The Heart Surgeon's Proposal Read online

  ‘Should we see the baby? The parents?’ Maggie asked, watching Phil watch the man disappear, and wanting desperately to wipe the look of anguish from his face.

  ‘We can’t just barge in. The little chap’s not our patient,’ Phil reminded her. ‘Ellis made that perfectly clear.’

  ‘Yet you’re desperately worried about him,’ Maggie said, reading the expression on his face with ease.

  ‘Because I know Dave Edwards, Alex’s mate at Children’s, is out of town for the weekend, and he’s the only other surgeon I know here who’d be capable of doing the operation if the decision is made to go ahead.’

  The full import of this struck home, and unconsciously Maggie’s hand strayed to her own belly, where an embryo the size of a bean was currently producing its first organ—a heart!

  ‘You think someone who might not have done one before—someone with less skill than you—will do it?’

  ‘If Ellis can talk them into it!’

  He rubbed his hands across his face and threaded his fingers through his hair, a gesture she’d never seen before but so redolent of despair her heart ached for him.

  ‘Hell, Maggie, what do I decide? Is it the parents’ choice? The cardiologist’s? Or mine? I’d choose to not do it right now and I could explain that to the parents, tell them why it’s better to wait, but I can’t talk to them because that baby isn’t my patient. Yet if Ellis persuades someone else to do it and the baby dies, will I, in part, be responsible?’

  Maggie put her arm around his waist and hugged him close to her side. Bother the physical consequences. If ever a man needed a hug it was this man, and he needed it now.

  ‘You and Alex make life-and-death decisions all the time,’ she reminded him. ‘You’ve held the lives of so many babies in your hands, but you know you can’t save them all. Can you pretend this baby is in Melbourne, or somewhere else where it’s physically impossible for you to be involved? Would that help?’

  He smiled down at her and touched his finger to her cheek.

  ‘Not much, but you do, though I have a feeling this could get nasty and you should distance yourself from the whole affair so you don’t get hit by any of the fallout.’

  ‘Nasty?’ Maggie queried, battling the urge to press her hand against the place where his finger had touched her cheek. ‘Fall-out?’

  ‘Annie’s away as well, remember—which means we don’t have a unit manager to fight our in-hospital battles. Ellis is powerful in this hospital and we’re the relative new chums.’

  ‘The hospital could make you do the op? But it can’t—not if you feel it’s not in the best interests of the baby!’

  Phil smiled again, but it was a weak effort.

  ‘They can’t make me operate, but they can make things uncomfortable for the unit—and for Annie and Alex when they return.’

  ‘Damn hospital politics!’ Maggie muttered. ‘I can’t believe it can intrude into decisions like this. I’d like to walk out right now, but I guess you don’t want to.’

  She’d put a little space between them but could still feel the shape of Phil’s body against hers.

  She needed a diversion.

  She needed a coffee!

  ‘Seeing as we’re here, let’s have another cup of coffee. I barely drank half of the last one.’

  She led the way towards their suite of rooms where Annie had installed a state-of-the-art coffee-maker.

  ‘Dr Park!’

  Maggie recognised the voice of the hospital CEO, Col Bennett, though how Dr Ellis had got him to the hospital so quickly on a Sunday she couldn’t guess. She turned with Phil and stood beside him as Col, with Dr Ellis yapping at his heels, approached.

  ‘Dr Ellis tells me you don’t feel confident about performing this operation.’

  Maggie glared at the doctor mentioned, unable to believe his effrontery and misrepresentation of the facts. But if she was annoyed, it was nothing to the anger sparking from Phil’s body.

  ‘I am not confident of a successful outcome in so young a baby. It is my considered opinion that the operation should be delayed until the infant is older. I can produce a whole body of evidence that the operations to correct valvular aortic stenosis are more successful on babies over thirty days. The figures on operating on a neonate are abysmal to say the least. And as we can, and have in the past, successfully kept neonates with this condition alive for thirty days, I see no reason why Dr Ellis can’t accept this case management.’

  ‘Oh!’ Col said, but before he could say more, Dr Ellis broke in with a long dissertation on the damage prostaglandin could do and why supportive measures, in this case, wouldn’t work.

  He was positively bristling with anger.

  ‘You haven’t yet seen the infant,’ he fired at Phil.

  ‘Because he is not, as yet, my patient,’ Phil fired right back. ‘Come on, Maggie, let’s get that coffee.’

  He took her by the arm and hustled her away, muttering when they were far enough for his words not to be heard, ‘I’d have hit that man if I’d stayed there a second longer!’

  Maggie pressed her hand against his, which was still on her upper arm, steering her along the passageway.

  ‘Far better to walk away than to come to blows in the unit, but I can’t blame you for wanting to wipe the smug smirk off that fellow’s face. I wanted to slap it myself.’

  They walked into the suite and she turned on the coffee-machine then found ground coffee and filter papers and set everything in motion.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ she said to Phil, who’d walked to the desk he used and was booting up his computer, ‘is why Ellis is so adamant about the operation. Don’t cardiologists usually prefer to go the medication or closed catheterisation route in most cases?’

  ‘They do,’ Phil said, his voice vague as if most of his attention was on his computer screen. ‘But apparently the catheterisation didn’t work, so it’s my guess there’s so much wrong with that poor baby, Ellis is afraid he’ll die, and, having been called in as the specialist, he doesn’t want the death on his hands. He’d far rather the baby died on the operating table, or from post-op complications. That way it’s not his fault.’

  He paused then added, ‘And there’s a more than fifty per cent chance—up to sixty-eight per cent chance, in fact—of that happening if he’s operated on this young. I just don’t believe the risks are worth that kind of result when by waiting, even a short time, the odds are considerably reduced.’

  Maggie carried his coffee across to him and perched on the other side of his desk. He looked up at her and grinned.

  ‘Thanks for sticking by me,’ he said, and her heart turned over in her chest. The grin, the words—the man’s dogged determination to do the right thing—all combined to remind her that what she’d felt for Phil had grown from the initial attraction at that first meeting to something very close to love.

  Oh, dear!

  Better to think about work.

  ‘Is Dr Ellis right about prolonged use of prostaglandin? Are there concerns?’

  ‘Yes. Various studies have shown problems with prolonged use of it, but it’s been done often enough for intensivists to know how to handle the side-effects. It’s politics again. Ellis has voiced these concerns to Col because the baby could well die anyway, and once again he will have someone to blame—me, for suggesting the prostaglandin option!’

  ‘You keep talking about blame but surely this is one very sick baby who, without any supportive measures, would probably be already dead. In fact, the parents have probably already been offered the option of compassionate care—keeping the baby comfortable but not intervening in his condition. There shouldn’t be any talk of blame. If the baby dies, it’s no one’s fault.’

  Phil turned his attention from the computer screen to smile at her and she had to remind herself it was nothing but a colleague-to-colleague smile.

  ‘Of course there shouldn’t be blame laid at individual doors, but it happens every day. Everyone likes to palm off
responsibility—you see it everywhere. Surely you’ve been in an op that’s gone wrong—who’s the first person the surgeon blames?’

  Maggie smiled back at him—colleague-to-colleague!—although every smile from Phil caused an achy feeling in her heart.

  ‘The anaesthetist—or sometimes the theatre sister. Sometimes even the assisting surgeon. You’re right, it’s a fairly normal, if unattractive, human trait to look around for somewhere to lay blame. But surely not in the death of a baby born with so many complications he might not survive anyway.’

  ‘Wishful thinking, Mags!’ Phil said, his attention now back on the screen as his fingers clicked keys to scroll through the information he’d brought up.

  Mags again! No one had ever called her that. The thought warmed little corners of her body.

  Sweet heaven! Was she going soupy over a nickname?

  She sipped her coffee, watching Phil scanning the information on the screen, knowing he was so intent on what he was doing she could study him for a while.

  Brown hair, slightly lightened, maybe by his weekend in the sun, longish and very straight, dropping forward over his forehead, touching his ears. Darker eye-brows—she could only see one, but knew the pair matched well—above the mid-blue eyes that caused flip-flops in her heart region when they smiled at her.

  No smiling eyes recently, which, she told herself firmly, was a good thing. If her stomach was about to launch an early morning rebellion, she could do without heart flip-flops at the same time.

  She continued her study, taking in the neat nose with a slight dip at the end—a Roman nose, she rather thought, although she’d never done much nose-typing. Clean-shaven pale skin, but she guessed from the shadow his beard was darker than his hair. Nice chin, not too obvious, with an indentation too slight to be a dimple but tempting her fingers to touch it every time she noticed it there.

  You missed the lips, a snide voice in her head reminded her, and she turned away because just looking at those lips reminded her of kisses, and made her ache for more of them. But life was complicated enough already, without adding Phil’s kisses to the mix.

  ‘There it is—I knew I’d read it recently. Latest studies confirm that patients over thirty days fare far better short-term and have a higher long-term chance of survival than those operated on as neonates. I’ll print this out and wave it in the face of the next person who mentions it.’

  His fingers, long and thin, danced across the keyboard, and as the printer on the far side of the room began to chatter, the phone on Annie’s desk rang and Maggie crossed to answer it.

  ‘It’s Alex, for you,’ she said quietly, waving the receiver in his direction.

  Phil cursed under his breath, but picked up the extension on his desk.

  ‘Alex, I assume you’re phoning about Dr Ellis’s patient. Believe me, man, I’d as soon have operated as dragged you into this mess.’

  ‘Don’t give it a thought,’ Alex responded. ‘Col Bennett got me on my mobile and I told him exactly what you’d already told him. I just thought you might need some moral support.’

  ‘Thanks, I appreciate it, and now you’re on the phone, how do I actually stand within the hospital? I know they can’t force me to perform an operation I truly believe will do more harm than good, but am I going to jeopardise your position or put pressure on the continuation of the unit? I know we’re on fairly precarious ground as it is, with other services and units jealous of the money we’ve been allocated. Is this going to make things more difficult for you?’

  ‘Too bad if it does, and as for your position, you’re my fellow, employed and paid by me, so hang tough.’

  They talked some more, Phil explaining what he knew about the patient, Alex confirming his own belief that the operation should be delayed as long as possible, running through the figures Phil had already considered, then repeating his opinion that Phil had done the right thing.

  Phil knew he shouldn’t feel relieved—he’d already had high cardiac surgical standing before joining Alex to learn more about the paediatric side of things—but he was.

  ‘Thanks again,’ he said. ‘Now, you get back to looking after Annie and enjoying your honeymoon, while we hold the fort here.’

  He hung up and picked up the now lukewarm cup of coffee. He sipped at it and grimaced, then smiled at Maggie who was perched on Annie’s desk.

  ‘Seems we’re doomed as far as coffee is concerned today. Shall we give it up as a bad job, get the car and go shopping?’

  She looked surprised but slipped off the desk and picked up her handbag.

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  He knew she was humouring him, but couldn’t explain his need to get out of the hospital. Maybe if he put his mind to something else he could forget about the ill baby. Forget that just maybe, by refusing to operate, he was denying the little fellow a slim chance of life.

  ‘You’re worrying about him, aren’t you?’ Maggie said a little later, removing the second, third and fourth bottles of coffee he’d absent-mindedly loaded into the trolley.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘What did Alex say?’

  ‘That I’d done the right thing—that he wouldn’t operate either. We do some unavoidable procedures in neonates—do them all the time—but the heart muscle is so slushy in a newborn, doing anything is a risk. But that’s not the issue, Mags. It’s the voice in my head that’s bothering me.’

  ‘A voice suggesting an op at this stage might just save him?’

  Phil smiled at his companion. She was wearing a red sweater and he wondered if maybe red was her favourite out-of-hospital colour. It was a cheery colour and he felt inexplicably cheered. By her presence and understanding more than the red sweater, but still…

  ‘Damn voices!’ he admitted and she laughed.

  ‘We all have them. Why didn’t you try such and such? mine will ask when a protocol goes wrong, although I know full well it should have worked.’

  And standing in the beverages aisle of the local supermarket, Phil was struck by how good it was to have Maggie around. As a colleague and a friend. He doubted he could remove lust from the equation altogether, but he could hide it, and enjoy her company both as a workmate and a housemate.

  ‘You two taking up residence in front of the coffee?’

  An impatient shopper reminded him of where they were, and he grabbed the trolley and began to steer it out of that aisle and into the next, pausing when Maggie stopped to select an item, pushing again as she moved on, telling himself this was the same as the occasional times he and Alex had shopped together and he shouldn’t be feeling any more pleasure because it was Maggie sharing the task.

  ‘OK, all done. We’ll go to the greengrocer then home,’ she said cheerfully, some half an hour later.

  ‘There’s that word again,’ Phil said, because he had been feeling more pleasure shopping with Maggie.

  She turned towards him, her brow crinkling with confusion so for a moment she looked like a puzzled child.

  ‘Greengrocer?’ she asked, and Phil had to laugh.

  ‘Home,’ he corrected, reaching out and ruffling her short dark hair.

  Her dark eyes mirrored her concern as she said, ‘Oh, Phil!’ very softly, then turned her attention back to unloading the trolley onto the checkout counter.

  ‘I’ll pay for this—we’re using your car and your fuel,’ he said, feeling a need to take control after her murmuring of his name had loosened something inside him.

  Anatomically, this was unlikely. He was a cardiac surgeon, he knew people didn’t have heart-strings so it couldn’t be those.

  ‘You won’t pay. We’ll split it and later set up a housekeeping system so we both pay the same,’ she told him, the practical anaesthetist Maggie back in place, although he could have sworn it was the other Maggie who had whispered his name.

  But as she drove efficiently out of the shopping-centre car park, he realised they weren’t done with the conversation.

  ‘Do you have some mental imag
e of the home you’d have liked to have?’ she asked. ‘Does the word conjure up mental pictures for you?’

  He turned to look at her, wondering if she was just making conversation or really wanted to know. He couldn’t think why she would, but from what he knew of Maggie, she didn’t talk for the sake of it.

  Anyway, she was his housemate and he liked her and so…

  ‘If I tell you, you’ll probably laugh!’ he said.

  She glanced his way, brow wrinkled again.

  ‘Why would I laugh? I really want to know. I’m trying to put myself in your shoes—growing up as you did. I know when I was growing up, one of five kids, I longed to be an only child, with a bedroom of my own, and to live on a farm where I could keep a horse and ducks and geese. I never went much on chickens, but I had a thing for fluffy yellow ducklings.’

  ‘Well, we had the horse and ducks and geese, though I remember ducks as creatures with no discretion at all when it came to where they did their business. Duck poo everywhere down by the lake.’

  ‘I suppose there’s a downside to everything,’ Maggie said, pulling into the lane that ran behind the row of houses and provided access to the garages. ‘But I’m not going to be diverted by duck poo. Tell me about your dream.’

  Phil sighed. He’d been right about her persistence.

  ‘It’s stupid,’ he began, feeling narky at being forced to talk about something so trivial. Then suddenly, from wherever it had lain hidden for close to thirty years, a vivid image of the picture on which his dream was based flashed back into the forefront of his mind.

  ‘Our old nanny—she’d been with my father so she really was quite old, not just old to small children—had a picture in a frame. It showed a little thatched cottage, with roses over the door, and hollyhocks standing straight and tall beside the wall. Flowers everywhere, probably a bird or two. But somehow I always felt, if I could open that front door—it was blue—inside I’d find a family. Mother in the kitchen, father and dog by the fire, small children at the table while a rosy-cheeked baby crawled across the floor. The image of what was behind that door was so clear to me, I finally realised it must have been another picture I’d once seen—maybe on a calendar in Nanny’s room as well. It was the kind of sentimental tripe she adored.’