Читать книгу Midwives On-Call - Алисон Робертс - Страница 32

THE LAST TIME Oliver had visited his ex-mother-in-law, her house had looked immaculate. Adrianna was devoted to her garden. At this time of year her roses had always looked glorious, her herbaceous borders had been clipped to perfect symmetry and her lawns had always been lush and green, courtesy of the tanks she’d installed specifically so she could be proud of her garden the year round.

Not now.

The grass on the lawn was a bit long and there were bare patches, spots where things had been left for a while. Where once an elegant table setting had stood under the shade of a Manchurian pear, there was now a sandpit and a paddling pool.

A beach ball lay on the front path. He had to push it aside to reach the front door.

It took him less than a minute to reach the door but by the time he had, the last conversation he’d had with Em had played itself out more than a dozen times in his head.

‘Em, I can’t adopt. I’m sorry, but I can’t guarantee I can love kids who aren’t my own.’

‘They would be your own,’ she’d said. She’d been emotional, distraught, but underneath she’d been sure. ‘I want kids, Oliver. I want a family. There are children out there who need us. If we can’t have our own … to not take them is selfish.’

‘To take them when we can’t love them is selfish.’

‘I can love them. I will.’

‘But I can’t.’ He’d said it gently but inexorably, a truth he’d learned by fire.

‘You’re saying I need to do it alone?’

‘Em, think about it,’ he’d said fiercely. ‘We love each other. We’ve gone through so much …’

‘I want a family.’

‘Then I can’t give it to you. If this is the route you’re determined to take, then you’ll need to find someone who can.’

He’d walked away, sure that when she’d settled she’d agree with him. After all, their love was absolute. But she’d never contacted him. She hadn’t answered his calls.

Adrianna had spoken to him. ‘Oliver, she’s gutted. She knows your position. Please, leave her be to work things out for herself.’

It had gutted him, too, that she’d walked away from their marriage without a backward glance. And here was evidence that she’d moved on. She’d found herself the life she wanted—without him.

He reached the door, lifted his hand to the bell but as he did the door swung inwards.

The guy opening the door was about the same age as Oliver. Oliver was tall, but this guy was taller and he was big in every sense of the word. He was wearing jeans, a ripped T-shirt and big working boots. His hands were clean but there was grease on his forearms. And on his tatts.

He was holding a child, a little boy of about two. The child was African, Oliver guessed, Somalian maybe, as dark as night, with huge eyes. One side of his face was badly scarred. He was cradled in the guy’s arms, but he was looking outwards, brightly interested in this new arrival into his world.

Another kid came flying through the gate behind Oliver, hurtling up the path towards them. Another little boy. Four? Ginger-haired. He looked like the guy in front of him.

‘Daddy, Daddy, it’s my turn on the swing,’ he yelled. ‘Come and make them give me a turn.’

The guy scooped him up, as well, then stood, a kid tucked under each arm. He looked Oliver up and down, like a pit bull, bristling, assessing whether to attack.

‘Life insurance?’ he drawled. ‘Funeral-home plans? Not interested, mate.’

‘I’m here to see Emily.’

‘She’s not interested, either.’

He was still wearing his suit. Maybe he should have changed. Maybe a tatt or two was necessary to get into this new version of his mother-in-law’s home.

‘I’m a friend of Em’s from the hospital.’ Who was this guy? ‘Can you tell her I’m here, please?’

‘She’s stuffed. She doesn’t need visitors.’ He was blocking the doorway, a great, belligerent bull of a man.

‘Can you ask her?’

‘She only has an hour at most with Gretta before the kid goes to sleep. You want to intrude on that?’

Who was Gretta? Who was this guy?

‘Mike?’ Thankfully it was Em, calling from inside the house. ‘Who is it?’

‘Guy who says he’s a friend of yours.’ Mike didn’t take his eyes off Oliver. His meaning was clear—he didn’t trust him an inch. ‘Says he’s from the hospital. Looks like an undertaker.’

‘Mike?’

‘Yeah?’

‘It’ll be Oliver,’ she called, and Mike might be right about the ‘stuffed’ adjective, Oliver conceded. Her voice sounded past weariness.

‘Oliver?’

‘He’s the guy I was married to.’ Was?

‘Your ex is an undertaker? Sheesh, Em …’

‘He’s not an undertaker. He’s a surgeon.’

‘That’s one step before the undertaker.’

‘Mike?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Let him in.’

Why didn’t Em come to the door? But Mike gave him a last long stare and stepped aside.

‘Right,’ he called back to Em. ‘But we’re on the swings. One yell and I’ll be here in seconds. Watch it, mate,’ he growled at Oliver, as he pushed past him and headed down the veranda with his load of kids. ‘You upset Em and you upset me—and you wouldn’t want to do that. You upset Em and you’ll be very, very sorry.’

He knew this house. He’d been here often with Em. He’d stayed here for weeks on end when, just after they were married, Em’s dad had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.

It had taken the combined skill of all of them—his medical input, Em’s nursing skill and Adrianna’s unfailing devotion—to keep Kev comfortable until the end, but at the funeral, as well as sadness there had also been a feeling that it had been the best death Kev could have asked for. Surrounded by his family, no pain, knowing he was loved …

‘This is how I want us to go out when we have to,’ Em had whispered to him at the graveside. ‘Thank you for being here.’

Yeah, well, that was years ago and he hadn’t been with her for a long time now. She was a different woman.

He walked into the kitchen and stopped dead.

Different woman? What an understatement.

She was sitting by Adrianna’s old kitchen range, settled in a faded rocker. Her hair was once more loose, her curls cascading to her shoulders. She had on that baggy windcheater and jeans and her feet were bare.

She was cuddling a child. A three- or four-year-old?

A sick child. There was an oxygen concentrator humming on the floor beside them. The child’s face was buried in Em’s shoulder, but Oliver could see the thin tube connected to the nasal cannula.

A child this small, needing oxygen … His heart lurched. This was no ordinary domestic scene. A child this sick …

The expression on Em’s face …

Already he was focusing forward. Already he was feeling gutted for Em. She gave her heart …

Once upon a time she’d given it to him, and he’d hurt her. That she be hurt again …

This surely couldn’t be her child.

And who was Mike?

He’d paused in the doorway and for some reason it took courage to step forward. He had no place in this tableau. He’d walked away five years ago so this woman could have the life she wanted, and he had no right to walk back into her life now.

But he wasn’t walking into her life. He was here to talk to her about paying for the crash.

Right. His head could tell him that all it liked, but his gut was telling him something else entirely. Em … He’d loved her with all his heart.

He looked at her now, tired, vulnerable, holding a child who must be desperately ill, and all he wanted was to pick her up and carry her away from hurt.

From loving a child who wasn’t hers?

Maybe she was hers. Maybe the in-vitro procedures had finally produced a successful outcome. But if this was her child …

His gut was still churning, and when she turned and gave him a tiny half-smile, a tired acknowledgement that he was there, a sort of welcome, the lurch became almost sickening.

‘Ollie.’

No one had called him Ollie for five years. No one dared. He’d hated the diminutive—Brett, his sort of brother, had mocked him with it. ‘Get out of our lives, Pond Scum Ollie. You’re a cuckoo. You don’t belong here.’

Only Em had whispered it to him in the night, in his arms, when their loving had wrapped them in their own cocoon of bliss. Only Em’s tongue had made it a blessing.

‘Hey,’ he said softly, crossing to where she sat, and, because he couldn’t help himself, he touched her hair. Just lightly. He had no right, but he had to … touch.

It was probably a mistake. It hauled him into the intimate tableau. Em looked up at him and smiled, and it was no longer a half-smile. It was a smile of welcome. Acceptance.

A welcome home? It was no such thing. But it was a welcome to her home, to the home she’d created. Without him.

‘Gretta, we have a visitor,’ she murmured, and she turned slightly so the child in her arms could see if she wanted.

And she did. The little girl stirred and opened her eyes and Oliver’s gut lurched all over again.

Isla had said Em had a two- and a four-year-old. This little one was older than two, but if she was four she was tiny. She was dressed in a fuzzy pink dressing gown that almost enveloped her.

She was a poppet of a child, with a mop of dark, straight hair, and with huge eyes, almost black.

Her lips were tinged blue. The oxygen wasn’t enough, then.

She had Down’s syndrome.

Oh, Em … What have you got yourself into?

But he couldn’t say it. He hauled a kitchen chair up beside them both, and took Gretta’s little hand in his.

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Gretta.’ He smiled at the little girl, giving her all his attention. ‘I’m Oliver. I’m a friend of your …’ And he couldn’t go on.

‘He’s Mummy’s friend,’ Em finished for him, and there was that lurch again. ‘He’s the man in the picture next to Grandma and Grandpa.’

‘Ollie,’ the little girl whispered, and there was no outsider implication in that word. She was simply accepting him as part of whatever this household was.

There was a sudden woof from under the table, a scramble, another woof and a dog’s head appeared on his knee. It was a great, boofy, curly brown head, attached to a body that was disproportionally small. It woofed again but its tail wagged like a flag in a gale.

‘This is Fuzzy,’ Em said, still smiling at him. His presence here didn’t seem to be disconcerting her. It was as if he was simply an old friend, dropping by. To be welcomed and then given a farewell? ‘Mike gave us Fuzzy to act as a watchdog. He sort of does, but he’s always a bit late on the scene.’

‘Oliver!’ And here was the last part of the tableau. Adrianna was standing in the door through to the lounge and her eyes weren’t welcoming at all. ‘What are you doing here?’

Here was the welcome he’d expected. Coldness and accusation …

‘Mum …’ Em said warningly, but Adrianna was never one who could be put off with a mere warning.

‘You hit Em’s car.’

‘Mum, I told you. I hit his.’

‘Then he shouldn’t have been parked where you could hit him. What are you doing here?’

‘Offering to pay for the damage.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Mum, it was my fault,’ Em protested, but Adrianna shook her head.

‘It’s your no-claim bonus that’s at risk. Oliver’s a specialist obstetric surgeon, and I’m betting he has no mortgage and no kids. He can afford it.’

‘Mum, it’s my debt.’

‘You take on the world,’ her mother muttered. ‘Oliver owes you, big time. My advice is to take his money and run. Or rather take his money and say goodbye. Oliver, you broke my daughter’s heart. I won’t have you upsetting her all over again. Raking up old wounds …’

‘He’s not,’ Em said, still gently, and Oliver was aware that her biggest priority was not Em or the emotions his presence must be causing, but rather on not upsetting the little girl in her arms. ‘Mum, he’s welcome. He’s a friend and a colleague and he’s here to do the honourable thing. Even if I won’t let him. I can afford to pay, Oliver.’

‘I won’t let you,’ he told her.

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, then,’ Adrianna said, slightly mollified. She humphed across to the kettle, made tea—and, yep, she remembered how he liked it. She plonked two mugs on the table, one for Em, one for him. Then she hoisted Fuzzy into one arm, took her own mug in the other hand and headed back to the sitting room. ‘Semi-final of Boss of My Kitchen,’ she said briefly over her shoulder. ‘Shall the croquembouche disintegrate into a puddle? The tension’s a killer. Nice to see you, Oliver—sort of—but don’t you dare upset Em. Goodbye.’

And she disappeared, using a foot to shove the door closed behind her.

Her message couldn’t be clearer. My daughter wants me to be polite so I will be, but not one inch more than I must.

He was left with Em, and the little girl in her arms. Sitting in Adrianna’s kitchen.

It was a great kitchen.

He’d always loved this house, he thought, inconsequentially. Kevin and Adrianna had built it forty years ago, hoping for a huge family. They’d had four boys, and then the tail-ender, Emily. Adrianna’s parents had moved in, as well, into a bungalow out the back. Em had said her childhood had been filled with her brothers and their mates, visiting relations, cousins, friends, anyone Adrianna’s famous hospitality could drag in.

Oliver and Em had built a house closer to the hospital they both worked in. They’d built four bedrooms, as well, furnishing them with hope.

Hope hadn’t happened. The IVF procedures had worn them down and Josh’s death had been the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. He’d walked out and left it to her.

‘You’re not living in our house?’ He’d signed it over to her before going overseas, asking their lawyer to let her know.

‘It’s better here,’ she said simply. ‘My brothers are all overseas or interstate now, but I have Mum, and Mike and Katy nearby. The kids are happy here. I’ve leased our house out. When I emailed you, you said I could do what I like. I use half the rent to help with expenses here. The other half is in an interest-bearing deposit for you. I told you that in the email. You didn’t answer.’

He hadn’t. He’d blocked it out. The idea of strangers living in the gorgeous house he and Em had had built with such hopes …

‘I couldn’t live there,’ Em said, conversationally. ‘It doesn’t have heart. Not like here. Not like home.’

Yeah, well, that was another kick in the guts, but he was over it by now. Or almost over it. He concentrated on his tea for a bit, while Em juggled Gretta and cannula and her mug of tea. He could offer to help but he knew he’d be knocked back.

She no longer needed him. This was her life now.

Gretta was watching him, her great brown eyes carefully assessing. Judging? Who knew? The IQs of kids with Down’s syndrome covered an amazingly broad spectrum.

He touched the cannula lightly. ‘Hey, Gretta,’ he said softly. ‘Why do you need this?’

‘For breeving,’ she lisped, but it was as if even saying the words was too much for her. She sank back against Em and her eyes half closed.

‘Gretta has an atrioventricular septal defect,’ Em said matter-of-factly, as if it was a perfectly normal thing for a kid to have. No problem at all.

But those three words told Oliver all he needed to know about the little girl’s condition.

An atrioventricular septal defect … Common term—hole in the heart.

A large percentage of babies with Down’s syndrome were born with congenital heart defects. The most common problem was atrioventricular septal defects, or holes in the heart. That this little one was at home with oxygen, with a cannula helping her breathe, told Oliver there was more than one hole. It must be inoperable.

And he had to ask.

‘Em, is she yours?’

The words echoed around the kitchen, and as soon as they came out he knew it was the wrong thing to ask. The arms holding Gretta tightened, and so did the look on Em’s face.

‘Of course she’s mine,’ she whispered, but the friendliness was gone. ‘Gretta’s my daughter. Oliver, I think you should leave.’

‘I meant—’

‘You meant is she adopted?’ Her face was still bleak. ‘No, she’s not adopted. I’m Gretta’s foster-mum, but her birth mother has given all responsibility to me. That means I can love her as much as I want, and that’s what I do. I love her and love her and love her. Gretta’s my daughter, Oliver, in every sense of the word.’

‘You have another … son?’

‘You’ll have met Toby on the way out with Mike, and he’s my foster-child, too. He has spinal kyphoscoliosis. He’s the bravest kid. I’m so proud of my kids. Mum’s so proud of her grandkids.’

He got it. Or sort of. These were fostered kids. That’s what Em had wanted him to share.

But that’s what he’d been, he thought bleakly. Someone else’s reject. Much as he approved of the idea in theory, in practice he knew it didn’t work.

But what Em did was no longer his business, he reminded himself. This was what she’d decided to do with her life. He had no business asking …

How could he not?

‘Who’s Mike?’ he asked, and he hadn’t known he was going to ask until he did.

‘My lover?’ Her lips twitched a little at the expression on his face. ‘Can you see it? Nope, Mike’s our next-door neighbour, our friend, our man about the house. He and Katy have three kids, we have two, and they mix and mingle at will. You like going to Katy’s, don’t you, Gretta?’

There was a faint nod from Gretta, and a smile.

And the medical part of Oliver was caught. If Gretta was responding now, as ill as she was, her IQ must be at the higher end of the Down’s spectrum.

He watched Em hold her tight, and he thought, She’s given her heart …

And he never could have. He’d never doubted Em’s ability to adopt; it was only his reluctance … his fear …

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he found himself saying. ‘Now that I’m here?’

‘But you don’t want to be here.’ Em shifted a little, making herself more comfortable. ‘You’ve moved on. At least, I hope you have. I’d have thought you’d have asked for a divorce, found a new partner and had kids by now. You wanted kids. What’s stopping you?’

And there was a facer. He had wanted children, they both had, but after a stillbirth and so many attempts at IVF it had worn them—and their marriage—into the ground. Em had told him to leave.

No. She hadn’t. She’d simply said she wanted to adopt a child, and that was a deal-breaker.

‘I haven’t found the right person,’ he said, trying to make it sound flippant, but there was no way he could make anything about what had happened to them flippant. The last year or so of their marriage had been unswervingly grey. He looked at Em now and he thought some of the grey remained.

A lot of the grey?

He glanced around the kitchen, once sparkling and ordered, if a bit cluttered with Adrianna’s bits and pieces from the past. But now it was all about the present. It was filled with the detritus of a day with kids—or a life with kids.

But this was what Em wanted. And he hadn’t?

No, he thought fiercely. It had been what he’d wanted more than anything, and that’s why he’d walked away.

So why hadn’t he found it?

There was the sound of feet pounding up the veranda, a perfunctory thump on the door and two little boys of about six and four burst in. They were followed by Mike, carrying the toddlers. The six-year-old was carrying a bunch of tattered kangaroo paws, flowers Oliver had seen in the next-door front garden. Tough as nails, Australian perennials, they hardly made good cut flowers but these were tied with a gaudy red bow and presented with pride.

‘These are for Gran Adrianna,’ the urchin said. And when she obviously wasn’t in the kitchen, he headed through the living-room door and yelled for her. ‘Gran? Gran Adrianna, we’ve got you a present. Mum says happy birthday. She was coming over to say it but she’s got a cold and she says she wants to give you flowers for your birthday and not a cold.’

And Em turned white.