Читать книгу Father In Secret - Fiona McArthur - Страница 10

‘DON’T shoot.’

‘Well, don’t sneak up on me!’

Savannah lowered the hose and Theo put his hands down. His lips twitched at her threatening attitude.

‘A brass band could sneak up on you with the noise this lot makes. Where’s your guard dog?’

‘Benson doesn’t like the pigs. He’s asleep up at the house.’ Savannah collected the empty buckets and pails and passed him to go into the office.

He followed her. He didn’t understand it. ‘Why do you have a dog like that?’

‘He was my mother’s.’

A strange, vulnerable look crossed her face and it looked out of place on the confident woman he’d met twice. ‘I’m sorry, has something happened to your mother?’

‘Yes. She tired of the dog. Like she tires of everything. So I took him.’

This was too deep for him. He didn’t want to know why she hurt when he asked about the dog.

Savannah could see he looked uncomfortable. She turned and walked towards the driveway. ‘Did you want something, Theo?’

‘No. I was just checking that you were getting on all right with the animals, and I’ve brought my phone number in case you need help with an emergency on the farm.’ He handed her a piece of cardboard he’d ripped off a cereal box.

‘That’s very thoughtful of you. Thank you.’ She grinned at the brand. ‘Coco Pops? I hadn’t picked you as a chocolate-covered-cereal-eater, Theo.’

‘They were for a guest who never came.’ He looked away and changed the subject. ‘Tell me how the rest of your first day at work went then I’ll push off.’

‘It was fine. There are a few areas I think we could streamline, and I’d love your input.’ She saw the look on his face. ‘If you’re interested?’

His face remained closed. ‘In discussing improvements? Not really. I do my shift and go home. I’ll leave all that to the enthusiastic ones like you.’

Savannah narrowed her eyes. The guy was a selfish jerk. How could a health professional not be interested in the smooth running of the department? She supposed it went along with the man who wouldn’t accept a permanent job.

She had to stop expecting people to be things they weren’t. She should have learnt with her mother—and Greg. ‘Then you’ll have to excuse me. I’m looking forward to my shower.’

He screwed up his nose. ‘You need one.’ He spun right as they crossed the road and headed down it towards his own home a couple of bends further up the road.

She spoke to his retreating back. ‘I’m not ashamed of it. Honest labour dirties your hands, Theo.’

He didn’t answer.

Savannah steamed all the way up the driveway. Mainly because she was ashamed of her rudeness to him. Sixteen hours of night shift was honest labour. And he’d come to check she was OK and bring his phone number in case she needed him. She was the jerk. But that crack about her needing a shower had been petty. She sniffed her sleeve and screwed up her nose. ‘Phew.’ Maybe more truthful than petty after all!

She kicked her boots off at the bottom of the stairs and stomped onto the verandah. She wasn’t normally this short-tempered or intolerant. Perhaps she had more of her mother in her than she’d thought. Ouch. She preferred to believe it was because she hadn’t slept well the night before. Without the sounds of the traffic in the city she’d found it difficult to settle, and the old house creaked and groaned a lot. Or maybe she was scared because she was impossibly attracted to Theo and he was just as prickly as she was.

Benson yapped from inside the house.

‘Ha. Guard dog indeed! Where were you when I needed you?’

* * *

The next morning Savannah planned to apologise to Theo as soon as he came in. But she didn’t have time.

Dr Smythe, a thin, nervous man, slow to work with and easily flustered, had patients banked back to the doorway. He’d spent nearly an hour trying to put a drip in a young man who had accidentally chainsawed a zipper in his leg, and in the end Savannah had tactfully offered to do it herself.

By the time Theo arrived, Savannah was ready to throw her arms around him. He raised his eyebrows at the pile of waiting patient cards, and looked at her sardonically.

‘Smythe snowed under, is he?’

‘Yes,’ Savannah said with great restraint.

‘Well, let’s get moving, then.’

Savannah heaved a sigh of relief and followed him from cubicle to cubicle. She watched, impressed, as he soothed frayed nerves and anxious relatives made worse by the long wait. He remained even-tempered and very thorough. He was very good at his job. Why wouldn’t he take it on permanently?

By the time lunchtime came she was ready for a break. But she didn’t get one.

‘Savannah. In here, please.’ The urgent summons from Julia in cubicle three had all thoughts of food banished immediately.

The very young woman behind the curtain was large all over and shapeless in a thick jumper. Tears rolled down her cheek and there was real fear in her eyes.

‘Let me go to the toilet. I’ve got to go.’

Savannah took one look at the ungainly woman struggling to sit up and remembered another large young woman from her previous hospital whom she’d never forget.

‘Can you hang on for one more minute while Sister fills me in?’ Savannah looked at Julia.

‘This is Carly, she’s fifteen. I can’t get much of a history but wondered if she had an acute appendicitis, except the pain comes and goes.’

‘I’ll bet. Carly, let me have a very quick feel of your tummy, and then we’ll talk about your pain.’ Savannah lifted the baggy jumper and shirt underneath and ran her hands over the girl’s round but not bulging stomach. She felt a definite kick from the baby within. The top of the uterus was palpable as being consistent with a full-term baby. She caught Julia’s eye and nodded at the incredulous look on her face.

‘Get her a trolley and over to Maternity Ward, and ring to say we’re coming. She’s ready to...’ Savannah stopped and sought another way to say it. ‘Be transferred. Ask Theo to come in, please.’

Julia scooted out the door. Carly was between contractions at the moment and Savannah needed some information. She might have two minutes before the next one.

‘Carly, have you been to see a doctor in the last year?’

‘No.’

‘Where’s your mum?’

‘She’s in the waiting room with Dad.’

‘Are you bleeding down below?’ Savannah was aware of Theo’s feet stopping outside the curtain. The curtain parted slightly and his eyes met hers. She held her finger up for a second and he stood back. Savannah looked back at the girl.

A pink flush rose in her cheeks and the girl looked away. ‘I think I might have my period, but I only ever had one so I’m not sure.’ Baby blue eyes looked up at Savannah with relief. ‘So that’s why I have pains. It’s a period.’

‘I don’t think it’s a period. Carly, I’m sorry to ask you this, but are you a virgin?’

This time the cheeks stayed pink. There was a silence and Savannah willed the girl to answer before the next contraction.

Carly swallowed. ‘I’m nearly a virgin. I only did it the once and that was a long time ago.’

‘About nine months?’ Savannah smiled softly down at the naïve young woman beside her.

Carly’s lip quivered and she turned tear-filled eyes up at Savannah. ‘I’m having a baby?’ She sniffed. ‘I really hoped I wasn’t.’

Savannah reached for her hand. ‘Very soon.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I don’t know how. Don’t you have to go to classes or something to learn how to breathe?’

Savannah couldn’t help the smile this time. ‘No. Your body will let you know what to do. Don’t be scared and just do what your body tells you.’

‘Mum and Dad will kill me.’ Her eyes widened and she groaned. ‘My body’s telling me I want to go to the toilet.’ She squeezed her eyes shut, crushed Savannah’s hand and grunted.

Theo stepped from behind the curtain and into the cubicle. ‘I gather we’re having an unplanned baby.’

‘I was hoping we’d get her to Maternity first but she must have been in second stage when she came in.’

‘How could you tell if you haven’t examined her?’

Savannah gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘Let’s say my experience tells me.’

Savannah leaned her face close to the girl’s and stroked her cheek. ‘Carly, the doctor’s here. It’s OK, sweetheart. Do you want your mum?’

At the girl’s tentative nod, Savannah straightened. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Ruth.’

‘I’ll be back in a tick.’

Theo looked up. ‘You’re not leaving me here?’

‘Yeah, wish I could be a fly on the wall.’ She saw him frown and she smiled. ‘I’ll be quick.’

She closed the curtain and glanced up the corridor. The orderly was coming to push the bed to Maternity. With a bit of luck they might make it there yet. She picked up a prepackaged emergency delivery set and tucked the paper-covered bundle under her arm—description side down—just in case.

Savannah turned the other way into the waiting room. There were only two people left in there—a large-boned woman who could be none other than Carly’s mum, and the other a thin, bald man turning his hat in his hands. Both stood up when Savannah entered.

Worried blue eyes searched Savannah’s face. ‘How’s my Carly?’

‘She’ll be fine but she needs her mum. Can you follow me, please?’

Ruth touched her husband on the arm and gestured for him to take her handbag. ‘What about her dad?’

‘Perhaps it’s better if he stayed here for the moment. He can come in if you want him, too, shortly. The cubicles are very small.’

They strode quickly back towards the cubicles. Ruth caught Savannah’s arm. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

Savannah tried to imagine how she would feel as a mother in this situation. Procrastination wouldn’t help.

‘Carly is having a baby.’

The breath puffed between Ruth’s lips. ‘When?’

‘Today. Now.’

Ruth stopped walking, closed her eyes for a second and then started to walk again. ‘Then we’ll leave her father in the waiting room.’

* * *

Theo was sweating. He’d specialised in orthopaedics, not obstetrics. He had no doubt he could deliver a baby, despite the five years or so since the last one, but he had to make the decision to stay or go to Maternity. He didn’t want this child, with no antenatal care, born in a corridor between the two wards.

What was keeping Savannah? He realised he missed her calmness. Just as he decided to go for Maternity, Carly put her chin on her chest and screamed. Well, that made the decision easy. Looked like it was here.

Savannah swished through the curtains and surprisingly she was smiling. She put an emergency delivery set-up on the bottom of the bed and started to open it. Good idea!

Carly’s mum followed her. Ruth went straight to her daughter and kissed her.

‘Duffer. You should have told me. Now, stop that screaming and give it a shove, like you gotta go.’

Theo met Savannah’s eyes and both smiled. She mimed that he should go and wash his hands and waved a pair of gloves at him.

He felt the smile tugging on his lips and did as he was told. How had Savannah turned this situation into normal so quickly?

In the few seconds he was gone, Savannah had Carly sit higher in the bed, slip her trackpants off and hold herself under her thighs with her hands. The sheet across her lap gave some degree of dignity. Her mother rested her arm around Carly’s shoulders.

Theo marvelled as determination replaced the look of fear on the girl’s face and a dark crescent of the baby’s head protruded between her legs. He heard her gasp at the sensation. He winced. It was at moments like this he was glad he was a man.

Theo’s hand hovered over the bulge of the baby’s head, not touching but ready in case Carly decided to push without control. But she didn’t. Incredible girl.

The back of the baby’s dark head of hair continued to distend the vulva until it seemed there couldn’t possibly be more room, and then the head started to extend as the baby lifted its chin inside its mother.

First the top of the head and then, centimetre by centimetre, the forehead swept the perineum until the gentle rush of nose, mouth and chin completed the first of the obstacles to the outside.

They all sighed. ‘You’re doing beautifully, Carly.’ Theo’s voice was quiet and didn’t disturb the mood of the occasion.

‘It’s stinging, burning like mad.’ Carly groaned between her teeth.

‘It must be. Just relax for a moment until you get another contraction. I’m going to feel if the umbilical cord is around the baby’s neck in case it’s too tight.’

He slipped one finger next to the baby’s neck and circled it. ‘No cord.’

‘I’m getting another pain.’

‘Then push,’ said her matter-of-fact mother.

First one shoulder was born for Theo to slip his finger into the axilla and then the other, and in a rush the body and legs followed. Theo lifted the child onto Carly’s stomach by the baby’s armpits and Savannah laid a small blanket across the pair to block out any breeze.

Ruth kissed her daughter and wiped the tears from her own cheek with the back of her hand.

Carly wasn’t satisfied. ‘Well, what is it?’

They all looked at each other and Savannah’s eyes twinkled. She lifted the blanket again. Theo raised the child for Carly to say it first.

‘It’s a boy. Thank goodness. He doesn’t have to go through that.’

They all laughed.

Soon third stage was complete, both mother and child had been checked over and Theo left to write up the notes.

Ruth brought in the new grandfather. He stood there, blinked, opened and closed his mouth a few times and then sank onto the only chair in the cubicle.

‘Well?’ His wife nudged him to encourage some comment.

The older man cleared his throat. ‘Are you both well?’

Carly barely met her father’s eyes as she nodded her head.

‘That’s good.’ He sighed, stood up and leaned over to kiss his daughter’s cheek. ‘Er, I always wanted a son. A grandson will be grand.’

Satisfied all would be well with her patient, Savannah slipped out to join Theo at the desk. He looked up with a straight face.

‘Maternity rang and asked how come we did them out of their job?’

She smiled. The birth was a lovely memory to share. ‘That was a nice delivery, Theo. Maybe you should work in obstetrics.’

He frowned.

Now what was wrong with him? She felt like kicking him out of the mood.

He shook his head. ‘With no antenatal care, we’re lucky the baby had no problems. I can’t believe no one knew she was pregnant.’

‘I think Carly had an idea, but hoped it would go away.’

He snorted. ‘How?’

‘If you were fifteen, scared and not sure what was going on, it might seem reasonable. Actually, I had a case exactly like Carly’s at my last hospital—so it’s not so unusual.’ She tilted her head. ‘Haven’t you ever done something you regretted and wished the whole problem would go away?’

He froze and refused to meet her eyes. Man, had he! ‘I’m going to the cafeteria for lunch. Ring me if you need me.’

Theo spent another meal talking to himself in the cafeteria. Savannah was right. Birth was special. Yet it was just another thing Marie had excluded him from. Maybe it was time he learned to deal with it.

Driving home that night, Theo forced himself not to slow down as he drove past Savannah’s farm. Stopping by unexpectedly two days in a row would be too much.