Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit Read online

  Although she couldn’t have meant that kind of stripping…

  He turned more of his attention to the pot plants—a lot more.

  ‘Herbs? I thought you said you couldn’t cook. Why all the herbs?’

  ‘I can cook, I just can’t bake. When it comes to things like cakes and biscuits—I’m hopeless at those.’

  It was one of the most inane conversations Kate had ever been involved in, but somehow she couldn’t move away from the man who was now examining her herbs with an almost professional interest.

  Or what seemed like one!

  Why hadn’t he left?

  Why walk towards her rather than the side gate?

  Surely the strangeness she was feeling in his presence wasn’t reciprocated? Not just attraction as in physical awareness but attraction like iron filings to a magnet—a kind of inexorable pull…

  ‘I’ve got a wall to strip and someone’s calling you,’ she said as a shrill, ‘Daddy’ wafted across the hedge.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, but still he didn’t move, except to straighten up from his examination of the herbs and look directly at her, the shadows in his eyes not visible in the gathering dusk, so he was just a tall, dark and very handsome man!

  ‘Yes,’ he said again, then finally he turned away, calling back to Hamish, telling him he was coming, and disappearing around the side of the house.

  Weird!

  Chapter Two

  KATE left early for the hospital, telling herself it had nothing to do with not wanting to accidentally run into her neighbour and so having to walk with him. But maybe he’d had the same idea of avoiding her, or he always arrived at work an hour early, for he was the first person she saw as she entered the unit.

  ‘The baby being transferred has arrived,’ he said, a slight frown furrowing his brow.

  ‘Bigger problem than you thought?’ she asked, sticking to professionalism mainly because the toast she’d had that morning hadn’t been made from mouldy bread but her stomach was still unsettled.

  ‘No, the scans show really good coronaries, as far as you can ever tell from scans, but he hasn’t got a name.’

  Now Kate found herself frowning also.

  ‘Hasn’t got a name?’ she repeated. ‘But that’s ridiculous. Of course he must have a name.’

  ‘Baby Stamford,’ Angus replied, his frown deepening.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Kate muttered, hoping the first thing that had entered her head was the wrong one. ‘But sometimes parents wait until their baby’s born to name him or her, thinking they’ll know a name that suits once they’ve seen the baby.’

  Now Angus smiled, but it was a poor effort, telling Kate he knew as well as she did that sometimes the shock of having a baby with a problem affected the parents so badly they didn’t want to give the child a name—didn’t want to personalise the infant—in case he or she didn’t survive.

  Her heart ached for them, but aching hearts didn’t fix babies.

  ‘You’re operating this morning?’ she asked Angus.

  He nodded.

  ‘Good! That gives me an excuse to speak to the parents, to explain what my part will be, before, during and after.’

  She looked up at him.

  ‘Shall we go together? A double act?’

  Angus studied her for a moment, almost as if he was trying to place her in his life, then he nodded.

  ‘The mother came by air ambulance with the baby, and the husband is driving down. Somewhere called Port something, I think they come from.’

  ‘Port Macquarie,’ Kate told him, ‘and as far as I’m concerned, that’s in our favour, the mother being here on her own. We might find out more from her than we would from the two together.’

  ‘I prefer to speak to both parents,’ Angus said in the kind of voice that suggested he was coolly professional in his approach to his job, not someone who got involved with the parents of the infants on whom he operated.

  Which was fine, Kate admitted to herself as they walked down the corridor towards the parents’ waiting room. A lot of paediatric surgeons were that way, finding a certain detachment necessary in a job that carried huge emotional burdens.

  Although he was a single father himself—wouldn’t that make him more empathetic?

  And why, pray tell, was she even thinking about his approach to his job when it was none of her business? All she needed to know was that he was a top surgeon!

  The waiting room was empty.

  ‘The baby was born by Caesarean, so the mother is still a patient,’ Becky, the unit secretary, told them. ‘She’s one floor up, C Ward, room fifteen.’

  ‘Let’s take the stairs,’ Kate suggested, and when Angus grimaced she added, ‘Not keen on incidental exercise? Don’t you know that even the smallest amount of exercise every day can help keep you healthy?’

  Far better to be talking exercise than thinking about empathy…

  ‘I lived in America for five years, where everyone drives, and already today I’ve walked to work—incidental exercise, but mainly because I don’t have a car.’

  ‘You lived there for five years?’ Kate queried, taking the second flight two steps at a time, only partly for the exercise. ‘Yet Hamish has a broad Scots accent?’

  Angus caught up with her as she opened the door.

  ‘When my wife died, my mother came out to mind the baby, then my father took early retirement, so he and my mother were Hamish’s prime carers when he learned to talk. They stayed until Hamish was three, then found Juanita for me before they returned to Scotland, where my father’s old firm was only too happy to have him return to work.’

  When his wife died?

  There were plenty of single parents around, but most of them didn’t have partners who had died!

  No wonder he had shadows in his eyes…

  Kate tried to make sense of this—and make sense of why a casual answer to her question was having such an impact on her—as she led the way to C Ward, but once inside room fifteen, Angus’s marital state was the last thing on her mind.

  ‘I really don’t care what you do,’ the woman in the bed in room fifteen announced when they’d introduced themselves and explained the reason for their visit. ‘This is just not the kind of thing that happens to people like us. I mean, my husband has his own business and I’m a barrister—we’re both healthy, and we run in marathons. I keep telling people that the babies must have been mixed up. I held my baby when he was born and there was nothing wrong with him, and then suddenly people are saying his heart’s not right and flying me off to Sydney, even refusing to take my husband in the plane.’

  The tirade left Kate so saddened she was speechless, but thankfully Angus was there. He sat down carefully by the side of the bed, and spoke quietly but firmly.

  ‘Mrs Stamford, I realise this is a terrible shock to you, but with this defect babies always seem perfectly healthy at first. It’s only when a little duct between the two arteries starts to close and oxygenated blood keeps circulating through the lungs rather than around the body that a blueness is noticed, usually in the nail beds and lips of the infant.’

  Kate saw the woman’s fury mount, and expected further claims of baby-swapping, but to Kate’s surprise, Mrs Stamford’s anger was directed at Angus’s choice of words.

  ‘Defect? You’re saying my baby has a defect?’

  Time to step in before she became hysterical, Kate decided.

  ‘It’s fixable, the problem he has,’ she said gently. ‘That’s why we’re here. We need to explain the operation to you and get your permission to perform it.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  Oh, hell! Kate tried to think, but once again Angus took over.

  ‘There could well be legal precedents that would allow us to operate anyway,’ he said. ‘I’m new to Australia but in many of the states in the U.S.—’

  ‘Well, I very much doubt that,’ Mrs Stamford interrupted him, although she seemed to have calmed down somewhat. Kate sought to reassure the woman.
/>
  ‘It’s an operation that’s frequently performed, and with excellent results,’ she told her, ‘and we’re lucky to have Dr McDowell here as he specialises in it.’

  She looked at Angus, expecting him to begin his explanation, but he hesitated for a moment before taking a small notebook and pen out of his shirt pocket.

  ‘This might explain it best,’ he said to Mrs Stamford.

  Kate wondered about the hesitation—was it to do with the detachment she’d sensed earlier?—although now he was drawing a small heart on a clean page of the notebook, carefully inking in the coronary arteries which clasped the heart like protective fingers, then showing the two major arteries coming out the top of the organ.

  ‘These coronary arteries which feed oxygenated blood to the heart muscle to keep it beating come off the aorta, the bigger of the two arteries coming out of the heart. The aorta is supposed to come out of the left ventricle while the pulmonary artery that divides in two and goes into the lungs comes out of the right. On rare occasions these two arteries are transposed and the aorta comes out of the right ventricle, with the pulmonary artery coming out of the left.’

  Mrs Stamford was at least interested enough to look at Angus’s drawing, and as she was quiet, he continued.

  ‘What we have to do is first move the two coronary arteries, then we swap the major arteries, cutting the aorta and fixing it to the pulmonary artery where it comes out of the heart, and stitching the pulmonary artery to the aorta so the two arteries are now doing the jobs they’re supposed to be doing.’

  ‘For ever?’ Mrs Stamford demanded.

  Angus hid a sigh. She was right to ask, and had every right to know the truth, but this was one of the reasons he hated getting too involved with parents, having to tell them that the future could hold more operations, having to tell them that, although their child could lead a normal life, there was no guarantee of a permanent fix. Every conversation led to more emotional involvement—and often more pain for the parents.

  ‘There’s a chance the baby will need another operation when he’s older.’ He spoke calmly and dispassionately—straight medical information. ‘The valves on the pulmonary artery are smaller than the aorta’s valves and as these valves are left in place they might sometimes need to be expanded.’

  ‘Leave the diagram,’ Mrs Stamford said. Ordered? ‘I’ll speak to my husband and then talk to you again.’

  She was dismissing them, and Kate waited while Angus pulled the page from his notebook, then they both left the room.

  ‘Is there a legal precedent in some places to go ahead without permission?’ Kate asked him.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he replied, ‘but the woman was getting hysterical and I thought, as she’s a barrister, legal talk might calm her down.’

  ‘I think she’s entitled to a little hysteria,’ Kate muttered, wondering if Angus could really be as detached as he appeared.

  She shrugged her shoulders, trying to ease the tension that had coiled in her body.

  ‘It must be terrible for the parents,’ she reminded him, ‘to learn that there’s something wrong with their child.’

  Worse than losing an unborn child?

  She thrust the thought away and turned her attention to what Angus was saying.

  ‘Particularly parents who are barristers and run marathons?’ he queried, the dryness in his voice suggesting he hadn’t taken to Mrs Stamford, not one little bit. ‘I wonder who she thinks do have children with heart defects? Common people like doctors and teachers? People who don’t run marathons? I’m glad the baby is our patient, not the mother.’

  ‘That’s if the baby is our patient,’ Kate reminded him, although she was wondering why Angus had chosen this specialty if he didn’t like dealing with parents. Surely that was as important as successfully completing a delicate operation? Or nearly as important…

  ‘He will be,’ Angus assured her, moving to avoid a passer-by and accidentally bumping against her shoulder. ‘I doubt any mother would deny her child a chance at life.’

  ‘I hope you’re right!’ Kate murmured, though fear for the tiny scrap of humanity fighting for his life right now made her feel cold and shivery.

  Except for a patch of skin on her shoulder which was very, very hot!

  ‘Do you want to read his file? A paediatrician in the hospital where he was born gave him prostaglandin to keep the ductus arteriosus open and opened a hole between the atria to mix the oxygenated blood as much as possible but it won’t hold him for long.’

  Kate sighed.

  ‘No, I’ll read the file later. Right now I should go back in and talk to her.’

  ‘Better you than me,’ Angus said, although even as he spoke he felt saddened by his reaction and wondered just when he’d lost the empathy he used to feel with parents.

  Fool! No need to wonder when he knew the answer. It was back when Jenna died—

  ‘You make it sound as if I’m walking into an execution chamber,’ Kate teased, jerking him out of the past. He found himself wishing she wouldn’t do it—wouldn’t talk to him so casually, as if they were old friends, and smile at the same time. It was affecting him in a way he didn’t understand and certainly didn’t want to consider. He didn’t do emotion! Not any more…

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ he told her.

  ‘No?’

  Again the teasing smile, and again he felt a physical reaction to it, but before he could analyse it, Kate was speaking again.

  ‘I can understand her anguish. Not only fear for her little son, but that terrible “why me” feeling she must be experiencing.’

  ‘“Why me”?’ Angus repeated, then he shook his head as he admitted, ‘You’re right. There’s always a lot of “why me” isn’t there?’

  He looked unhappy and Kate realised that’s exactly what he must have thought when his wife had died, as he tried to cope with his own grief and anguish, not to mention his son’s loss of a mother.

  And she, Kate, foolish woman that she was, had caused him pain by bringing it up!

  But the ‘why me’ feeling was familiar to her, and although she wouldn’t—couldn’t—think about the really bad times she’d felt that way, maybe a couple of her less traumatic ‘why me’s’ would cheer him up, chase the shadows from his eyes if only for a few minutes.

  And lighten the atmosphere before she went back in to see Mrs Stamford!

  ‘For my part they’ve been totally minor.’ That was a lie but he’d never know. ‘Things like a date passing out in his soup in the most expensive restaurant in town—a diabetic coma not drunkenness—and as it was a first date, it wasn’t entirely surprising the relationship came to nothing. Then there was the one and only time I was persuaded to try skydiving. I got caught up in a tree and it took five hours to get me down, with full television coverage of a local drama. I know these are very trivial things compared to what Mrs Stamford is going through, but they do give me just some inkling of her “this can’t be happening to me” feelings.’

  Angus smiled and Kate felt a little spurt of happiness that she’d been able to make him smile, but the happiness faded as she remembered the task she’d set herself. She returned to Mrs Stamford’s room.

  ‘I thought you might like someone to talk to,’ she said, giving the woman a quick professional once-over and not liking the pale, haggard face and red-rimmed eyes. ‘There are counsellors, of course, that we could bring to you, but they wouldn’t know the ins and outs of the op the baby needs. If you want to talk it out I’m willing to sit here and listen.’

  ‘You said you were a doctor,’ Mrs Stamford muttered in accusing tones. ‘Don’t you have other duties, people waiting for your services? We keep reading about the waiting lists for operations in hospitals, yet you’ve got time to sit and chat.’

  Kate bit back a defensive retort. The woman was in terrible emotional pain; she was entitled to lash out.

  ‘My job this morning was to prepare your baby for surgery,’ Kate responded, speaking
gently but firmly. ‘As the anaesthetist I’m in charge of everything that goes into his blood and lungs until he goes onto the bypass machine, then afterwards until he’s out of the post-op room. But I’m also a woman, and although I can’t imagine the depth of the pain you’re going through, I thought you might like a sounding board. Or to ask questions. Or just to have someone sitting with you for a while.’

  Mrs Stamford’s stiff upper lip did a little wobble, as did her lower lip, then she sniffed deeply as if to control tears that longed to flow.

  ‘Will he die if he doesn’t have the operation?’ she asked, even paler now, if that was possible.

  Kate hesitated.

  ‘We can keep him alive for a while, but because most of the oxygenated blood is circulating back through his lungs and not getting to his heart and brain, the answer’s yes. But we have kids that have had this op coming back to visit us years later, fine healthy young girls and boys.’

  The only response was another sniff, although the way the woman was twisting her hands told of her terrible agitation.

  Kate longed to help her but wasn’t sure how.

  Maybe…

  ‘Have you thought what you’d have done if you’d known the baby had a problem early on in your pregnancy. Would you have had a termination?’

  Now colour rose in Mrs Stamford’s cheeks.

  ‘You mean, an abortion? No, I’d never have done that. A life’s a life—my husband and I both agree on that.’

  But now the baby’s here you’d let him die? Kate thought, but she couldn’t say it. Nor could she understand Mrs Stamford’s thinking now, until the woman sighed and said, ‘You’re right. Of course I can’t let him die. It was the shock! Give me whatever I have to sign, then go ahead and operate.’

  Kate had won, so why did she feel as if she’d lost?

  Because things were never that easy!

  ‘He could still die,’ she said, even more gently than she’d spoken earlier. ‘These operations are performed quite often and with great success, but with any operation at any age there’s a risk. You understand that.’

  ‘Scared you’ll be sued if you don’t dot all the i’s and cross all the t‘s?’ Mrs Stamford snapped, but Kate heard the pain in her voice and knew the woman was close to breaking.