Читать книгу Medical Romance August 2016 Books 1-6 - Sue MacKay, Amalie Berlin - Страница 23
ОглавлениеADELE SAT BY her mother’s bed and held her hand.
The room was silent and, apart from the diagnosis, nothing had changed.
Yet everything had.
‘You’re going to be a grandmother,’ Adele told Lorna. ‘I found out this morning...’
She wanted to cry.
Yet she was scared to.
She was terrified to break down only to have no reaction from her mother. She was scared that Lorna might fail the final test Adele had set long ago—that desperate tears might awaken her.
She didn’t want to know the answer and yet she couldn’t hold it in any more.
She started to cry from the bottom of her soul and she rested her head on her mother’s chest and held her hand as she wept.
There was no reaction from her mother, no arms went around Adele, and there was no attempt to reach out to her daughter in her plight, no tiny squeeze of her hand.
Adele lifted her head and watched her own tears splash on her mother’s face and crying brought her no comfort.
None at all.
So she stopped.
‘I’m going to be okay,’ she said to her mum. ‘I know that I shall be. It’s good news really...’
It was.
A baby was good news.
Yet it was so scary too and she did not know how to tell Zahir.
She simply did not know.
* * *
It was a rainy summer day and she got off the bus and went into work to start her late shift.
The department felt different without Zahir there. It just did. Adele put her bag in her locker and closed it and then rested her head on the cool metal. She straightened up when Helene came in.
‘I’ve lost my pen,’ Helene said.
‘Here.’ Adele handed her one.
‘How did Hayden do on his driving test?’ she asked, because she had heard Helene saying he’d taken it yesterday but she had stopped talking when she’d seen Adele.
‘He passed.’
‘That’s good.’
They had avoided the subject and sort of danced around it but Adele refused to play life like that any more.
And she was healing because as she walked around with Helene Adele felt her warped humour seeping back.
‘Hey, Helene,’ she said. ‘Now that Hayden’s passed, would you maybe give me some lessons?’
And she watched Helene’s slight bulge of the eyes at the thought of Adele behind the wheel and then Adele laughed.
‘You’re wicked.’ Helene smiled.
‘I am.’
‘Oh, by the way,’ Helene said, ‘Zahir called this morning. He wanted to speak to you.’
‘Probably something about his mother.’ Adele shrugged and feigned nonchalance but her cheeks went bright pink.
She couldn’t hide for ever, but she did not want him calling her at work and if he did so again Adele would tell him not to.
Before or after she told him that she was pregnant?
Maybe she would be his London love after all, she thought.
She just could not see any other solution.
* * *
Zahir could.
To Dakan’s utter shock.
Zahir had just come back from Admin, having signed a new six-month contract, and they sat in the canteen of the hospital and Dakan shook his head as Zahir spoke.
‘You can deal with it if you so choose,’ Zahir said. ‘I have an architect lined up. Her name is Nira and you are to meet with her next week.’ He looked at his brother’s taut features. ‘Or not.’
‘Why not you?’
‘I am tired of speaking with architects, only to have every suggestion they make knocked back by our father.’ Then he told his brother what he had done. ‘I will no longer be returning to cover any royal duties. Not until our father backs down. I have told him that that role now falls to you.’
‘I have a life here.’
‘Your duty is back there,’ Zahir said calmly. ‘I have always returned at short notice, but no more. You will now fill that role.’
‘I never thought you would turn your back on our people,’ Dakan said.
‘And I never would,’ Zahir replied. ‘I shall rule when it is my time but until then it falls to you, or not...’ He would wait this out, Zahir had decided. His silence and removal would hopefully force change. Dakan was the royal rebel, charming, funny and yet, Zahir knew, more than capable of filling the role of Crown Prince in his absence.
‘You can’t just swan in here, meet me for coffee and tell me...’ Dakan started, but then halted as they heard the emergency chimes.
‘Major incident. Could all emergency staff and the trauma team make their way to Emergency.’
It went on repeat and Zahir stood.
‘You don’t work here.’
‘As of half an hour ago,’ Zahir corrected him, ‘I do.’
He strode down the corridor, and ambulances were already pulling up and patients were being wheeled in.
Most of them were crying children.
He headed straight into Resus, where Janet was busily setting up.
‘What’s coming in?’
‘I’m not sure. We’ve been told it was a car versus school bus,’ Janet explained. ‘We haven’t got a clear idea of the number of injuries or their severity yet, but given that it’s a school bus I didn’t want to wait and see.’
‘Good call,’ Zahir said as he put on a paper gown.
‘You’re back?’
‘I just signed my contract. I’m fine to be here.’
Janet didn’t really care right now whether or not he had signed it. Zahir’s hands were more than welcome, today especially.
The driver of the car arrived and she was extremely agitated and distressed,
‘Try and stay calm,’ Zahir said, but the woman kept crying and trying to sit up despite the fact she was wearing a hard cervical collar.
‘Adele.’ Janet called for Adele to come in and take over as she needed to be out there, triaging.
Adele walked into the resuscitation area and she saw him, his shoulders too wide for the paper gown. He looked up and just for a second their eyes met and this time he smiled and greeted her.
‘Adele.’
And she wanted to run to him, to ask how and why he was there, but right now the patient was the priority and required all her attention.
The rest would all simply have to wait.
‘I don’t know what happened...’ The driver was sobbing. ‘A school bus. Oh, my God—oh, my God...’
‘You’re going to be okay,’ Adele told her, and asked her name.
‘Esther!’ she said through chattering teeth, but it was an irrelevant detail to her right now. ‘How badly are they hurt?’ she begged. ‘Please tell me how many are hurt?’
‘We don’t have that information, Esther,’ Adele said. ‘We’re taking care of you.’ She started to undress the woman. ‘Zahir...’ Adele said as she undid Esther’s jeans.
Esther had wet herself.
‘Can you open your mouth for me?’ Zahir said, and he shone a torch inside. ‘She has bitten her tongue. Esther?’ he said in that lovely calm voice. ‘Do you suffer with seizures?’
‘No,’ Esther said. ‘Please can someone find out how many are hurt...?’ And then she stopped begging for information and gave an odd, terrified scream, which Zahir recognised. Patients often experienced an aura before a seizure. It might be a terrible smell, at other times a feeling of impending death and fear, and often they let out a scream as they dropped, though Esther was already lying down.
‘Help me roll her onto her side,’ Zahir said.
And they did just that as Esther started to seize.
They hadn’t worked together often, Zahir had made sure of that, but he found out now that they worked together very well.
He suctioned the airway as Adele pulled up drugs and soon Esther was postictal and snoring loudly while being closely watched.
And information was starting to emerge.
Paul, the paramedic, came in.
‘We’ve just brought in the passenger. Apparently she and Esther were chatting when she let out a scream and started to fit.’
‘Thank you,’ Zahir said.
And other information was revealed.
He saw a worried look on Adele’s face when the radiographer stated the usual—that if anyone was pregnant they should step outside.
And he thought of a night in a desert and of the magic the desert had made, whether you believed or not, and of course there might be consequences.
‘Adele,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay with Esther.’
Zahir was here and though there was no time to catch up or to ask how or why, her world just felt better knowing he was near.
And later, Adele sat with Esther, who was awake now, distressed and crying.
‘I don’t know what happened,’ she said. ‘I need to know how the children are.’
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Adele said. It was the truth. Janet had said she was to stay with Esther. She hadn’t sought information; truly it was easier not to know what was going on than to have to withhold it from her patient.
It sounded as if the department was calming down.
There had been the sounds of crying and frantic parents arriving but the only person who had been bought into Resus since Esther’s admission was a cardiac patient not related to the accident.
It could be good, or there could be other hospitals dealing with injuries.
For now, Adele focused on Esther.
Her toxicology screen was back. It would seem no drugs and certainly no alcohol had been involved.
Sometimes accidents happened.
Terrible, terrible things happened and there wasn’t always someone to hang the blame on.
Except ourselves.
She thought of Fatiq and was quite certain now that he blamed himself for the death of his son.
For years she had beaten herself up over what had happened with her mother.
Now she ached for Esther.
One of the security guards called out that the news cameras had arrived and Esther closed her eyes in dread and fear.
‘I can’t face this...’
‘You can,’ Adele said.
She had.
Adele remembered seeing the images of her accident on the evening news as she’d sat waiting to find out if her mother would make it through surgery.
‘Four members of a family have been taken to hospital and another woman is in a critical condition after a learner driver...’
Adele went with Esther while she had an EEG and she sat with her for a long time until finally she fell asleep.
Janet left her alone.
She was a healer too and knew Adele needed this.
Later, much later, Adele heard the sounds of police radios and them asking Zahir if they could speak with the driver now.
‘Adele.’ Janet put her head around the curtain.
‘It’s time to go home.’
Adele shook her head.
‘Yes, Adele, it’s time to go home.’
Esther opened her eyes as Adele stood.
‘I have to leave now,’ Adele said. ‘But I’ll come and see you in the morning.’
Moving forward didn’t necessarily mean pulling away.
Whatever the outcome.
Tomorrow Esther would know a friendly face.
