One Night to Forever Family Read online

  Ned Radcliffe—the name came back to him as he held out his hand in greeting—but he could have been Santa Claus for all the notice Ned took of him. One hundred percent of his attention was focussed on the boy of about three who lay, unmoving, on the examination couch.

  ‘Edward Radcliffe, two years four months, non-responsive when the ambos reached him,’ a nurse said quietly to Andy. ‘Father had been giving CPR, ambos took over and heart restarted. He’s on oxygen, but he’s remained deeply unconscious.’

  ‘Any sign of a head injury?’ Andy asked, almost automatically, his mind on the child and how they might achieve the best possible outcomes for the small boy and his family.

  ‘No, the ambos checked and the duty doctor here checked. Apparently, he went straight in.’

  ‘How long would he have been in there, Ned?’ Andy asked, and the father frowned as he heard the question, his eyes still on his son.

  ‘I would say less than five minutes. I opened the pool fence gate to get a toy the dog had left in the garden, and turned to throw it back to the dog. But Chippy ignored it and raced back into the pool enclosure, barking like crazy, and that’s when I realised Eddie must have followed me in.’

  He looked at Andy now and frowned, then said, ‘Andy?’ in a bewildered voice.

  ‘That’s right, Ned. I’m head of the PICU here. We’ll be admitting Eddie. He’ll get the best of care.’

  He turned back to the child, considerably pleased by the knowledge of such a short immersion.

  ‘Hello, Eddie,’ he said, in a loud voice, but there was no response, not even when he clapped his hands beside the little head. Neither did Eddie retract his foot when Andy stuck a pin into the sole of it, testing for physical response.

  ‘We’ll take him to Radiography on the way up to the PICU. I’ll order an EEG and MRI,’ he said to the nurse as he wrote up the requests. ‘Do you want to stay with him, Ned?’

  Ned nodded. ‘I’ll phone my wife on the way, let her know what’s going on.’

  He looked at Andy, a plea for reassurance in his eyes. ‘Do you think...?’

  Andy patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘You were right there on the spot and did the best possible thing in giving CPR immediately. His heartbeat returned quickly, and he wasn’t in the pool for long. They’re all good indicators, Ned.’

  An orderly arrived to transfer the boy, via Radiography, to the PICU, so Andy returned to the ward, aware the radiography he’d ordered probably wouldn’t show much at this stage but still wanting a baseline from which to work.

  He found Sam at the desk, and told her what was happening, asking if she’d known Ned.

  She shook her head, but obviously hadn’t taken much notice of the question because she asked, ‘Would you consider continuous EEG monitoring?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’d been thinking of it, why?’

  She grinned at him. ‘I often wonder if it does much good and I think it must freak most parents out, seeing all those electrodes attached to their child’s head. It’s almost yelling “brain injury” at them.’

  He shook his head. ‘I must admit I’ve never thought of that aspect to it, but I’m really hoping he’ll be responsive by the time he gets up to us.’

  * * *

  ‘And his father—this Ned—was he at university with you?’ Sam asked, aware she’d usually have put an ‘and Nick’ at the end of that question.

  But the peaceful, pleasant evening she’d enjoyed with Andy the previous night had left her more aware of Andy than when she’d been living with him.

  And that had been bad enough!

  Then she’d been able to put it down to proximity, especially after the night together, but now she was beginning to wonder if the awareness was more than physical attraction—not that she was even going to think about the L word.

  Love had been too hard, like a prison she couldn’t escape.

  The arrival of young Eddie blocked all extraneous thoughts from her mind, especially as his father was beaming with joy.

  ‘He reacted to the noise of the MRI in spite of the earmuffs,’ he told them, although the little boy lay still, eyes closed again.

  ‘He opened his eyes and moved his legs.’

  ‘That’s great, Ned, but we’ll still keep him here and do further tests. The bloods should be back soon, and they’ll tell us more, but everything is looking positive for the moment.’

  ‘I’ll phone my wife,’ Ned said, and disappeared out of the room.

  ‘He didn’t want us to see him crying,’ Sam said softly.

  ‘And you,’ Andy asked, looking intently into her eyes. ‘Are you worrying again about the myriad things that can endanger a child and how a parent can protect them from everything?’

  She shot him a quick smile. ‘No, I was thinking how lucky they were to have such an intelligent dog!’

  And with that she walked away, because of course she’d been worrying about how parents managed to survive their children’s childhoods, Though the likelihood of her ever having to go through such agony was diminishing fast.

  She’d known when she’d chosen to go into intensive care that it would be six hard years before she became qualified, then another six months before she qualified for paediatric intensive care. She’d done those final six months in London and had stayed another six months because the hospital had offered so many learning opportunities.

  So now, at thirty-five, it wasn’t that she was running out of time to have a child, but running out of time to have children—a family, something she’d dreamed about since she’d been a child herself, brought up by a single mother who’d been banished from her own family as a disgrace.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SAM WAS STANDING at the monitor desk, checking through some lab results, when she saw Ned again, returning to the hospital, this time with a woman she guessed must be his wife.

  He stopped to introduce her to Sam, who was slightly startled when the woman said, ‘Oh, I know who you are.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Sam said politely.

  ‘Yes, of course. You were the new doctor at the hospital where Nick and Andy worked and they both fancied you. You must remember, Ned—they tossed a coin to see which one would ask her out and Nick won. How is Nick, by the way?’

  ‘Nick was killed in an accident three years ago,’ Sam said, but her mind was whirling.

  He and Andy had actually tossed up to see who asked her out?

  For some reason, the idea disturbed her. Made her feel like a cheap prize at a funfair.

  The woman, whose name she’d forgotten almost as soon as she’d heard it—was it Ann?—and Ned were now arguing about whether or not he’d been in the pub that night, making Sam feel even worse.

  Although, she decided, maybe it was keeping their minds off their concerns for Eddie.

  ‘Eddie’s doing well,’ she said, glad to have found a way to interrupt things she didn’t want to hear. ‘You must both be pleased.’

  But it didn’t help much as Ann was now berating her husband for his carelessness in letting little Eddie fall in the pool.

  ‘We are pleased,’ Ned said, ignoring his wife’s accusations with an ease that suggested they argued often. ‘How long do you want to keep him in?’

  ‘Overnight at least,’ Sam told him, then watched as he steered his wife, still talking, to Eddie’s room.

  She moved on to see Jake, who was brighter today, his test results showing positive signs that the stem-cell transplant had taken. His father was with him today, explaining to Sam that he’d taken some personal time off work so his wife could have a proper rest at home.

  ‘With two other children, it’s hectic, but both our sets of parents help out all they can. My mum’s staying with us at the moment, and the other kids love it as she spoils them rotten, doesn’t she, Jake?’

  Jake smiled, and touched
his father’s gloved hand.

  ‘Me too,’ Jake said, and pointed to a stuffed alligator that looked ready to eat the child.

  Andy came into the changing cubicle as she was pulling off her gown, and although her body felt the usual rush of attraction that was becoming part of her normal life, it was Ann’s earlier words that came back to her.

  ‘Did you and Nick actually toss a coin to decide which of you would ask me out?’ she demanded as pique at such behaviour overcame the silly attraction thing.

  ‘Not at all,’ Andy said, in an offended tone. ‘We did rock, paper, scissors!’

  Sam frowned at him, aware he thought the whole thing a joke, but feeling...slighted by it?

  ‘And after you lost, that was it?’ she muttered at him, as she hauled off the rest of her protective gear. ‘You must have been really keen!’

  And without waiting for a reply, she stalked out of the tiny room.

  But once away from Andy, she tried to understand why hearing the silly nonsense had upset her so much.

  It had been years ago, she’d married Nick, so how or why he’d asked her out shouldn’t matter a jot.

  A call from the ED made her push the past away, although she was aware it would niggle away deep inside her no matter how much she ignored it.

  ‘We’ve isolated another girl, and the red spots in her mouth with their tiny pinpricks of white in the centre confirm it’s measles,’ Phil, the young intern on duty, told her as she came into the emergency department.

  He led the way to one of the two isolation rooms in the ED and introduced the patient, Ruby, and her parents, Alice and Bob.

  Not knowing the local area, Sam asked the intern to stay so they could try to work out if the two cases were connected in any way.

  While she examined the little girl, a year older than Rosa had been, she listened to Phil’s questions, and from the way he shook his head she realised there wasn’t an obvious overlap in the two children’s activities or friends.

  ‘I’ll admit her to our Paediatric Intensive Care unit,’ Sam told the parents, ‘but that’s just because we can isolate her better than on the normal children’s ward, where the contagion could spread.’

  She left instructions on the chart and returned to the PICU, her mind puzzling over this second admission. She knew immunisation rates in the country as a whole were above ninety percent—she’d looked it up when Rosa had been admitted—yet two children in a regional city, two children out of the—at the most—ten percent not immunised had contracted the disease.

  ‘Who does what?’ she asked Andy, when she caught him in the staffroom and explained her concern. ‘Do the Infectious Diseases people have staff who follow the trail of the two children, or do the police do it, or do we do it?’

  Andy frowned at the question, and as she looked at him the question of whether she’d have gone out with him if he’d won their stupid game popped into her head.

  Forget it!

  But she knew she probably wouldn’t have. Knew it was the kind of question that could bob into her head as she fell asleep at night or walked on the beach, thinking of nothing in particular.

  ‘I think the infectious diseases staff use the police if they need them,’ Andy was saying, while her mind wandered. ‘We’ll inform them of this second case, and they can publicise it, warning parents of the dangers, suggesting unimmunised children should be done before it becomes more widespread.’

  ‘Has there been anything special here recently?’ Sam asked. ‘A local agricultural show, surfing contest people might have watched, a circus, or funfair of some kind?’

  ‘Somewhere people from all walks of life could have met,’ Andy said, more or less to himself. ‘You’re right, that’s something they’ll look into, I’m sure. And there was the annual show about a week before you came, and it had a big sideshow alley and all the fun of the fair.’

  ‘I think I’d rather you said there’d been nothing like that, because if it came from a travelling fair anyone could be the carrier, and who knows where they went next.’

  He grinned at her, which made her think she would have gone out with him—way back when...

  ‘Which makes me doubly glad it’s someone else’s job to locate him or her,’ he was saying. ‘Have you admitted the new case?’

  ‘She should be on her way up. Her name’s Ruby, and she’s not as feverish as Rosa was, but I thought it best to keep her away from other children so she’ll go into another of our isolation rooms.’

  ‘I’ll see her before I go,’ Andy said, and Sam realised with a slight shock that this was the first day of a new shift. She’d known about it, had it noted in her diary, knew exactly when she would and wouldn’t be at work, but suddenly Andy was departing and, for all she’d have a registrar or a young resident on duty with her at all times, she’d be in charge.

  Andy must have read what she was thinking in her face, for he reached out and touched her shoulder.

  ‘You handled it all extremely well when I was in Sydney, remember, and I’ll only be a phone call away,’ he told her. ‘It’s the paperwork more than the patients that’ll get you down!’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, as forcefully as she could, but again guessed he’d read her doubts.

  ‘Of course, you will,’ he assured her. ‘And you’re off on Sunday—well, on call—so bring your phone and I’ll take you for a drive around the place if you like, show you some of the sights of the great Port Fortesque!’

  ‘That sounds good,’ Sam said, although she had more doubts about that plan than she did about running the department in his absence.

  * * *

  Andy walked away, not at all concerned over Sam’s ability to keep the place running, more concerned that she’d been upset over his and Nick’s silly bet.

  But she had agreed to go out with him on Sunday, although as he was the only person she knew in the area, that didn’t mean much.

  He went back to his office and tidied his desk, then decided to call in on young Eddie before he left.

  His mother was sitting with him, reading a story to the bright, alert child.

  ‘He could really come home now, couldn’t he?’ she said, smiling sweetly at Andy.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said firmly. ‘We want some follow-up bloods and another EEG, but Dr Reilly will discharge him tomorrow, probably by eleven-thirty.’

  ‘Oh, pooh!’ the woman said. ‘I was hoping Sam would be off duty tomorrow. I was going to ask the two of you to dinner at the weekend. Ned was so pleased to meet up with you again, especially as we’re new in town. He’s just joined a practice on the north side. I didn’t want to leave Sydney, but he thought it would be better to bring Eddie up in the country.’

  She gave a theatrical shudder and added, ‘This was a compromise, and look what just happened.’

  Andy closed his eyes and thanked the merciful fates that Sam was not around because he was pretty sure she wouldn’t want this gossipy woman—it had to be she who’d told Sam about the rock, paper, scissors fiasco—linking their names like that.

  He checked Eddie’s file, spoke briefly to the bright little boy, and escaped before Ann could think of another plan.

  * * *

  ‘Would you have asked me out if you’d won the bet?’

  It was the first question Sam asked when she climbed into his car on Sunday morning, dressed in pristine white slacks and a black and white striped shirt, her usually unruly hair somehow knotted rather severely on the top of her head.

  Her question had come just in time to stop him saying she looked terrific and Andy had to concentrate on getting out of the underground garage far more intently than he needed to. But once on the road, taking the one that led to the lighthouse first, he knew he’d have to answer.

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  He didn’t need to glance her way to know she was frow
ning—he could actually feel her tension in the air.

  ‘But couldn’t you have asked at another time?’

  The question made him frown.

  ‘Once you were going out with Nick? Of course not!’

  ‘Because I was somehow marked as his?’ she demanded, as he pulled into the parking area near the track that led to the top of the headland.

  He turned to face her, puzzled by the question—trying to think back to that fateful time.

  ‘Not marked as his—I don’t think I thought that way. It’s just, well, you were going out with him—why would I assume you’d say yes to me? And how would he have felt if I’d done such a thing? And what would he have thought of you—well, of us both—if you’d said yes? Life just doesn’t work that way.’

  She’d been staring out the window at the sea, but as she turned back towards him he wanted to ask her if she would have said yes, but it was all so pointless.

  ‘What happened, happened,’ he said, reaching out to touch her cheek with one finger. ‘There aren’t any set rules or guidelines for life, you know. We just have to stumble along as best we can, doing what we feel is right at the time, and hopefully not having too many regrets when we look back at the past.’

  She smiled and touched her hand to his.

  ‘We tend to remember the regrets—the bad things, more than the good, don’t we?’ she said, giving his hand a squeeze before opening the car door, signalling, without a doubt, that that particular conversation was over.

  They climbed the hill to the top of the rocky outcrop, coming out on the grassy knoll with the wide Pacific Ocean stretching out on both sides of them.

  Sam threw her arms wide and turned to him in sheer delight.

  ‘This is what I dreamt about—all the time I was in London, and while I was with Mum in the wilds of South-East Asia. I dreamt of living near the ocean. Working in Perth gave me a taste for it, for being close to the sea and beaches—although with my skin I really should have stayed in London or gone even further north to Scotland. But I think Aussies need the ocean—well, I do,’ she said, her face aglow with the wonder of it.