LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Mr McPherson. We were hoping you might not have left the hospital. We have a ten-year-old coming in from down the coast. He fell trying to reach a bird’s nest and his dad thinks he’s broken his leg. He should be here in about twenty minutes. I know you’re not supposed to start until Monday, but seeing you’re here...’

      So much for taking the weekend to get acclimatised, he thought ruefully. Work started now.

      But...was work Addie?

      Professionally only, he told himself.

      He’d come to Currawong Bay to put a failed marriage behind him and to cope with an interminable wait. And Addie? Had she come here for the same reason? If so, the last person she’d want to see would be him, but for now he was her doctor. She’d have to wear it. She’d had enough pain today to mean the little more his presence added shouldn’t make too much difference.

      * * *

      Addie lay back on the pillows and stared at the ceiling and thought...blank.

      Nothing, nothing and nothing.

      She might have known it would never work. For the last few weeks she’d been gloriously, ridiculously happy. The first twinges of morning sickness had been met with joy. She was going to be part of a family.

      Admittedly it’d be a very small family—one mother and one baby—but it would be a family nonetheless. Here, in this hospital, she had the support around her to make it happen. This was a lovely little community and they’d welcomed her with open arms. There was one grumpy nurse administrator but she’d even been able to manoeuvre that into a working relationship. In the three years she’d been here she’d helped deliver countless babies, she’d made good friends, and she knew she could count on the staff and the community to help her.

      Except now she wouldn’t need them. Her hands fell to her tummy, to the wad of dressing where a tiny bump had been before, and she felt her eyes fill with tears.

      She wouldn’t cry. She never cried, not when Gavin had jilted her, not when her mum had died, not ever.

      Oh, but her baby...

      ‘Can I come in?’ It was a light tap and Noah McPherson was at the door.

      Of all the people to see her cry... Noah. She swiped the tears from her face and fought for dignity. The surge of anger she’d felt as she’d emerged from the anaesthetic had faded. It wasn’t his fault Gavin had jilted her. It wasn’t his fault she’d lost her baby.

      He was a doctor, nothing more.

      A doctor she’d hit. On top of everything else she was now cringing with remembered humiliation.

      ‘Of course,’ she managed. The junior nurse who’d been sitting beside her looked a query at Noah and then slipped away, leaving her alone with a man...who’d saved her life?

      A man she’d hit.

      ‘They tell me...you did a good job,’ she said, struggling to find words. ‘The best you could.’

      ‘Addie, I’m so sorry you’ve lost your baby.’

      He didn’t need to be sympathetic. She didn’t want him to be sympathetic.

      She wanted her mum. Anyone. No one.

      Not Noah.

      ‘It’s okay.’

      ‘I’m very sure it’s not,’ he said gently. ‘I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. Can I sit down?’

      ‘I... Of course.’ What else was there to say?

      He sat on the chair the nurse had just vacated. For a moment she thought he was intending to reach out and take her hand and she hauled it under the covers pre-emptively. She saw him wince.

      ‘I need to talk to you as your doctor,’ he told her. ‘That’s all. Can you stand it?’

      ‘Of...of course I can.’

      He nodded, gravely. ‘There’s not a lot of good news but there is some. Addie...your baby... You know it was tragic chance that she started developing in the fallopian tube.’

      ‘She?’ she whispered. Her baby...

      ‘That’s an assumption,’ he said gravely. ‘I thought you said her. Am I right?’

      ‘I did...think of her as a girl,’ she said grudgingly, and her hands felt the dressing again. ‘I... I know it’s dumb but I was already thinking... Rose for my grandmother? But that’s crazy.’

      ‘It’s not crazy at all,’ he said gently. ‘Rose. That’s who she was. She was real, a baby who sadly started growing where she had no chance of survival.’

      She could hardly speak. She. Her baby. He’d even said her name, a name that she’d almost felt silly for dreaming of. And for some reason it helped. For the last few weeks, filled with wonder and anticipation, she’d been talking to the tiny bump she could scarcely feel. And, yes, she knew she was a girl. At some primeval level...

      Or was that because she had so little knowledge of boys? Her family had always been women. Well, two women, herself and her mum.

      So many emotions... She wasn’t thinking straight. The anaesthetic was still making its effects felt. She lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes.

      ‘Addie...’

      ‘Mmm...’ She wanted to be left alone, in her cocoon of grief. Life felt...barren. She wanted... She wanted...

      ‘Addie, let’s talk practicalities,’ Noah said, strongly now, and regardless of what she wanted he reached out and took her hand. He held it strongly, a warm, firm hold, the reassurance of one human being touching another. She didn’t want it but, oh...she needed it. She should pull away but she didn’t. Practicalities? Something solid?

      Something solid like Noah, she thought, and his hand...helped.

      ‘We might be able to preserve your embryo for burial if that’s what you wish,’ Noah told her. ‘It’ll need to go to Pathology but after that... There might be something. If you wish.’

      ‘I...’ It was something. Something to hold to. The remnants of her dream? A place to mourn? ‘I do wish.’

      ‘Then I’ll try to make it happen. No promises but I’ll do my best. For now, though, Addie, can we talk through the results of the surgery? Or do you want to leave it until later?’

      ‘Now.’ It was scarcely a whisper. How hard was this?

      ‘Then I need to tell you that I had to remove the entire tube,’ he told her, in that gentle but professional voice that was somehow what she needed. ‘It was ruptured, and even if I’d managed to suture it, chances are there’d be microscopic embryonic tissue I couldn’t remove, tissue that might cause even more problems in the future. So that’s grim news. But, Addie, I checked the other tube and it’s perfect. Perfect, Addie.’

      ‘It doesn’t mean...’ She stopped. Her words had been a whisper and they faded out, but he knew what she’d been about to say.

      ‘It doesn’t mean future pregnancies are assured,’ he finished for her. ‘We both know that. But it does mean future pregnancies are possible. More than possible. You need to give yourself a couple of months to let your body heal, and let yourself heal, too, but then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try again.’

      He saw her face close in pain. This was one of the hardest conversations...talking about a future pregnancy when she’d barely started her grieving over this one. But this was his job, laying out the facts. The facts needed to be implanted, to be there when she needed them.

      ‘You’re an obstetrician,’ he said gently. ‘You know the odds better than I do, but for now you don’t need to think of them. Put them away for later. For now, just focus on you, on what you need, and on your grief for your tiny daughter.’

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