the front door. Instead of the kilt of the evening, Jamie was now dressed in faded jeans and a grey, thin, knit sweater.

  ‘I’m tired, Jamie. Whatever it is you’ve come to say, it can wait till morning.’

  ‘I wanted to make sure you got home OK. Besides, you didn’t let me finish what I was saying back there. Thank God my reflexes are still good.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘You nearly got me a cracker.’

  ‘Please, go, Jamie.’ She felt her throat close. ‘If you have any respect or regard for me at all, please, go.’

  ‘Not until I finish telling you what you wouldn’t let me back at the hotel.’

  ‘I don’t know what you could possibly have to say that will make any difference at all, but go on.’

  ‘I thought I could stay. I really did, SJ, but I spoke to Greg, my colleague at the hospital tonight, and they are really desperate. But it’s not just that. Something else has happened.’

  As succinctly as possible Jamie told Sarah about the conversation he’d had with Greg.

  ‘Don’t you see, SJ? Sibongele really needs me right now. If I tell him I’m leaving for good, there is no telling what he’ll do.’

  ‘And Calum. Doesn’t he need his father? I thought you promised, just a few hours ago, that you would never abandon him.’

  Jamie pulled his hand through his hair. Sarah felt a pang of sympathy as she took in the lines of tiredness and regret.

  ‘I meant what I said. I won’t leave him. That’s why you have to change your mind and come with me. Both of you. Please, SJ. Can’t you see it’s the only solution?’

  Sarah looked at him in despair.

  ‘Oh, Jamie, I wish I could. But I just can’t. Can’t you see what you are asking me is impossible? I understand about the boy. Really I do. And I do understand why you need to go back to see him and make sure he’s all right.’ Opening the door to her flat, she moved past him.

  ‘It’s up to you, Jamie. You have to choose. But it sounds to me as if you have made up your mind. And what’s worse, if you stay I’ll always feel guilty for forcing your hand. I don’t want you to come to resent me for making you do something you didn’t want to.’

  ‘Why can’t you trust me? What can’t you trust the feelings we have for one another? Come with me. Please.’ Jamie reached out and took Sarah by the arms. She could feel his fingers biting into her flesh. She looked at him, until at last he dropped his hands to his sides.

  ‘That’s always going to be the problem between us,’ she said sadly, moving away from him. ‘I don’t trust you. Not as far as loving me is concerned, and maybe not as far as Calum is concerned. Once trust is broken, that’s what happens. I realise that now. It’s too late. Without that trust, there can never be a future for us.’

  Jamie caught her by the arm. ‘I won’t accept that. I’m not going to allow you to throw away our chance for happiness. And you can’t tell me that back there in the hotel meant nothing to you.’

  ‘I’m only human, Jamie, as you’re finding out. And there’s a big difference between love and sex.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Jamie ground out between clenched teeth.

  ‘Right now I don’t care whether you believe me or not. And I’m too tired to discuss this right now. Accept it, Jamie. It’s over between us. We can be friends and colleagues—after all, we will always share Calum—but we will never be anything more.’

  Jamie dropped his hand, his mouth set in a stubborn line.

  ‘OK, I’ll go, but you and I will talk about this,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not going to give up. Tomorrow evening when I get back from my climb. We are going to go somewhere where we can be alone and uninterrupted. I’ll pick you up around seven.’ And before Sarah had a chance to protest he had disappeared back into the night.

  * * *

  The next day, Sarah thought that Calum still felt a little warm and her usually placid baby was fractious and out of sorts.

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken him to the wedding,’ Sarah said to her mother.

  ‘He’s probably just teething,’ her mother replied reassuringly.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Sarah said thoughtfully, ‘but I’m just going to check his temperature anyway.’

  Sarah took his temperature with a child thermometer. It was slightly raised, but not enough to cause concern. Maybe it was just teething or a mild bug. Somehow it was different when it was your own child. It was difficult to be objective. Much easier to tell whether it was something serious when it was somebody else’s baby.

  She decided to keep him indoors instead of the walk she had planned.

  But as the day wore on, Calum became increasingly irritable. He didn’t seem interested in his bottle and spent most of the day dozing in his mother’s arms. It’s just a mild bug, Sarah tried to reassure herself. If only she could ask Jamie. Not because he was Calum’s father but because she trusted him as a doctor, despite everything.

  Finally, mid-afternoon, she tried Jamie’s mobile. The message came back that the caller was unavailable. He was probably up a mountain where the signal couldn’t reach. Why was the man never around when she needed him? Instead, she sent him a text, asking him to call her when he returned home. If he was planning to pick her up at seven, he had obviously intended to be home before then.

  But by six-thirty Jamie still hadn’t called. Looking at Calum, she made a decision. Something was definitely wrong with her child. She phoned the hospital and asked them to page Dr Carty, the senior paediatrician at the hospital, and request that he call her at home.

  She had met him when he had attended the department for a specialist paediatric opinion. She had found him thorough and caring and had trusted his opinion implicitly. When Dr Carty returned her call a few minutes later, she explained Calum’s symptoms, trying to keep her voice calm and factual.

  ‘I think we should see him at the hospital straight away. Can you bring him or would you like me to send an ambulance?’

  Sarah was panic-stricken at his words. Had she waited too long? Had she put her child’s health at risk? Dr Carty obviously thought that there could be a serious problem.

  ‘I’m
only a short distance away. I’ll take him in my car. I can be there in ten minutes.’

  ‘I’ll meet you in A and E,’ was the brisk reply.

  Sarah bundled Calum into his outdoor suit. On her way out she stopped at her mother’s to tell her that she was taking Calum to the hospital. Jean had just come out of the shower and was still in her dressing-gown.

  ‘If you give me a minute, I’ll get dressed and come with you.’

  ‘I can’t wait, Mum. Follow me when you’re ready,’ Sarah flung over her shoulder, already heading for the car.

  Calum had stopped crying and had gone eerily quiet. As Sarah strapped him into his car seat, she knew for certain that there was something seriously wrong with her baby. She forced back tears of fear. It wouldn’t do her child any good if she were to panic. For his sake, she needed to keep calm and think rationally.

  As she was getting into the driver’s seat, Jamie appeared at the window.

  ‘Running away? Is the thought of dinner with me really that bad?’ he said, a smile curling his mouth. Then he peered closer. ‘Good God, Sarah, what is it?’

  ‘It’s Calum. He’s sick. I’m taking him to A and E. Dr Carty’s meeting us there.’

  ‘Get in the back with Calum. You’re in no state to drive,’ Jamie said, taking control. Sarah knew it was useless to protest. Besides, now Jamie was there, all she felt was an overwhelming sense of relief.

  As Jamie drove the short distance to the hospital, Sarah explained Calum’s symptoms.

  ‘It could be anything, Sarah,’ he said, but she could tell from his grim voice that he, too, was thinking the same as her. Meningitis. Almost unable to look, Sarah pulled up Calum’s outfit, searching for the tell-tale signs. She couldn’t be sure in the dim light cast by the streetlights, but she thought she could just make out the faintest of rashes. She felt terror grip her.

  ‘I think he’s developing a rash, Jamie.’ She could barely speak. Her jaw felt rigid with the effort of holding things together.

  ‘Hold on, Sarah. Everything’s going to be all right.’ But they both knew that if their diagnosis was correct, everything was far from all right.

  Jamie drew up in front of the A and E entrance. He leapt out of the car tossing the keys to a porter who was outside, having a break. ‘Park this somewhere,’ he ordered, lifting Calum out of his seat.

  There was something surreal about the evening, Sarah was thinking. Here she was back in her department, but instead of the usual familiarity it felt alien, frightening. Recognising Sarah and Jamie, one of the nursing staff, an experienced nurse called Mary, came over and held out her arms for Calum.

  ‘Dr Carty told us to expect you. He’s waiting in Resus. We’ll take Calum through for you. If you’d just take a seat?’

  Jamie ignored the nurses and strode towards Resus, Calum still in his arms and Sarah at his heels.

  ‘You’d be better waiting outside,’ Jamie said. ‘I’ll make sure he’s OK.’

  ‘I’m not leaving my son,’ Sarah retorted. ‘I know I can’t be involved in his care, but I’m not letting him out of my sight.’ She lifted her chin, praying that Jamie wouldn’t argue with her. She simply didn’t have the strength to fight him, too.

  ‘Fine, but you stay in the background.’ He turned to her, his dark eyes sombre. ‘I promise you, Sarah, I won’t let anything happen to our son.’

  Jamie reluctantly handed over his son to Mary, who placed Calum’s tiny body gently on a gurney. He was barely conscious and made no protest as Mary undressed his unresisting form.

  Sarah reached for Jamie’s hand and felt her fingernails dig into his palm. Jamie returned her squeeze reassuringly. ‘He’s in the best possible hands, SJ,’ he said, but she could see the worry in his eyes.

  Swiftly, one of the other nurses, who had introduced herself to the worried parents as Rosemary, attached the leads of the ECG monitor to Calum’s small chest and a pulse oximeter to his finger.

  ‘He’s tachycardic,’ Mary told Sarah, ‘but at least his oxygen saturation is normal.’

  It only took a couple of minutes for Dr Carty to arrive and carry out a thorough examination, but to Sarah it seemed like an eternity. The paediatrician lifted Calum’s head and Sarah knew that he, too, suspected meningitis. He shifted his attention to the rash covering the infant’s body. To Sarah’s frantic gaze it seemed as if the rash had become more prominent even since she had first noticed it in the car.

  Dr Carty turned to Jamie and Sarah. ‘I know you are worried that this might be meningitis, but we won’t know until we have carried out more tests. We’ll need to do a lumbar puncture, Paul,’ he ordered the junior doctor, who had joined the group in Resus. ‘Start IV antibiotics immediately. Could you also send off bloods for haematology, U and Es and do blood cultures? Mary, could you set up for an LP? And, Rosemary, could you get a urine specimen for culture?’

  The next couple of hours passed in a haze. Sarah could hardly bear it as the paediatrician inserted the needle into the space between her son’s vertebrae to draw fluid. It was such a small spine. Such a small space. What if the needle slipped? Although Sarah had carried out the same procedure a hundred times herself without incident, she knew that occasionally things did go wrong. It was the worst part of being a doctor, knowing what could go wrong. All the complications of meningitis—septicaemia, amputation, brain damage, death—whirled around her mind.

  ‘He’s a bit young for bacterial meningitis,’ Jamie tried to reassure Sarah. ‘And even if he does have it, many, many pull through and lead perfectly healthy lives. We have to stay positive.’

  ‘We won’t know whether he has meningitis, or which form until we get the results,’ Dr Carty agreed. ‘Let’s keep our fingers crossed, but even if it is viral meningitis, he’s still pretty poorly.’

  Sarah felt utterly wretched. Why had she waited so long? She should have acted sooner.

  Jamie was clearly reading her thoughts. ‘You couldn’t have known, SJ. Think. You know this illness comes on very rapidly. You brought him in as soon as you could.’

  ‘He’s started on IV antibiotics. I think we’ve caught it in time. But we are going to have to admit him to the paediatric intensive care unit for observation. The next twenty-four hours will be critical,’ Dr Carty informed Sarah. ‘You know that there are lots of viral illnesses that can cause rashes, although I’m afraid it almost certainly is meningitis. But I won’t be sure until we get the results of all his tests some time tomorrow.’

  As Calum was being taken up to Intensive Care, Sarah turned to Jean, who had arrived while Calum had been in Resus. Seeing the stricken look on her mother’s face, Sarah almost broke down.

  ‘Could you go home and collect some stuff for me, please, Mum?’ she said, tears close to the surface.

  ‘Of course, darling,’ her mother replied, clearly struggling to keep her own emotions under control. ‘But I don’t want to leave you on your own.’

  Jamie stepped up, lines of worry evident on his face. ‘Don’t worry, Jean, she won’t be. I’ll stay with them both.’

  ‘Go home, Jamie,’ Sarah said wearily. ‘I can manage. Besides, one of us has to be fit to work tomorrow.’

  ‘You can stop worrying about work. I’ll see to everything. As for going home, not a chance—he’s my son, too.’

  Sarah looked at his face. She was surprised to see that how much he was also suffering. He was right. Whatever happened between them in the future, it would be too cruel to stop him being with his son when he so obviously needed to be.

  She reached out for his hand and felt his strength flow from him to her. For now she needed him, too. Right now nothing else mattered.

  The nurses in the intensive care ward had offered to make up a bed in the relatives’ room for Sarah or Jamie should they wish to catnap.

  ‘We’ve sedated Calum and he seems peaceful. Why don’t you try and get some sleep?’ they had suggested. But both Jamie and Sarah had refused. Sarah didn’t want to leave her son for a moment in case h
e woke up and wanted her. Instead, they found a couple of armchairs and made themselves as comfortable as they could by the bedside without getting in the nurses’ way.

  The night wore on. Jamie and Sarah watched over their son as he lay in the cot. More than anything Sarah wanted to hold her son in her arms, but the leads and drips that fed him and monitored his condition prevented her from doing anything except stroke his face with her finger.

  She was barely conscious of Jamie standing behind her, massaging her shoulders and stroking her hair, but she was glad of his presence.

  ‘God, what’s taking so long? Why haven’t they brought us some news?’ The words sounded as they had been ripped from Jamie’s body. ‘Sorry. I know these things take time. But not being able to do anything makes me think of my father. It reminds me of how helpless I felt then, too. What is the point of all our medical training if we can’t help those we love?’

  ‘At least your father loved you,’ Sarah said quietly. ‘Mine didn’t seem to care whether I lived or died.’ Memories of her father’s betrayal came rushing back. ‘He left Mum and me when I was about Calum’s age,’ she went on, almost as if she was talking to herself. ‘He came back to see me once or twice, but then his visits fizzled out and I never saw him again.’ As always, the memory of sitting waiting for a father who had never come caused her almost unbearable pain. She was determined her son would never suffer the same feelings of abandonment and rejection.

  ‘I’m sorry, SJ, I didn’t know about your father. You never told me.’

  ‘It turns out there was quite a lot we never told one another,’ Sarah replied with a small smile. ‘I guess somehow we were too wrapped up in just being together to ever really talk. I always thought there would be plenty of time for us to really get to know one another.’