Healed by Her Army Doc

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Can you talk about it? Do you want to?’ he asked, and she frowned at him, confused.

  ‘The baby,’ he prompted. ‘Did you find out what had happened? Did anyone give you a reason?’

  ‘No, and no,’ she said at last. ‘It wasn’t an obvious umbilical cord related death and although there have been numerous studies done through examination of the placenta, they rarely tell us anything constructive. The experts talked about placental insufficiency and foetal death syndrome but they were just words and what it all boils down to is that, apparently, it just happens.’

  It was Angus’s turn to get to his feet, needing to move, to pace the room, trying desperately to get a grasp on Kate’s situation at the time. For all those months she’d been expecting this child, looking forward to its—his, she’d said—arrival, then suddenly there had been nothing. The pain, the tragedy of it was hard, almost impossible to comprehend. No wonder she’d changed, shut herself away from people, become, as someone had said, a loner.

  He paced some more, still trying to get his head around it, more questions bubbling in his mind.

  Would she answer them?

  She was sitting there, so he knew she was still reliving it and he’d brought it all back to her—brought back her pain.

  He sat beside her, put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close.

  ‘Kate, I am so, so sorry, not only for not being there for you at the time but for bringing it all back up now. I can only imagine how much it must hurt to have to talk about it. How it must take you back.’

  She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve been back there,’ she said quietly, ‘and every time I imagine a different outcome.’

  He hugged her closer.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked. ‘I’ll stop now if you don’t.’

  He felt her head shake and heard a quiet, ‘Of course you want to know. I don’t mind.’

  He moved so he could look at her, see her face, though his hand still rested on her shoulder.

  ‘Did you know? Before the birth, I mean.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Only at the end.’

  ‘And they did a Caesar?’

  Headshake and a wry smile.

  ‘Believe it or not, many obstetricians, including mine, believe a natural childbirth is better in such instances. They believe you get over it more quickly—no scar to heal then keep reminding you, or some such twaddle. I was too numb to argue so just went ahead.’

  ‘On your own?’

  She smiled—a better smile this time.

  ‘I was in Brisbane, and not totally friendless. I had good support, although my parents wanted nothing to do with any of it. They were so against my keeping it, cut me off completely. But in one way the obstetrician was right—I was back at work within a week and that was the very best part of all. It gave me time to think of other things and that’s when I began to apply to join a surgery programme. I joined the Brisbane SDR as well, and life went on.’

  Angus closed his eyes, imagining not just the death of a child but the death of someone you’d spent nine months getting to know, a little bit of yourself you’d probably talked to every day, bought supplies for, longing for his arrival. He could feel Kate’s pain in his heart.

  Then the knowledge that it had been his child struck him once more, and he felt the loss as though he’d been there, felt the pain in his own heart, had to do something—comfort her, feel her comfort himself...

  Had to do something to make things right between them.

  Something.

  Anything!

  He tightened his arms around her body, moving so they rocked together.

  ‘Marry me,’ he said, shocking himself when the words burst out yet suddenly knowing they were right—that it was what he wanted. To marry this woman he loved and had probably loved for the last three years.

  And that knowledge added further shock!

  But he wasn’t as shocked as Kate, who sprang away from his sheltering arms.

  ‘Marry you? Now, there’s a bolt from the blue! Why ever would you want to marry me?’

  ‘We had a child,’ he said, still numb from all the revelations. His head was still trying to deal with his totally bizarre—not to mention inexplicable—suggestion. ‘Shouldn’t that count?’

  ‘A child who died,’ Kate reminded him bluntly. ‘There is no child and no reason whatsoever to get married. Didn’t you spend considerable time and energy telling me all the reasons you couldn’t or wouldn’t get married, all the stuff about never being here for a family, for your wife and children? I didn’t tell you about the baby so you’d feel sorry for me, but because you asked me—kept asking me. And now you know, and nothing’s really changed in either of our lives, and we can go our separate ways.’

  He got to his feet and resumed pacing, something she’d seen him do before, and seeing the disbelief on his face, reading his consternation in the way he paced, her heart went out to him. She wanted to stand up, hold him in her arms, tell him everything would be all right.

  But would it be?

  The news she’d just given him had brought on the pain she’d lived with for the past two years—more now. Wouldn’t he be feeling at least a little of that pain?

  ‘I need to think. I’ll go now,’ he said suddenly, as if the room had become too small to hold his need to move.

  So now she did hold him, putting her arms around him and saying gently, ‘I know you have to take it in, but once you have, put it behind you, don’t let it affect your life the way I’ve let it affect mine. I’ve got beyond that now, thanks to meeting you again, having that time together, short though it was. I’m moving forward, and you will too.’

  A quick kiss, then she opened the door for him, trying hard to avoid the dark eyes that held shadows she recognised from the eyes she’d seen in her mirror for two long years.

  * * *

  He had a child—he’d had a child. This thought was caught up in a mix of battling emotions—anger that he hadn’t known, resentment that Kate hadn’t told him, pain for what she’d been through.

  And loss.

  That emotion overwhelmed them all, although it was stupid, pointless, if not downright nuts to feel a loss for a child he’d never had—never known he was going to have.

  But loss was definitely there.

  A child.

  A son...

  Had she given him a name?

  What had he looked like?

  About to turn, to go back to the apartment, Angus stopped himself in time. He’d already put Kate under tremendous strain, forcing this story out of her, and he couldn’t make it worse.

  So, back to the base where he should have gone an hour ago—straight from the debriefing—so he could type up the notes he’d made and think about the suggestions he’d heard.

  On the whole, the tent had been a spectacular success, and although this should bring him joy, or at least pleasure, all he felt was flat—empty—bereft...

  CHAPTER TEN

  KATE GOT BACK to work—normal work—busy in Theatre, studying and surprising herself and her supervisor, Nick Warren, when she topped the state in the second-year surgical exams.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to specialise in a narrower field than general surgery?’ he asked her. ‘Orthopaedics offers the widest range, because you can choose just about any part of the body you want—hand, knees, backs, necks.’

  She smiled at him.

  ‘You don’t need to keep naming skeletal parts I could study because, honestly, general surgery suits me just fine. I enjoy that I can work in the ED because there I do a little bit of everything. An open break in an arm doesn’t always need a consultant orthopod called in—in fact, a nurse could probably do it—but I might be doing that one day, then some stitching of a wound anothe
r day, and sometimes cutting down to remove infection from a penetrating wound. It’s the variety that keeps me going, Nick.’

  ‘Well, it’s how surgery started and there’ll always be a need for general surgeons so you’ll always have a job.’

  He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘You are happy here? You’re not thinking of leaving? You could get a job anywhere, I’m sure you get offers.’

  Only one totally absurd one of marriage, prompted by shock, and that for all the wrong reasons, Kate thought as she assured Nick she had no intention of leaving.

  ‘I just wondered,’ he said. ‘One of the big bosses, Justin Alexander—have you met him?’

  Kate shook her head.

  ‘It’s just that he was asking about you and I thought you might have put in for a transfer or something, that he was interested. But it was probably just that you’d done so well in your exams.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of him,’ Kate said, although the name did ring vague bells.

  ‘You probably wouldn’t have. He’s come across from North Shore. He’s one of the pen-pushers these days, an administrator, although he was a top O and G man in his day.’

  An administrator?

  Angus’s uncle?

  Had Angus spoken of her to his uncle—to any of his family?

  Surely not!

  Kate turned the conversation to other things, the upcoming operations they had scheduled, in which ones she’d be the lead surgeon, anything special she’d need to know.

  But as she walked home, she thought about the interest of a man called Justin Alexander and felt a little uneasy that people she didn’t know might be discussing her.

  Not about the baby—she was sure Angus wouldn’t have passed that on.

  But the conversation had left her head feeling muddled. She’d almost succeeded in clearing most of Angus out of it, packing him tidily away in yet another box, and now this! One of the powers-that-be discussing her with her supervisor.

  It made her feel uncomfortable, to say the least.

  She’d go home, change her clothes and go for a run. A little sit in the cemetery, a chat to Joshua, and life would right itself.

  Except it didn’t.

  Joshua had nothing to offer her so she rested a while, looking out to sea, watching a tanker move at what, from the distance, seemed like a snail’s pace towards Botany Bay.

  Harriet’s arrival at what Kate considered ‘her’ place surprised her, especially as she’d heard the camera clicking and guessed she’d been photographed.

  But Harry?

  Here?

  ‘You’re out and about?’ she said, unable to hide the surprise in her voice.

  ‘Thanks largely to you and the photography suggestion,’ Harry said with a smile. She held up the camera. ‘You’ve made a monster of me, I’m completely hooked, and looking for new places to photograph has strengthened my leg no end.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Kate told her, the shine in Harry’s eyes telling her as much as the words.

  ‘Of course, I’m still limping along like a three-legged dog, but you got me out and I’ve been meaning to thank you, but you’re either rescuing babies in the Snowy or working all hours in Theatre so I haven’t had a chance.’

  She lifted the camera and snapped another shot.

  ‘This place is magical—so much history here. You talked about the ocean in all its many moods, and this place is the same. I came here one day in the rain and I reckon got some of my best shots.’

  Kate had to smile. Alice had pushed her into seeing Harry, and inadvertently she’d done some good.

  But Harry had had another visitor that night and, remembering, Kate had to look away lest Harry saw her pain.

  ‘I’ve got to get back,’ she said, standing up and stretching. ‘Great to see you out and about.’

  Then she fled, running from her memories, afraid she’d never be fast enough to really escape them.

  * * *

  Without consciously realising it, Kate curled herself back into the protective shell she’d grown over the last couple of years. Missing drinks with the SDR team after meetings, saying no to Charlie when he phoned to ask her out, making her work and study her whole life.

  But now she was more aware of the emptiness of it and the hollowness inside her. Aware she should do something about it but unable to try.

  So she almost welcomed the phone call from Mabel, although she knew it meant people were in danger of some kind. But it brought a jolt of adrenalin that stirred her back to life.

  Hostage situation in the nearest shopping centre—armed gunman, reports of shooting, specialist police units in charge and the SDR tasked with helping the injured, stabilising those who needed it before passing them on to the ambos, hospitals all over Sydney already on alert for victims.

  The gunman was on the second-floor balcony that ran around the centre and shooting down towards people in the main food court below. The police and the building security men and women were trying desperately to evacuate the centre, but panicking people didn’t take orders well.

  To Kate and the SDR team, it looked about as easy as herding chickens, although most of their attention was on the wounded, lying on the floor, several of the injured slumped on the escalator, which had either jammed or was now turned off.

  ‘We have to get out there,’ she said to Sam, who was standing beside her in the little shelter offered by a pillar. ‘Those people need attention.’

  ‘The police are bringing in a negotiator,’ Sam told her. ‘Maybe they’ll ask him to stop shooting so we can get to the injured.’

  It was then Kate saw the child, obviously separated from her mother, now wandering past the shops on the first floor, crying quietly.

  ‘He wouldn’t shoot a child!’ Sam said, catching sight of the little girl at the same time.

  ‘But we don’t know that,’ Kate argued. ‘You stay here, I’ll go back to the food court and see if I can get to the child from there before she wanders into his line of fire.’

  ‘Blake said remain under cover,’ Sam reminded her.

  ‘The far end of the food court is under cover—he can’t see it from where he is. Besides, his attention is on the escalators in case someone tries to come up.’

  She sidled, careful step by careful step, back into the shadows, keeping the pillar between her and the gunman. If she could reach the food court without being seen she knew there was an elevator towards the rear of it, and with any luck could get to the little girl before she moved into sight on the floor below him. But the gunman was wary and his peripheral vision would catch the slightest movement.

  The plan fell to pieces when the elevator pinged on reaching the first floor, and although she couldn’t see the gunman on the floor above she could tell from the cries of the people trapped below her that he’d moved, while a shrill scream suggested he’d taken a hostage.

  But Kate’s attention was focussed on the child. Slipping from shadowed doorway to doorway, she realised that part of the centre’s plan must have been to close all the shops and dim the lights. The child’s mother was probably behind one of those closed doors.

  She reached the child and lifted her, but was uncertain what to do next.

  Which way had the gunman moved—to the left or right? Choosing the wrong direction could bring Kate and the child into his sights.

  So she stayed where she was, sitting down in a darkened doorway, talking quietly to the little girl. And tried to think what had been decided after an enquiry into another hostage crisis in the city some years earlier.

  Were specialist army personnel coming in to handle things, or had the police devised a new protocol for dealing with these situations?

  Either way, Kate was content to stay where she was, certain all the businesses would have rear exits and as many people as possible would have been eva
cuated when the shooting had begun.

  She couldn’t see the negotiator but heard him introducing himself through a bullhorn. Talking to the gunman, quietly and calmly.

  The gunman’s response was a new barrage of bullets, and now Kate held her hands over the little girl’s ears, although she doubted that would help.

  So she talked, quietly, about birds and animals, about family and friends, rocking the child in her arms as she rattled on.

  ‘And just what do you think you’re doing here?’ a far-too-familiar voice whispered angrily in her ear.

  ‘Where did you come from,’ she demanded, as quietly as her shock would allow.

  ‘I was at the hospital to talk to Blake about joining the SDR team,’ he said. ‘Sam told me where you were.’

  ‘The child was wandering around this balcony looking for her mother, she’d have come into his line of sight within minutes,’ she explained, while the ‘I’m at the hospital to talk to Blake about the SDR’ comment he’d made snagged somewhere in her head but was making no sense at all.

  ‘We’re quite safe,’ she told him, adding, ‘or at least we were until a great hulking man appeared and we had to share our shelter.’

  Angus ignored her protest, instead settling himself on the floor beside her and the child, his back against the door of the closed shop.

  ‘Who’s handling it?’ Kate asked, assuming the army given that Angus was here.

  ‘Specially trained police squad. They’re moving men in through the rear doors and will come through the shops and get him.’

  ‘Not kill him?’ Kate asked, feeling there’d been enough bloodshed.

  ‘Only if they have to,’ Angus told her, adding, ‘Did you miss the bit about me talking to Blake about joining the SDR team?’

  She turned to peer at him in the gloom.

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Quiet,’ he whispered, holding a finger to her lips and sending such a jolt through her body it was a wonder she still held the now sleeping child.