A Family Made in Rome

by Annie O'Neil

  Lizzy glanced up to the observation deck and saw Giovanni lean forward, elbows on knees, cupping his chin in his hands as she prepared to make her life-changing move. Autumn was there, biting her lower lip. This surgery was as important for them as it was for her.

  Lizzy looked back at the monitor, took in a deep, steadying breath, then began to offer Hope a better chance of survival...

  * * *

  Everything in Leon stilled as he watched the high-tech ultrasound images appearing on the screen across the room from him. Though this surgery was precisely the reason he’d flown Lizzy halfway across the world, he watched in awe as she inserted the catheter with such unerring confidence it was as if she’d done it a thousand times.

  She had done it once. On a single child. The risks with Hope and Grace were so much higher that he doubted more than a handful of surgeons in the world would have risked it. But if she didn’t try—if they, as a team, didn’t try—it would effectively be giving up on Hope and Grace. And giving up wasn’t something they liked to do here at St Nicolino’s.

  He kept an eye on Grace’s heart as Lizzy carefully inflated the tiny balloon that would open the stenotic aortic valve. The intervention would allow the left ventricle to grow properly, ensuring normal blood flow in the heart.

  Lizzy carefully pulled out the needle, having inflated the balloon just enough, and after a few more minutes of removing surgical tools, said, ‘And... Hope’s got herself a happier heart. How’re you doing, Mum?’

  Gabrielle choked back a sob of relief. ‘Is it done? Really?’

  ‘All done.’ Lizzy walked around the surgical drape so she could look at Gabrielle, whose eyes were brimming with tears. ‘We just need to close up the small incision and you can go back to your room to be with Matteo.’

  The closing team stepped into place and began the small but essential procedure. Out of the corner of her eye Lizzy could see everyone in the gallery clapping, giving one another high-fives and fist-bumps.

  ‘He won’t believe this,’ Gabrielle said, now openly crying. ‘He simply won’t believe it. Our little girls... They have a fighting chance now. Thank you. No other hospital would do this. We will owe you for ever.’

  ‘No.’ Lizzy shook her head. ‘You owe your thanks to Dr Cassanetti. He’s the one who rang me, so he’s the one you should be thanking.’

  Leon raised his hand in acknowledgement. Generous to a fault, Lizzy was. Talented, generous, fearless... They were all things he’d seen before in Lizzy, but never with the understanding that she had come from a home filled with fear. A home that had lacked paternal love and support—just as his had.

  Medicine. An impassioned drive to help innocents have a better start in life. A fiercely guarded heart. Were those just a few of the invisible strings that had drawn them together?

  Very likely. And doubtless there would be more.

  They would also find things they completely disagreed on. Moral stances on world issues. Ethical decisions when it came to deciding which surgeries were and were not risks worth taking. Whether or not toast was actually edible if it was burnt.

  But they’d stick by one another because of their differences, not despite them. And for the first time in his life the prospect of a complicated, messy life excited him.

  ‘Catch up in twenty minutes?’ Lizzy asked as she passed Leon on the way out of the theatre, while the team prepared to take Gabrielle to her room.

  ‘Sure. But...’ He furrowed his brow, trying to figure out what she was doing.

  ‘I’m just going to nip out and get some air before we talk the Bianchis through the next steps.’

  When she didn’t reappear as promised, instinct guided him to her.

  He pushed open the door to the hospital’s south wing rooftop terrace and looked across the broad expanse of the healing garden Giovanni had commissioned a few years back. It had a pair of shaded loggias, and trees heavy with blossom. There were water features and private little nooks where patients or anxious family members could sit and read, have their lunch—or, in Lizzy’s case, have a quiet little weep.

  Her back was to him, but he could see the tell-tale shake he’d become familiar with in his years as a surgeon. The shoulders of someone desperately trying to keep deep emotion at bay, but ultimately failing.

  He walked through a waft of orange blossom scent as he made his way towards her. Above them, on the higher west wing roof, a helicopter came in. He heard the calls of the emergency staff, barely audible above the whirr of the helicopter blades. It was an acute reminder of the fragility of life. Two lives had been saved today. Others, most likely, would be lost.

  He sat down beside her, not saying anything. She gave his knee an acknowledging pat. He handed her a clean handkerchief. He hoped they were tears of relief, not sorrow. A release after weeks of pent-up will I/won’t I fears.

  After her breathing had steadied, he said, ‘You were brilliant today.’

  She pursed her lips.

  ‘Take the compliment, cara,’ he urged gently. ‘I don’t hand them out that often.’

  She parted her lips to protest, then stopped herself, a look of surprise taking over from where the disbelief had just been. ‘You don’t, do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not a big fan.’

  She screwed up her face. ‘Of compliments? Who doesn’t like compliments?’

  He hitched up a shoulder in response. Him. He didn’t. Words never stood as proof to him that people felt a certain way. Actions did. And today Lizzy had made good on her promise to deliver a faultless surgery.

  ‘You’re just like my father.’

  ‘What?’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry. I don’t see the link.’

  She lifted her phone from the bench. The face of it was freshly cracked, as if it had been hurled in anger.

  ‘You rang your father?’

  ‘Yup,’ she said tightly.

  ‘Why?’

  She scrubbed her fingers through her hair, tugged out her ponytail and then did it up again, so tightly it looked almost painful. ‘It was stupid. I rarely ring him—I mean, apart from birthdays and stuff—but I thought...’ Her voice caught in her throat. She waited until the wave of emotion had passed before she spoke again. ‘You know he’s a cardiologist, right?’

  Leon nodded. ‘A well-respected cardiologist.’

  Lizzy scrubbed her hands over her face, then through her fingers admitted, ‘I thought what I did today—what we did today—might make him proud.’

  Leon pulled her hands down, giving her knuckles a kiss. ‘It should have. Any parent would be bursting at the seams to know their child had just changed another child’s chances of survival.’

  She put on a deep voice and a disdainful expression. ‘“What a waste of time and money. The child will most likely die anyway. The pair of them, probably. You think you’ve done something worthy today? Think again, Elizabeth. Think again.”’ She looked across at Leon, tears pouring down her face. ‘I should have known this was what would happen. It’s what always happens when I call home to brag.’

  ‘It’s not bragging, Lizzy—’

  She shook her head. ‘In my father’s eyes, it is. There doesn’t seem to be a single thing I can do to win his respect!’ She wheeled on Leon with a ferocity he’d never seen from her. ‘Did you know the only reason I accepted the job back in Sydney was for him? To prove to him—up close and personal—that I was worth loving?’

  He wanted to cut in. To tell her that she had always been worth loving, and that if she’d let him he’d prove it. But she wasn’t receiving information right now, and he had long ago sworn he wouldn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.

  She carried on detailing her father’s cruel tirade, and as she did so Leon felt as if she were plunging a knife deeper and deeper into his gut. So, this was how she’d been raised. With scorn. Contempt. No matter what Lizzy had d
one, her father had done something better. The actions of an insecure man taking out his unhappiness with the world on the only two people who had ever shown him true loyalty: Lizzy and her mother.

  Lizzy’s tears, he realised, as he felt his heart shredded into strips, weren’t of relief. They were of sorrow. Bone-deep sorrow because no matter what she did it might never be enough to win her father’s pure, uncomplicated love. It was something he didn’t seem capable of.

  And in that instant Leon knew that he couldn’t ever, ever subject his child to the sort of behaviour ingrained in Lizzy as normal.

  Lizzy gave an angry ‘Grr...’ Then, ‘I just want to fly home and have it out with him, you know? March him through Sydney, past every child who’s now in kindergarten, or grade school, or learning to ski, or doing their first somersault, and say, See that child? That child would be dead if it weren’t for me!’

  There was rage in her voice. But more than that there was anguish. And hopelessness. He got it. He’d tried to please a man who had walked out on him through no fault of his. A man he’d made himself intentionally lose track of so that he’d never have to go through what Lizzy was going through now.

  The only difference between him and Lizzy, he supposed, was that Lizzy still actually spoke to her father. But the truth was, no matter how far away his own father was, how distant they were, he knew his father lived in his heart. Snagging and cutting and reopening those childhood wounds at unexpected moments like these, when he had to fight like hell not to cut and run. These were the moments his father hadn’t wanted any part of. Moments his mother would have used as proof that she was right to keep her emotions closed.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing!’ she snapped. ‘You can’t do anything to help, so just back off—all right? It’s what you’re best at, isn’t it? Walking away when things are good? Well, let this stand as proof that you should’ve handed me my walking papers after the surgery.’

  Leon bridled, but didn’t say anything. She was hurting and lashing out. Hitting him where she knew it would hurt.

  He sat with her a moment longer, then pressed himself up to stand. ‘How about I let the Bianchis know you’ll be down in a bit?’

  She held up a hand, but didn’t look at him. ‘No. I’ll speak with them. Give me five minutes and I’ll be down.’

  Leon didn’t like walking away—not like this—but he knew she was right. In this instance there wasn’t anything he could do.

  * * *

  A few splashes of cold water and a bit of freshly applied make-up later, Lizzy felt as though she’d reined in her feelings enough to face the Bianchis.

  When she got to their room she discovered that Leon hadn’t, as per her request, waited for her to speak to the couple. The three of them were laughing about something, and when they all looked across at her as one, instead of relaxing her, their camaraderie made her feel painfully isolated. Not so much Gabrielle and Matteo. They were innocents in this. It was Leon who was making her cross.

  She’d asked him to wait.

  Why was it that the men in her life steamrollered along without a care in the world about the feelings of the people who loved them? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t taken his feelings into consideration when she’d found out she was pregnant. She’d flown halfway around the world to tell Leon face to face that he was having a child. Sure, she hadn’t done it with any particular grace or class, but she’d done it. She’d done what an honourable, decent person would do, regardless of the countless hoops she’d had to jump through.

  She’d had to get a replacement—three, actually—to cover her long absence from the hospital. And that would have to be taken into account again, in a few months’ time, when she actually had the baby. Not to mention that it was Leon’s malfunctioning condom that had got them into this mess in the first place! Sure, she might’ve instigated things by looking completely and totally sizzling hot at the conference supper—even if she did say so herself. And she’d had just-in-case condoms, too. Reliable ones. But, no! They’d had to use Leon’s.

  And now she was carrying the baby of the one man in the world she’d ever loved. But today... Today she didn’t like him very much. Especially right now.

  ‘Dr Beckley.’ Leon’s smile was tentative as his eyes connected with hers. ‘Good to see you. I was just telling the Bianchis we have some recordings of the sonograms if they want to send the audio and a few stills of their children’s heartbeats to family back home. Apparently, their phones haven’t stopped ringing.’

  Oh, terrific, she thought sourly, with a barely contained eye-roll. Lucky Bianchis. They had families who cared. Families who celebrated when it was appropriate. Families who celebrated when—

  She stopped herself. She was being horrid. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t the woman she wanted to be or the doctor she had trained herself to become. More to the point, this type of reactive behaviour and self-sabotage wasn’t anywhere near the woman she wanted to be when she became a mother.

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault—not even her own—that her father was a jackass. But it could still make her mad.

  She tried to shoot Leon a not entirely apologetic look for being so awful to him up on the roof, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was doing what any good doctor offering antenatal care to a woman who had just gone through exceedingly rare in utero surgery should. Focussing on his patients.

  Forcing herself to regroup, she managed to tag on to the end of Matteo asking Leon what happened next.

  She jumped in. ‘The babies are in the best possible place right now. Gabrielle’s beautiful natural incubator. There is a chance, of course, that Hope will need surgery shortly after she’s born, depending on how long we can keep the babies where they are. She could outgrow the stent we put in today—which, big picture, is a good thing, because it would mean a longer gestational period, but as you know the risks are high.’

  She rattled off a few things they’d been through before, including gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia, then realised she had gone on for far too long and wrapped up quickly. ‘But ultimately we’re hoping it all goes like clockwork.’

  She faltered as she saw their expressions shift from slightly confused to very confused, and then, more horrifyingly, to worried.

  ‘Ah, scusi, Dr Beckley...?’

  Leon was speaking in his ‘polite’ voice. The one that carried one very clear emotion—disappointment.

  ‘We were talking about how to fry courgette flowers with ricotta.’

  Lizzy gulped. ‘You were...?’

  ‘Si. Matteo’s family are big foodies, and after these two enjoyed the zucchini fritti from Mercato Testaccio, they wanted to know if they were easy to make.’

  ‘And are they?’ she asked, at a complete loss as to how she’d got so caught up in her own problems she’d forgotten to focus on the people today was really about.

  ‘Very. If you take your time and pay attention,’ he added pointedly.

  Even though his words hadn’t entered her gut with the same cruel twist her father’s words always did, Lizzy felt they were laced with the same disapproving venom. Her insecurities, having been contained as best she could these past few months, threatened to take over.

  Leon thought she was careless. He thought she’d behaved poorly. He thought she wasn’t worthy of the responsibilities he had given her. And, more devastatingly, he couldn’t bear the idea that she was the woman who was going to be the mother of his child.

  Completely flustered, she began explaining to the Bianchis about her brain being still caught up in the surgery, which she was so pleased about she’d not really been able to take anything else in. But she could feel an uncomfortable heat in Leon’s gaze, and as quickly as she could she excused herself, assuring the Bianchis that she’d be back later in the afternoon to do another sonogram on the babies, so that they would have all sorts
of recordings to send to family and friends.

  ‘To anyone at all!’

  She hot-rodded it to the changing rooms, almost knocking Autumn over in the process.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Autumn asked, her Scottish burr making the words sound utterly musical.

  It was soothing. A foolish idea popped into her head. Wouldn’t it be lovely to hear Autumn tell her a story? A fairy tale in which everything ended perfectly. Where the hero and heroine held one another close and promised each another a lifetime of joy, and the baddies melted away into little puddles of insignificance.

  It would, of course, be completely ridiculous to ask. Even so, it would be so lovely to have someone outside her bubble of hysteria to speak with. Someone who had some perspective. Maybe she should ask her advice on what she thought a single, pregnant woman who had just snapped the head off her baby daddy and didn’t really know if she was coming or going should do.

  ‘Have you ever acted like a complete idiot in front of a patient?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Autumn replied without a moment’s hesitation. ‘It’s inevitable, given what we do.’

  ‘What did you do about it after?’

  The tiniest, most cowardly part of her was hoping that Autumn would say that she’d pretended it had never happened and life went on to be perfectly perfect.

  ‘I marched right back in there, apologised, and set things straight.’ Autumn pushed her hands into her scrubs pockets. ‘If you deal with it straight away I find most patients are pretty forgiving. They want to believe we’re extraordinary, but there’s a part of them that takes comfort from the fact that we, too, are mortal. In other words you can make mistakes in your bedside manner, but you can’t in Theatre.’

  Lizzy hung her head. Yeah... That sounded about right. She looked back up at Autumn, whose green eyes were warm with compassion.

  ‘Our patients come to us when they’re vulnerable, scared, and have absolutely no control over what is happening in their own bodies. Being entrusted with their hope is an equally scary thing, but I’d rather be in my shoes than theirs. Wouldn’t you?’