Читать книгу The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance - Carol Marinelli, Amalie Berlin - Страница 52

After

CANDY WOKE IN Steele’s arms and listened to the sound of his breathing.

She wanted him to wake and roll over and make love to her. She wanted the pregnancy thought in her head to be obliterated by his kiss.

Then she didn’t want his kiss because she felt sick.

Candy’s mind flicked over the past few weeks.

Yes, she’d been sick last month, but it had been one of those bugs.

Surely?

She really felt sick now and she crept to the bathroom and tried to throw up as quietly as she could.

It was exhaustion, Candy told herself, brushing her teeth and then showering, but when she glanced in the mirror she could see the fear in her eyes.

Steele lay there listening to Candy flush the toilet to drown out her gags and he blew out a breath.

‘Morning,’ he said a few moments later, when he came in and she was already in the shower.

‘Morning.’ Candy smiled but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

There was an elephant in the room that they both chose to ignore and they dashed around, getting dressed, finding keys, exclaiming they were running late when really they were actually doing quite well for time.

There was the first uncomfortable silence between them as Steele drove Candy and the massive elephant in the car to work.

There was no frantic kissing and they walked through the car park in silence, Candy making the decision to do a pregnancy test as soon as she got there, Steele wondering what the hell he should say.

If anything.

The sound of an ambulance siren had her look up and she saw Lydia standing in the forecourt, frantically gesturing for her to run. Clearly there was something big coming in.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said.

‘Go!’ Steele said, and he watched her run through the car park and to the forecourt, where not one but three flashing-light ambulances were now pulling up. Kelly ran past him too and as Steele walked up the corridor the anaesthetists and trauma teams were running down it towards Emergency.

Candy, Steele thought, was in for one helluva morning.

She was.

She raced into the changing rooms and stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and got into scrubs as Kelly did the same.

‘What is it?’ Kelly asked.

‘Multi-traumas.’ Candy passed on the little Lydia had told her as she’d dashed past. ‘Four of them.’

‘Four are coming here?’

It was rare to get four all at once but apparently there were several more critically injured patients going to different emergency departments. A high-speed collision, involving several vehicles, meant there would be nothing to think about other than the patients any time soon.

It was on this morning that Candy fell back in love with Emergency.

Yes, it was busy and stressful but it was what she loved to do. Helping out with a little girl who had looked dire when she’d first arrived but who was now coughing as Rory, the anaesthetist, extubated her was an amazing feeling indeed.

‘It’s okay, Bethany,’ Candy said as the girl opened her eyes and started to cry. ‘I’m Candy. You’re in hospital but you’re going to be okay.’

Thank God! She looked up at Rory, who gave her a wide-eyed look back because it had been touch and go. Bethany had had a chest tube inserted as her lung had collapsed in the accident and her heart hadn’t been beating when she’d arrived in the department.

To see her coughing and crying and alive, Candy knew why she’d fought so hard to do a job she loved.

Rory and the thoracic surgeon started talking about sedation and getting Bethany up to ICU, and it all happened seamlessly.

‘Busy morning?’ Patrick, the head nurse in ICU, smiled when Candy came up with her patient.

‘Just a bit.’

‘You look exhausted,’ Patrick commented. ‘So this is Bethany?’ He looked down at the little girl, who was sedated but breathing on her own. He nudged Candy away for a moment. ‘I’m going to put her in a side room. I thought about putting her next to Mum but I think it’s going to scare her more for now.’

‘How is her mum doing?’ Candy asked, because she had been so busy working on Bethany that she didn’t really know what was going on with the rest of her family.

‘Won’t know for a while,’ Patrick said. ‘They’ll keep her in an induced coma for at least forty-eight hours. Is it settling down in Emergency now?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t looked up yet.’

‘Go and grab a drink,’ Patrick said.

He was nice like that and Candy headed round to the little staffroom and had a quick drink from the fridge, pinched a few biscuits and then headed back to the unit.

It was quiet. One elderly man was being wheeled in on a stretcher and Candy rolled her eyes at Kelly as she walked into Resus to start the massive tidy up.

It was going to be a big job.

‘Let’s get one bed completely stocked and done,’ Kelly said, ‘just in case something comes in, then we can deal with the rest.’

They got one area cleared and restocked and were just about to commence with the rest when Lydia came in.

‘I’ve asked if everyone can come through to the staffroom.’

‘Now?’ Candy checked, because there was still an awful lot to do.

‘Just make sure that one crash bed is fully stocked,’ Lydia said, ‘and then come straight through. I need to speak to everyone.’

Steele’s morning flew by too.

He had a video meeting with some of his new colleagues in Kent and arranged to go there next Thursday as he wanted to see how the extension was coming along. He also had a house lined up with a real estate agent and wanted to take a second look.

Mr Worthington passed away just after eleven, his radio on, his family beside him. Steele spent a good hour with the family afterwards in his office at the end of the ward.

As they left, instead of heading back out, he sat and thought about Candy. He didn’t know how he felt and he didn’t know what to do.

He looked up when there was a knock at the door and he called for whoever it was to come in then remembered that he’d asked Gloria to send Macey’s niece in once the Worthington family had gone home.

‘Hello, Dr Steele.’ Catherine smiled. ‘Gloria said that you wanted to talk to me.’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

‘Aunt Macey has just gone for an occupational therapy assessment,’ Catherine said. ‘It’s nice to see her walking again.’ She took a seat and then looked at Steele. ‘It’s bad news, isn’t it …?’ she said, and her eyes filled up with tears.

‘No, no.’ Immediately Steele put her at ease. ‘I haven’t called you in to break bad news about your aunt’s health.’ He watched her let out a huge breath of relief. ‘Her physical health anyway,’ Steele amended. ‘But as you know, Macey’s been depressed.’

‘She seems to be getting better, though,’ Catherine said. ‘The tablets seem to be starting to work.’

‘They are,’ Steele said. ‘She’s talking a bit more and engaging with the staff. The thing is,’ he said, ‘it isn’t just medication that your aunt needs at the moment. She’s asked that I speak with you. There’s something that’s upsetting her greatly and it’s been pressing on her mind.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Your aunt has something she wishes to discuss with you, a secret that she has kept for many, many years, and it’s one she doesn’t want you to find out about after her death …’ He told her that Macey had had a baby more than fifty years ago and that he’d been given up for adoption at birth, but Catherine kept shaking her head, unable to take in the news. ‘We’d have known.’

‘Very few people knew,’ Steele said. ‘That’s what it was like in those days.’

‘But my aunt’s not like that …’ Catherine said, and then caught herself. ‘When I say that, I mean she’s so incredibly strict—she’s always saying that women should save themselves and …’ She stopped talking and simply sat there as she took the news in. ‘Poor Aunt Macey. How can we help?’

‘I think speak with Linda and then perhaps you can both come in together. Talk it over with Macey, maybe ask if she wants to look for her son, or if she simply wants it left. Her fear is that you’ll find out after her death, whenever that may be, and you might judge her.’

‘Never.’

‘I know it’s a shock,’ he said.

‘It is.’ Catherine smiled. ‘My mother would have had a fit if she knew. Is that why she’s been depressed?’

‘I think it’s a big part of it,’ Steele said. ‘Maybe when she’s got it off her chest and spoken with her family, things can really start to improve.’

He was about to head down to Emergency to check to see if his new admission had arrived, but before he left he quickly checked some lab results and then scrolled through his emails. Then he checked the intramail as they were hounding him to go and get another security shot for his lanyard. He saw an alert that the Emergency Department had been placed on bypass and let out a sigh of frustration, because he really didn’t want his patient ending up in another hospital.

He clicked on the intramail and, for a man who dealt with death extremely regularly, for a man who usually knew what to do in any given situation, Steele simply didn’t have a clue how to handle this.

We are greatly saddened to inform staff of the sudden death of Gerard (Gerry) O’Connor, a senior nurse in the Emergency Department.

Gerry passed away after sustaining a head injury in Greece. Currently the Emergency Department has been placed on bypass as his close colleagues process the news.

He blinked when his pager bleeped and saw that his patient had, in fact, arrived in Emergency.

Steele considered paging Donald, his registrar, to take it. He wanted some time to get his head around things.

Yet he wanted to see how Candy was.

Steele walked into the war zone of Emergency. Resus was in shambles, though some staff, called down from the wards, were trying to tidy it up.

There were just a few staff around and he was surprised when, after checking the board, he walked into the cubicle where his patient was, to see Candy checking Mr Elber’s observations.

‘I’m Steele,’ he said to his patient.

‘Dr Steele, if you want to be formal.’ Candy smiled at the elderly man as she checked his blood pressure. She was trying to keep her voice light but Steele could hear the shaken notes to it.

‘I thought the place was on bypass,’ he said to her as she pulled off her stethoscope.

‘Mr Elber arrived just before we closed.’

‘Can I have a brief word?’ he said, and he watched her eyes screw up at the sides a fraction but she nodded and followed him outside.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Steele said, but Candy shook her head.

‘Please, don’t.’

‘Candy—’

‘Please, don’t. I can’t talk about it. I think I’m going to go home,’ she said. ‘Lydia offered.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘I think I just want to go home.’

‘Come round tonight,’ Steele said, ‘or I’ll come over to you.’

‘I don’t want you to,’ Candy said. ‘I don’t want to sit and cry over my ex with you. It’s too weird.’

‘It’s not,’ he said, but he didn’t push it. ‘Call me if you change your mind.’

‘Thanks.’

Candy headed off and spoke with Lydia and said that, yes, on second thoughts, she was going to go home.

The news had come completely out of the blue. All the staff were stunned. Candy had headed straight back out to the department, not really knowing what to do, when she’d seen that Mr Elber was sitting on a trolley and had been pretty much left to himself.

Now the complete numb shock that had hit her after finding out that Gerry was dead was wearing off and she was very close to tears.

And very scared too.

She changed and as she headed out of the department she saw Louise walking in on her way to work.

‘Candy.’ Louise came straight over. ‘I just heard about Gerry. It’s such terrible news …’

Candy started to cry but as Louise wrapped her in a hug, feeling Louise’s pregnant stomach nudging into her was just about the last straw.

‘I know you had a bit of a thing going on last year,’ Louise said. ‘It must be so—’

‘Louise,’ Candy begged, ‘it’s not that that I’m crying about.’ Well, it was, but she certainly wasn’t about to tell Louise the entire truth either. ‘I think that I might be pregnant and I don’t know what to do …’

‘Come on,’ Louise said, and led her to the canteen. There were groups sitting and talking, some from Emergency and in tears, so it didn’t look out of place that Candy was crying.

Louise went and got them both drinks and then came over.

‘How late are you?’ Louise asked, knowing full well that Candy was seeing Steele—she’d seen them in the car after all.

‘I’m not late,’ Candy said. ‘But I’ve been feeling sick and I’m so tired …’ She knew it didn’t sound much to go on. The awful thing was that she knew that she was. ‘I simply can’t be pregnant,’

‘It will be okay,’ Louise said. As a midwife she was extremely used to a woman’s shocked tears when they first came to the realisation that they were pregnant.

‘I don’t think it can be,’ Candy sobbed, ‘and I can’t tell you why.’

Louise sat and thought for a moment. If Steele was only here for a few more weeks, which was what she’d heard, then it wasn’t any wonder that Candy was upset.

‘I don’t know who to talk to,’ Candy said, and then blew her nose and told herself to get it together.

‘Can you talk to me?’ Louise offered. ‘Do you want to do a pregnancy test? I’ll come with you.’ When Candy said nothing Louise pushed on. ‘Could you talk about it with Anton?’ Louise asked. Anton was Louise’s husband and one of the most sought-after obstetricians in London. ‘I was just on my way to have lunch with him so I know that he’s got time to see you.’

Candy nodded.

It was time to find out for sure.

Louise took out her phone and sent a text and a few moments later she got a response. ‘He says to come to the antenatal clinic and he’ll see you. I’ll take you over there now.’

‘People will wonder what I’m doing in the antenatal clinic.’

‘People will think we’re just two friends catching up for lunch,’ Louise said. ‘Don’t be so paranoid.’

As they arrived at the clinic Candy felt a moment’s reprieve as she looked around at the pregnant women all sitting waiting for their turn to be seen.

She was overreacting, she told herself.

This world didn’t apply to her.

‘You might as well come in,’ Candy said to Louise as they arrived at a door that had a sign with Anton Rossi written on it. ‘He’ll only tell you what’s happening anyway.’

‘God, no.’ Louise rolled her eyes. ‘Unfortunately for me Anton’s all ethical like that. If you tell him not to tell me, then wild horses wouldn’t drag it from him! You don’t have to worry about that.’ Louise gave her a lovely smile. ‘But if you do want to tell me then I’m dying to know!’ She gave Candy a cuddle just before she went in. ‘You’ll be fine.’

Candy really hadn’t had anything to do with Anton before this. She just knew him by reputation and had seen him occasionally when he’d come down to Emergency to review a patient there.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch break,’ she said. ‘Thank you for seeing me so quickly.’

‘Louise said that you were very upset.’

Candy nodded. ‘I know that everything is confidential but the thing is, this is terribly delicate and—’

‘First of all,’ Anton interrupted, ‘you are right—everything you tell me is completely confidential. I never gossip.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’m not even taking notes. Do you want to tell me what’s happening?’

‘I think I might be pregnant,’ Candy said. ‘The thing is, my partner …’ She didn’t even know if Steele was that but she pushed on. ‘It can’t be his.’

‘Because?’

‘He’s infertile.’

‘Have you been seeing someone else?’ Anton asked gently—he was used to that being the case—but Candy shook her head.

‘I’ve only been with my current partner for a couple of weeks. We weren’t supposed to be serious, but …’ It sounded so terrible put like that but Anton’s eyes were sympathetic rather than judgmental. ‘I had a one-night stand with my ex a couple of months ago.’ She thought back. ‘Three months, maybe. We used condoms.’

‘Nothing is fail-safe,’ Anton said.

‘I went on the Pill afterwards,’ Candy said. ‘I wasn’t expecting anything to happen again but I just decided I wasn’t coming off it. I have had my period.’

‘A normal period?’ Anton checked.

‘It’s been light but I thought that was because the day I got it I started the Pill.’

‘The first thing we need to do—’ Anton was very calm ‘—is to find out if you are indeed pregnant.’

He gave her a jar and a few minutes later she sat in his office and she knew, she simply knew that she was. A few moments later Anton confirmed it.

‘Candy, you are pregnant.’

He let it sink in for a moment.

‘How do you think your partner will react?’ Anton asked.

‘I don’t think I’m going to find out,’ Candy said, and she just stared at the wall. ‘There’s really no point telling him. We both agreed from the start—’

‘What about the father?’

Oh, that’s right. Candy’s brain was moving like gridlocked traffic. It was like telling a joke and forgetting the punch line, because she hadn’t told Anton the good part yet. ‘You know Gerry, the head of nursing in Emergency …’

‘Oh, Candy.’ Immediately he took her hand. Anton didn’t gossip—in fact, he had been in this office all morning—but he had seen the email twenty minutes or so ago informing everyone that Gerry had passed away while on holiday in Greece and that Emergency was on bypass.

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Of course you don’t know what to do at the moment,’ he said. ‘This is all too much of a shock. How long have you been worried that you might be pregnant?’

‘Since yesterday,’ Candy said. ‘A patient said something. I know I’m a bit overweight, it just …’

‘Hit home?’

Candy nodded.

‘I knew you were pregnant before I did the test,’ Anton said, which concerned him a little as it did not seem to fit with her dates. ‘We could do an ultrasound now, here, and see exactly where we are,’ he suggested. ‘Are you ready to do that?’

She nodded.

‘Go to the examination table and undo your jeans. He came over and had a feel of her stomach but said nothing—though he was starting to think that Candy would soon be in for another shock.

He squeezed some gel on and turned the machine away from her. ‘Can you turn the sound off, please?’ Candy said, because she didn’t want to hear its heartbeat.

‘Of course I can.’

He took a few moments, running the probe over her stomach and pushing it in over and over.

‘I really am sorry to interrupt your lunch break,’ Candy said, more for something to say because she was dreading the next conversation.

‘My wife would have been nagging me to do an ultrasound on her anyway.’ He smiled and then he looked across at Candy. ‘I shan’t be discussing this with her.’

‘Thank you.’

He had finished.

‘Stay there,’ Anton said as she went to sit up. ‘You are close to thirteen weeks pregnant, which means conception was eleven weeks ago.’

‘I’ve had my period, though.’

‘Breakthrough bleeding,’ Anton said. ‘Nothing to worry about. All looks well on the ultrasound. Obviously your hormones are everywhere right now.’

‘Would the Pill have harmed it?’

‘No. Many, many women I have seen have taken the Pill while not knowing that they are pregnant. You’ve had no symptoms?’ Anton checked.

‘Not really.’ Candy shook her head and then lay and thought back over the past few weeks. ‘I had what I thought was a bug and I’ve felt sick a couple of times and been a bit dizzy, but I never really gave it much thought.’ She looked up at Anton. ‘I’ve been so tired, though. I mean seriously tired. I actually booked a holiday because I was feeling so flat.’

‘Candy,’ Anton said gently, ‘I’m not surprised that you have been feeling exhausted—it’s a twin pregnancy.’

It was just as well that he had kept her lying down.

Candy lay there, stunned, trying and failing to see herself as a mother of twins. Finally she sat up and when she took a seat at the desk Anton gave her a drink of water.

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘As of now,’ he said, ‘I would expect that your mind is extremely scattered. Is there anybody that you can talk to about this?’

‘Not really. My parents will freak,’ Candy said, panicking just at the thought of telling them. ‘I can’t tell anyone at work or it will be everywhere.’

He nodded in understanding but he was practical too. ‘You are going to start showing very soon—in fact, you are already,’ Anton said. ‘I could feel that you were pregnant before I did the ultrasound. Your uterus is out of the pelvis and you will show far more quickly with twins.’

‘I can’t have it, Anton,’ Candy said, but then she started to cry because it wasn’t an it. It was a them.

‘Candy, you do need a little time to process this news but you also need to come and see me next week. You don’t have much time to make a decision. I do want you to take the time to think very carefully about this.’

She didn’t need the time. In that moment, she had already made her choice.

‘I can’t …’ Candy said, and then took a deep breath. ‘I’m not having an abortion.’

‘Well, you have a difficult road coming up,’ Anton said, ‘but I can tell you this much—I will be there for you and in six months from now you will have your babies and today will be just a confusing memory.’

‘Thank you.’

They chatted some more and Candy told him that she was booked to go to Hawaii next week. ‘Can I still go?’

‘Absolutely!’ he said. ‘It will be the best thing for you. Let your insurance company know. Put me down as your obstetrician. I do still want to see you next week, though. You need to have some blood tests and I want to go through things more thoroughly with you. Right now, it’s time for the news to sink in.’

Poor thing, Anton thought as she left his office. He had looked after many women whose partner and even ex-partner had died and knew that it was a very confusing time.

He smiled as there was a knock at the door and Louise came in. ‘How was she?’

‘She’s fine,’ Anton said, and then rolled his eyes as Louise picked up the gel. ‘Step away from the ultrasound machine, Louise.’

‘Please,’ Louise said. ‘It’s wide awake. I can feel it kicking.

‘Because it probably knows its lunchtime,’ Anton said. ‘Come on, I would actually like to get some lunch.’

‘Is Candy okay?’ Louise shamelessly fished as they walked down to the canteen. Anton absolutely trusted his wife but part of what he adored about her was that she could not keep a secret and so, to be safe, he said nothing.

‘She’s on with him …’ Louise nudged.

‘Who?’ Anton frowned.

‘The sexy new geriatrician that just walked past,’ Louise explained. ‘Candy is on with him.’

He loathed gossip, he truly did, but, unusually for Anton, he turned his head.

He felt sorry for her new partner too and tried to imagine how he would feel if his gorgeous wife had already been pregnant when they’d met.

Anton was man enough to admit that he didn’t know.

Candy stepped into her flat and put down her handbag and she didn’t know where to start with her thoughts.

Just after seven there was a knock at the door and Candy opened it to the angry questions and accusations of her parents.

‘Where were you?’ her mother asked, and demanded to know where Candy had been last night and the night before that.

‘We came over and you were not home.’

‘Please, not now,’ Candy said.

Yes, now.

‘For the last two weeks you are hardly home. We call around and the lights are off. We telephone and you don’t pick up.’

‘I’m twenty-four years old, Mum,’ Candy said. ‘I don’t have to account for my time …’

She might as well have thrown petrol on the fire because all the anger that had been held in by her parents since Candy had moved into her flat came out then.

She was heading for trouble, her mother warned.

They didn’t raise her to stay out all night.

Who was she going to Hawaii with?

Candy thought of Steele then and stood there, remembering the beginning of tentative plans.

How much simpler life had seemed then.

‘I’m not discussing this,’ Candy said. ‘I’m very tired. It’s been an extremely long day.’

She simply refused to row.

When they finally left she stood in the hall.

No one understood. Her friends at work thought she was ridiculous to worry about what her parents might think, but she did. Candy loved them. She just didn’t know how to be both herself and the daughter they demanded that she be.

Imagine telling them that the she was pregnant.

She simply could not imagine it.

Not just pregnant, but pregnant with twins and the father was dead.

Candy dealt with things then as any rational, capable adult would.

She undressed, climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her head.