LITMIR.BIZ

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as well. And more. Nothing’s right. Everything’s wrong. While she’s in utero, she doesn’t need her heart to pump her lungs, so she’s okay, but as soon as she’s born...’

      She took a deep breath. ‘As soon as she’s born the problems will start. The cardiologist says I need to wait as long as possible before delivery so she’s strong enough to face the faint possibility of surgery, but I’m not to hope for miracles. He says she’ll live for a little while but it’ll be days. Or less. The defect is so great...’

      Strangely her voice was working okay. Strangely the words didn’t cut out. It was like the medical side of her was kicking in, giving her some kind of armour against the pain. Or maybe it was simply that the pain was so unbearable that her body had thrown up armour of its own.

      Tom’s face had stilled. He’d be taking it in, she thought, like a good doctor, taking his time to assess, to figure what to say, to think of what might be the most helpful thing to say.

      There wasn’t anything to say. There just...wasn’t.

      * * *

      Hypoplastic left heart syndrome...

      He’d never seen a case but he’d read of it. He’d read of the Norwood procedure, a radical surgical technique giving hope to such babies, but with an atrial septal defect as well...

      His hands were still gripping Tasha’s. They were resting against the bulge that was her baby, and he felt a faint movement. A kick...

      In cases like this there usually weren’t any outward signs during pregnancy. A foetus only needed one ventricle. It didn’t use its lungs to get oxygen to the body, so while it was in utero there was nothing wrong.

      If the experts were right, Tasha was carrying a seemingly healthy baby, a little girl who’d only survive for days after she was born.

      This woman was a doctor. She’d have gone down every path. Her face said she had, and she’d been hit by a wall at every turn.

      ‘Transplant?’ he said, still holding her hands, and he thought maybe it was for him as well as for her. He had a sudden vision of his half-brother as a child, a tousled-haired wild child, rebellious even as a kid. A bright kid who’d tumbled from scrape to scrape. Paul had done medicine, too. Their father had been a doctor so maybe that’s why it had appealed to both of them, but the moment Paul had graduated he’d been off overseas. He’d helped out in some of the wildest places. He’d been a risk taker.

      And now he was dead and his baby was facing the biggest risk of all. Being born.

      A transplant? Without research it sounded the only hope.

      ‘You must know the odds,’ Tasha said flatly, echoing his thoughts.

      He did. To find a suitable donor in time... To keep this little one alive until they found one, and then to have her fight the odds and survive...

      He glanced up at Tasha’s ravaged face and he thought, Where are your friends? Where are your family? Why are you here alone?

      And something inside him twisted.

      He’d been a family doctor for ten years now. He loved the work. He loved this little community and when his patients were ill he couldn’t help but be personally involved.

      But this woman was different.

      She was his half-brother’s widow and as such there was a family connection. Her story was heartbreaking.

      And yet there was something more. Something that made him want to loosen the grip on her hands and gather her into him and hold.

      It was almost a primeval urge. The urge to protect.

      The urge to take away her pain any way he knew how.

      Which was all getting in the way of what she needed from him, which was to be useful. She was here for a reason. She didn’t need him to be messed up with some emotional reaction he didn’t understand.

      ‘So what can I do for you, Tasha?’ he asked, in a voice he had to force himself to keep steady. ‘I’ll help in any way I can. Tell me what you need me to do.’

      She steadied. He could see her fighting back emotion, turning into the practical woman he sensed she was.

      She let go his hands and sat back, and he pushed back too, so the personal link was broken.

      ‘I need an advocate,’ she told him. ‘No. Emily needs an advocate.’

      ‘Explain.’

      She had herself under control again now—sort of.

      ‘I’m only part Australian,’ she told him. ‘My dad was British but Mum was Australian. I was born here but my parents were in the army. We never had a permanent home. Mum and Dad died when I was fifteen and I went to live with my aunt in the UK. That’s where I did medicine. Afterwards I took a job with Médecins Sans Frontières, moving all around the world at need, which is when I met Paul. Paul owned an apartment here so Australia was our base but we still travelled. I’ve never stayed still long enough to get roots, to make long-term friends. So now I’m in a city I don’t know very well. I’m about to deliver Emily by Caesarean section and straight after her birth I’ll be expected to make some momentous decisions.’

      She faltered then, but forced herself to go on. ‘Like...like turning off life support,’ she whispered. ‘Like accepting what is or isn’t possible and not attempting useless heroics. Tom, I don’t trust myself but Paul said I could trust you. He spoke of you with affection. You’re the only one I could think of.’

      And what was he to say to that?

      There was only one answer he could give.

      ‘Of course I’ll be your advocate,’ he told her. ‘Or your support person. Tasha, whatever you need, I’ll be there for you. You have my word.’

      ‘But you hardly knew Paul.’

      ‘Paul’s family and so are you,’ he said, and he reached out and took her hands again. ‘That’s all that matters.’

      * * *

      ‘Hilda?’

      Hilda Brakenworth, Tom’s housekeeper, twin of Rhonda, answered the phone with some trepidation. She’d just finished making beef stroganoff and was contemplating the ingredients for a lemon soufflé. ‘Make it lovely,’ Tom had told her before he’d left for work. ‘Alice will be here at eight, just in time for sunset. Can you set the table on the veranda? Candles. Flowers. You know the drill.’

      She did, Hilda thought dourly. Tom’s idea of a romantic evening never changed. But she was used to his priorities. Medicine came first, surfing second. His love life came a poor third, and the phone call she was receiving now would be like so many she’d received in the past. ‘Change of plan,’ he’d say and her dinners would go into the freezer or the trash.

      ‘Yes?’ she said, mentally consigning her lemon soufflé to oblivion.

      ‘Change of plan. I’ve invited a guest to stay.’

      This was different. ‘You want a romantic dinner for three?’

      He chuckled but Hilda had known him for a long time. She could hear strain in his voice—strain usually reserved for times when the medical needs of the community were overwhelming.

      But did a guest staying warrant stress? She needed to phone Rhonda and find out what was going on.

      ‘I’ll put Alice off,’ he said. ‘She’ll understand.’

      No, she won’t, Hilda decided, thinking of the beautifully groomed, high-maintenance Alice, but she didn’t comment.

      ‘Do you want me to make up the front room?’

      ‘I... Yes. And could you put flowers in there?’

      ‘It’s a woman?’

      ‘It’s a woman

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