He’d had other things on his mind this morning, anyway.
‘What is it with Finn?’ he found himself asking. ‘How can he handle his patients so well when his interpersonal relationships with everybody else are so bad?’
‘You want a professional opinion?’
‘Absolutely.’
John grinned. ‘I think he has issues.’
‘Hey…I could have told you that and I’m just a paediatrician.’
‘I could have told you that, too,’ Luke put in. ‘He walked out in the middle of surgery a few weeks ago and left me to carry on. And Evie said something, too.’
‘Oh?’ Teo was well distracted from thinking about Zoe now and that had to be a good thing. Maybe he was going to find out what that odd undercurrent he’d sensed in Emergency between Finn and Evie was all about.
‘She was worried about him.’
‘Evie doesn’t strike me as a worrying type,’ John put in.
‘No. That’s what I thought, too.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She had some story about him dropping a clipboard. His hand being shaky. I wasn’t listening that carefully, I have to admit. I had something else on my mind.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Teo knew exactly what that ‘something else’ had probably been—a very attractive, blue-eyed blonde nurse by the name of Lily Ellis.
‘She seemed to think we were more than drinking buddies but Finn doesn’t let anybody that close, does he?’
‘No.’ The agreement from the other men was heartfelt.
‘He certainly shut me out pretty fast last night,’ Teo added.
‘I didn’t do anything about it,’ Luke said. ‘Maybe I should have.’
‘Maybe you hit the nail on the head by saying you were drinking buddies,’ Teo suggested. ‘We all know he drinks a lot. Everybody who goes to Pete’s knows how hard he can hit the whisky at times. The question is, why?’
‘PTSD?’ Luke offered.
Both Luke and Teo glanced at John but the psychologist only shrugged.
‘He’s never talked to me. I doubt that he’d be willing to talk to anyone.’
‘No…’ Teo could feel himself frowning. ‘He looked like he was in pain last night but he wouldn’t tell me anything. According to the grapevine, he got injured quite badly just before he left his army post.’
‘A grapevine? At the Harbour?’ John was grinning again. ‘No-o…’
‘His last conquest was a paediatric nurse,’ Teo told him. ‘I found her sobbing in the sluice room and had to hear all about it. Seems she’s the latest in a long string of heartbroken females who find our director of surgery very appealing, despite the fact that he’s so grumpy and never seems to bother shaving.’
‘Very macho.’
‘It’s no wonder they call our place of work Sydney Scandal Central.’ Luke grinned.
Teo chuckled. ‘And what’s the deal between him and Evie Lockheart?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw them talking to each other in ED last week and I got the oddest impression that there was something going on. Something personal that didn’t fit with what I’ve heard about the scraps they have.’
‘Maybe it’s familiar territory for her,’ John mused. ‘Not that I’m one to gossip but it’s common knowledge that she had to battle her father to be able to do medicine in the first place and Richard Lockheart can be a difficult character, by all accounts.’
‘Maybe she’s attracted to a father figure.’ Teo regretted the quip as soon as it left his lips. It was none of his business whether there was any kind of potential relationship going on between a pair of the Harbour’s better-known staff members. He didn’t want to go down the track of discussing such a possibility, either, because if he did, he might be steered into considering a far more personal attraction that was creating ripples in his own life right now. Good grief…he just couldn’t stop thinking about Zoe for more than five minutes, could he?
‘If Finn Kennedy’s her choice, then good luck to her,’ John said.
‘Professional opinion?’ Another joke seemed a good way to lighten the sudden tension Teo was aware of.
‘Could be the making of the man,’ Luke said, with the slightly smug air of a man who’d found exactly what he hadn’t even been looking for.
‘Of course.’But John didn’t seem to be paying any real attention to the conversation now. He was looking beyond Teo. Towards an apartment block that was far older and more rundown than the Kirribilli View apartments.
‘Oh, my God!’ he said, the tone of dismay increasing with each word. ‘Is that smoke?’
CHAPTER SIX
SYDNEY’S Kangaroo Day Care centre was one of the best.
The facility catered for babies and children aged from six weeks to five years and it had a great carer to child ratio. Zoe had never had the slightest qualms about leaving Emma there. It had, in fact, been a relief to start handing her child over on a regular basis when she’d gone back to part-time work. It meant that Emma was frequently in the care of these devoted professionals who knew far more about it all than she did. Not only did she get a reprieve from the difficult task of being a single parent, she got to go back to her old job for a good stretch of time. Back to being the old Zoe.
But something had changed.
Today, as she’d left Emma in another woman’s arms and turned to leave, she’d felt a distinct qualm.
A small niggle, maybe, but enough for Zoe to turn and take another look at her daughter before going out through the rainbow-painted doors of the day-care centre with their round porthole windows.
It was guilt, she decided, driving towards the start of her shift at the Harbourside ambulance station. It wasn’t as if Emma was crying or anything. On the contrary, she’d been smiling at the woman giving her a cuddle. And that background buzz of guilt should be something that Zoe was more than used to by now.
She’d felt guilty about getting pregnant in the first place. How stupid had she been to let that happen in this day and age? She felt even more guilty for considering the option of terminating the pregnancy but, most of all, she’d felt guilty for not feeling the way a mother should feel when her baby was born.
For not loving her child with all her heart and soul.
So, yes…Zoe was used to feeling guilty. So why did that pang on leaving Emma behind this morning feel different somehow?
Not that she wanted to waste time at work pondering something that was no part of her professional life but the day started by conspiring against her. It was unusually quiet and Tom wanted to chat as they went through the normal routine of making sure their ambulance was fully equipped and operational.
‘We need more lancets for the blood glucose kit,’ he noted. ‘Did you have a good weekend?’
‘It was great.’
‘What’d you get up to?’
‘I got invited to a barbecue at Coogee.’
‘Nice weather for it.’
‘It was. Fabulous.’ Zoe went to the storeroom to get a handful of the tiny plastic devices that held needles for pricking fingers and testing drops of blood for sugar levels.
It had been a fabulous day, even though it had ended on a vaguely disturbing note with poor little Sefa having that toe-stubbing incident. Teo had seemed slightly distant on the way home, too. Still perfectly relaxed and friendly but Zoe had had the definite impression that a shutter or two had gone up. The horrible thought occurred to her that he might have somehow sensed her attraction to him and was letting her know that it was pointless. The thought was enough to ensure that she probably seemed equally distant.
In any case, it couldn’t spoil what the day had given her. She’d heard her baby laugh for the first time. Such an
amazing sound of undiluted joy—as if it didn’t matter how hard Zoe was finding it to be a parent or that Emma was missing out on what every other mother seemed to be able to give their child naturally. It was impossible to hear the sound of baby laughter and not feel an echo of that joy yourself. And it was an echo that had stayed with her for the few days until she’d been rostered back on at work. The last of it had probably only gone this morning, when she’d had that odd qualm.
Even now, when she remembered Emma smiling at the woman from Kangaroo’s, the qualm came back. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was someone else that Emma was smiling at, not her. Jealousy?
How ridiculous. Her baby had beamed at everyone on the day of the barbecue. She’d even giggled when Alisi had been tickling her toes the day the two women had gone shopping for jeans at Bondi Junction together. She hadn’t felt jealous then. She’d felt…good grief…happy?
She was happy now, Zoe reminded herself firmly. At work. Able to do the things she’d trained so hard to be able to do. She had the next twelve hours to be professional. Ready for anything. In control.
A mental note was called for here, Zoe decided as she turned her attention to making good use of their quiet time by cleaning the ambulance thoroughly. Heavens…look at the way dust could accumulate so fast around the regulators on the big oxygen cylinders.
Yes. She made a note to tell John Allen in her next session how well everything was going. She could tell him with absolute honesty that she was experiencing moments of real happiness again for the first time since this whole nightmare had started. That she could see light at the end of the tunnel and knew that, one day, she would be well again.
She wouldn’t tell him about that confusing little qualm, though. Zoe didn’t want anybody telling her that the road to happiness lay with being a mother and not getting back to being the person she’d been before she’d got pregnant. She couldn’t be a full-time mother. She’d just get sucked back into that dark place and it would be far, far worse for Emma than being left in the lovely, caring environment of Kangaroo Day Care.
Zoe stopped wiping and polishing surfaces and decided to take out all of the towels from their locker and refold them. She was saved from this mindless task, however, by the sound of her pager. She’d only started reading the message when Tom appeared at a run.
‘Local job,’ he called. ‘Standby for the fire service. There’s an apartment block on fire.’
It was her turn to drive. Zoe slid into the seat, pushed the remote to open the huge roller door to the station and started the engine. She activated the beacons as they cleared the door and hit the siren as soon as she turned onto the road.
No qualms now. This might not be a moment of pure joy but the satisfaction of heading towards a challenging job was just as good. Better, in fact, because she’d know exactly what to do when she got there.
There were still people trapped.
Three fire engines were on site now and there were police cordoning off streets, controlling traffic and bystanders. A police helicopter was hovering overhead as well, or was it a news crew filming the incident? It wouldn’t be a rescue chopper because they were so close to the Harbour. There were ambulances here anyway, off to one side and well away from the danger of smoke inhalation or falling debris.
Was Zoe here? Part of Teo hoped she was because he wanted to see her again but a bigger part of him hoped she was safely at home. With Emma. Teo headed in the direction of the burning apartment block anyway, in case extra medical assistance was needed. Luke was beside him and had almost tripped on a coil of black hose unfurling beside a fire truck.
‘Watch out for the hoses.’
Teo could only nod. If he tried to say anything, he’d start coughing again.
It had been John who’d alerted the emergency services when he’d spotted smoke curling from a window on one of the building’s upper floors. Teo and Luke had rushed into the apartment block, going in different directions to bang on doors and yell to raise the alarm.
Teo had been driven by something like fury when he’d run upstairs to the second floor. The building might be too old and rundown to have any kind of sprinkler system but there was no excuse for it not to have smoke detectors and an efficient alarm sounding to warn goodness only knew how many people who needed to escape.
He’d sent a young mother and her pyjama-clad children running downstairs to safety. Then he’d found some foreign students who were confused and frightened but could at least get out by themselves. The elderly man he’d come across next had needed help to get down the stairs. Teo had turned back to get to the third floor but he couldn’t get very far. There was smoke billowing down the staircase by now and he could hear the crackle of flames from above and Luke yelling from below.
‘The fire service is here. They’re getting ladders to the top floors. They said to get out.’ He could hear Luke coughing harshly. ‘Now, Teo.’
Teo had no choice. He’d covered his mouth and nose with his arm but he could already feel the smoke biting into his lungs and his eyes were stinging. He passed firemen wearing breathing apparatus and carrying axes as he made his way outside. The right people were on the job now. He’d done all he could inside.
They might be needed outside, anyway. The area around the ambulances was busy.
And Zoe was here. In charge of the scene. Why did that surprise him when she’d been wearing that scene commander’s vest the first time he’d seen her? Maybe it was because he’d met the other Zoes since then. The unhappy young mother. The beautiful young woman wearing a sarong on the beach…
‘We’ll treat it as cardiac,’ he heard her saying to another paramedic. ‘Usual protocol and transport immediately.’
The elderly man he’d helped down the stairs was on a stretcher, clearly short of breath. He had an oxygen mask on his face and the leads from a life pack attached to his chest. They were about to load him into one of the ambulances but he saw Teo and stretched out his hand. He pulled his oxygen mask off with his other hand.
‘Thank you,’ he croaked. ‘Wouldn’t have…got out…without you.’
‘No worries.’ Teo grasped the man’s hand and smiled. He could feel Zoe pause and turn to stare.
‘Teo! What are you doing here?’
‘I was on my way to work. We spotted the fire.’
‘And you went inside?’
‘He got me out,’ the elderly man said. ‘Carried me…down the stairs.’ His face twisted in pain and Zoe’s gaze flicked instantly to the life pack.
‘ST depression,’ she snapped. ‘Give him some more GTN and get a line in. He needs some morphine. Has he had aspirin?’
Teo stepped back as ambulance staff moved quickly to follow directions. He could see one of the students sitting on the back steps of an ambulance, crying. Someone was checking her ankle, which looked swollen. Turning his head, Teo could see a high ladder close to where the worst of the flames were. The shadowy figure of a fireman appeared in the closest window and something was shoved into the arms of the fireman still on the tiny platform at the top of the ladder. A bundle that looked like a baby.
Despite overseeing the management of the cardiac chest pain the old man was having, Zoe had seen it as well. She looked away from where the fireman was descending the ladder swiftly and caught Teo’s gaze.
‘You planning on hanging around for a bit?’
‘You want me to?’
Her gaze clung to his for a heartbeat. She smiled. ‘Please.’
She could manage perfectly well without him but she wanted him to stay. It was a little disturbing how good that made Teo feel but he didn’t get much time to think about it. The fireman was on the ground now, running towards them. Zoe pointed to the open back of an ambulance and seconds later Teo was crowded in there, with Zoe and her partner and the firemen
looking on as they tried to resuscitate a baby who was probably about the same age as Zoe’s Emma.
The baby didn’t appear to be burned but had inhaled enough smoke to go into respiratory and then cardiac arrest. Teo was given the task of finding a vein in the tiny hand as Tom and Zoe worked flat out, doing CPR and readying the defibrillator to try and shock a small heart back into action. The first attempt wasn’t successful but they all knew this was just the beginning. No way would they give up on trying to save such a young life.
‘We think we’ve got everybody accounted for,’ a fireman said from the door. ‘And the fire’s almost under control. The baby’s mother was downstairs, putting the rubbish out. She’s pretty hysterical. There’s a guy who says he’s a psychologist looking after her. Want me to bring her over?’
‘Not yet,’ Zoe said. ‘Maybe she could meet us at the hospital instead.’
‘It’ll be John Allen who’s with her,’ Teo said. ‘He was walking to work with me and Luke. He’ll take care of her.’
‘If the scene’s under control, I can step down. Find someone to drive us,’ Zoe ordered the fireman. ‘We’ll transport under CPR. Teo—any luck finding a vein?’
‘Still working on it.’ Teo had the baby’s hand bent over his fingers, stretching the skin on the back of it. He slid the needle in carefully and was rewarded with the flash of blood in the chamber that told him he was in the right place. He slid the cannula home. ‘Got it.’
‘Good. Stand clear. Shocking again.’
Zoe swapped places with Tom as extra crew members joined them. One climbed into the driver’s seat to take the ambulance to the emergency department. Another was there to take over chest compressions. Zoe was preparing to intubate the baby now and Tom was drawing up drugs. It was crowded in there but Teo stayed where he was near the door. Zoe looked pale. Was it his imagination or did her hand shake just a little as she positioned the laryngoscope and the tube she needed to get into place?
Sydney Harbor Hospital: Zoe's Baby Page 7
