Midwives On-Call

She’d just welcomed him by trashing his car.

‘I have insurance. I have insurance. I have insurance.’ It was supposed to be her mantra. Saying things three times helped, only it didn’t help enough. She put her head on the steering wheel and felt a wash of exhaustion so profound she felt like she was about to melt.

His car was trashed.

He climbed from the driver’s seat and stared at his beloved Morgan in disbelief. The Morgan was low slung, gorgeous—and fragile. He’d parked her right in the centre of the bay to avoid the normal perils of parking lots—people opening doors and scratching his paintwork.

But the offending wagon had a bull bar attached and it hadn’t just scratched his paintwork. While the wagon looked to be almost unscathed, the passenger-side panels of the Morgan had been sheared off completely.

He loved this baby. He’d bought her five years ago, a post-marriage toy to make him feel better about the world. He’d cherished her, spent a small fortune on her and then put her into very expensive storage while he’d been overseas.

His qualms about returning to Australia had been tempered by his joy on being reunited with Betsy. But now … some idiot with a huge lump of a wagon—and a bull bar …

‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ He couldn’t see the driver of the wagon yet, but he was venting his spleen on the wagon itself. Of all the ugly, lumbering excuses for a car …

And it was intact. Yeah, it’d have a few extra scratches but there were scratches all over it already. It was a battered, dilapidated brute and the driver’d be able to keep driving like the crash had never happened.

He wanted to kick it. Of all the stupid, careless …

Um … why hadn’t the driver moved?

And suddenly medical mode kicked in, overriding rage. Maybe the driver had had a heart attack. A faint. Maybe this was a medical incident rather than sheer stupidity. He took a deep breath, switching roles in an instant. Infuriated driver became doctor. The wagon’s driver’s door was jammed hard against where his passenger door used to be, so he headed for its passenger side.

The wagon’s engine died. Someone was alive in there, then. Good. Or sort of good.

He hauled the door open and he hadn’t quite managed the transition. Rage was still paramount.

‘You’d better be having a heart attack.’ It was impossible to keep the fury from his voice. ‘You’d better have a really good excuse as to why you ploughed this heap of scrap metal into my car! You want to get out and explain?’

No!

Things were already appalling—but things just got a whole lot worse.

This was a voice she knew. A voice from her past.

Surely not.

She had to be imagining it, she decided, but she wasn’t opening her eyes. If it really was …

It couldn’t be. She was tired, she was frantically worried about Gretta, she was late and she’d just crashed her car. No wonder she was hearing things.

‘You’re going to have to open your eyes and face things.’ She said it to herself, under her breath. Then she repeated it in her head twice more but her three-times mantra still didn’t seem to be working.

The silence outside the car was ominous. Toe-tappingly threatening.

Maybe it’d go away if she just stayed …

‘Hey, are you okay?’ The gravelly voice, angry at first, was now concerned.

But it was the same voice and this wasn’t her imagination. This was horrendously, appallingly real.

Voices could be the same, she told herself, feeling herself veering towards hysteria. There had to be more than one voice in the world that sounded like his.

She’d stay just one moment longer with her eyes closed.

Her passenger door opened and someone slid inside. Large. Male.

Him.

His hand landed on hers on the steering wheel. ‘Miss? Are you hurt? Can I help?’ And as the anger in his voice gave way to caring she knew, unmistakably, who this was.

Oliver. The man she’d loved with all her heart. The man who’d walked away five years ago to give her the chance of a new life.

So many emotions were slamming through her head … anger, bewilderment, grief … She’d had five years to move on but, crazy or not, this man still felt a part of her.

She’d crashed his car. He was right here.

There was no help for it. She took a deep, deep breath. She braced herself.

She raised her head, and she turned to face her husband.

Emily.

He was seeing her but his mind wasn’t taking her in. Emily!

For one wild moment he thought he must be mistaken. This was a different woman, older, a bit … worn round the edges. Weary? Faded jeans and stained windcheater. Unkempt curls.

But still Emily.

His wife? She still was, he thought stupidly. His Em.

But she wasn’t his Em. He’d walked away five years ago. He’d left her to her new life, and she had nothing to do with him.

Except she was here. She was staring up at him, her eyes reflecting his disbelief. Horror?

Shock held him rigid.

She’d wrecked his car. He loved this car. He should be feeling …

No. There was no should, or if there was he hadn’t read that particular handbook.

Should he feel grief? Should he feel guilt?

He felt neither. All he felt was numb.

She’d had a minute’s warning. He’d had none.

‘Em?’ He looked … incredulous. He looked more shocked than she was—bewildered beyond words.

What were you supposed to say to a husband you hadn’t seen or spoken to for five years? There was no handbook for this.

‘H-hi?’ she managed.

‘You’ve just crashed my car,’ he said, stupidly.

‘You were supposed to be a bike.’ Okay, maybe that was just as stupid. This conversation was going exactly nowhere. They’d established, what, that he wasn’t a bike?

He was her husband—and he was right beside her. Looking completely dumbfounded.

‘You have a milk stain on your shoulder.’

That would be the first thing he’d notice, she thought. Her uniform was in her bag. She never put it on at home—her chances of getting out of the house clean were about zero—so she was still wearing jeans and the baggy windcheater she’d worn at breakfast.

Gretta had had a milky drink before being ill. Em had picked her up and cuddled her before she’d left.

Strangely, the stain left her feeling exposed. She didn’t want this man to see … her.

‘There are child seats in your wagon.’

He still sounded incredulous. Milk stains? Family wagon? He’d be seeing a very different woman from the one he’d seen five years ago.

But he looked … just the same. Same tall, lean, gorgeous. Same deep brown eyes that crinkled at the edges when he smiled, and Oliver smiled a lot. Same wide mouth and strong bone structure. Same dark, wavy hair, close cropped to try and get rid of the curl, only that never worked. It was so thick. She remembered running her fingers through that hair …

Um, no. Not appropriate. Regardless of formalities, this was her husband. Or ex-husband? They hadn’t bothered with divorce yet but she’d moved on.

She’d just crashed his car.

‘You’re using Harry’s car park,’ she said, pointing accusingly at … um … one slightly bent sports car. It was beautiful—at least some of it still was. An open sports car. Vintage. It wasn’t the sort of car that you might be able to pop down to the car parts place in your lunch hour and buy a new panel.

He’d always loved cars. She remembered the day they’d sold his last sports car.

His last? No. Who knew how many cars he’d been through since? Anyway, she remembered the day they’d sold the sleek little roadster both of them had loved, trading it in for a family wagon. Smaller than this but just as sensible. They’d gone straight from the car showroom to the nursery suppliers, and had had the baby seat fitted there and then.

She’d been six months pregnant. They’d driven home with identical smug looks on their faces.

He’d wanted a family as much as she had. Or she’d thought he did. What had happened then had proved she hadn’t known him at all.

‘I’ve been allocated this car park,’ he was saying, and she had to force herself back to here, to now. ‘Level Five, Bay Eleven. That’s mine.’

‘You’re visiting?’

‘I’m employed here, as of today.’

‘You can’t be.’

He didn’t reply. He climbed out of the wagon, dug his hands deep in his pockets, glanced back at his wreck of a car and looked at her again.

‘Why can’t I, Em?’ The wreck of the car faded to secondary importance. This was suddenly all about them.

‘Because I work here.’

‘It’s the most specialised neonatal service in Melbourne. You know that’s what I do.’

‘You went to the States.’ She felt numb. Stupid. Out of control. She’d been sure her ex-husband had been on the other side of world. She didn’t want him to be here.

‘I did specialist training in in-utero surgery in the States.’ This was a dumb conversation. He was out of the car, leaning back on one of the concrete columns, watching her as she clung to the steering wheel like she was drowning. ‘I’ve accepted a job back here. And before you say anything, no, I didn’t know you were working here. I thought you were still at Hemmingway Private. I knew when I came back that there was a chance we might meet, but Melbourne’s a big place. I’m not stalking you.’

‘I never meant …’

‘No?’

‘No,’ she managed. ‘And I’m sorry I crashed into your car.’

Finally things were starting to return to normal. Like her heart rate. Her pulse had gone through the roof when the cars had hit. She’d been subconsciously trying to get it down, practising the deep-breathing techniques she used when she was pacing the floor with Gretta, frightened for herself, frightened for the future. The techniques came to her aid instinctively now when she was frightened. Or discombobulated.

Discombobulated was how she felt, she conceded. Stalking? That sounded as if he thought she might be frightened of him, and she’d never been frightened of Oliver.

‘Can we exchange details?’ she managed, trying desperately to sound normal. Like this was a chance meeting of old acquaintances, but they needed to talk about car insurance. ‘Oliver, it’s really nice to see you again …’ Was it? Um, no, but it sounded the right thing to say. ‘But I’m late as it is.’

‘Which was why you crashed.’

‘Okay, it was my fault,’ she snapped. ‘But, believe it or not, there are extenuating circumstances. That’s not your business.’ She clambered out of the car and dug for her licence in her shabby holdall. She pulled out two disposable diapers and a packet of baby wipes before she found her purse, and she was so flustered she dropped them. Oliver gathered them without a word, and handed them back. She flushed and handed him her licence instead.

He took it wordlessly, and studied it.

‘You still call yourself Emily Evans?’

‘You know we haven’t divorced. That’s irrelevant. You’re supposed to take down my address.’

‘You’re living at your mother’s house?’

‘I am.’ She grabbed her licence back. ‘Finished?’

‘Aren’t you supposed to take mine?’

‘You can sue me. I can’t sue you. We both know the fault was mine. If you’re working here then I’ll send you my insurance details via interdepartmental memo. I don’t carry them with me.’

‘You seem to carry everything else.’ Once more he was looking into the car, taking in the jumble of kids’ paraphernalia that filled it.

‘I do, don’t I?’ she said, as cordially as she could manage. ‘Oliver, it’s good to see you again. I’m sorry I wrecked your car but I’m running really, really late.’

‘You never run late.’ He was right: punctuality used to be her god.

‘I’m not the Emily you used to know,’ she managed. ‘I’m a whole lot different but this isn’t the time or the place to discuss it.’ She looked again at his car and winced. She really had made an appalling mess. ‘You want me to organise some sort of tow?’

‘Your car’s hardly dented. I’ll handle mine.’

‘I’m … sorry.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Oliver, I really am sorry but I really do need to go. If there’s nothing I can do …’

He was peering into her wagon. ‘I doubt your lock’s still working,’ he told her. ‘Once my car’s towed free …’

‘Locks are the least of my worries.’ She slung her bag over her shoulder, knowing she had to move. She knew Isla was short-staffed this morning and the night staff would be aching to leave. ‘Look at the stains,’ she told him. ‘No villain in their right mind would steal my wagon and, right now, I don’t have time to care. I’m sorry to leave you with this mess, Oliver, but I need to go. Welcome to Victoria Hospital. See you around.’

CHAPTER TWO

RUBY DOWELL WAS seventeen years old, twenty-two weeks pregnant and terrified. She was Oliver’s first patient at the Victoria.

She was also the reason he’d started so soon. He’d been recruited to replace Harry Eichmann, an obstetrician with an interest in in-utero procedures. Oliver had started the same way, but for him in-utero surgery was more than a side interest. For the last five years he’d been based in the States but he’d travelled the world learning the latest techniques.

The phone call he’d had from Charles Delamere, Victoria’s CEO, had been persuasive, to say the least. ‘Harry’s following a girlfriend to Europe. There’s no one here with your expertise and there’s more and more demand.

‘It’s time you came home. Oliver, right now we have a kid here with a twenty-one-week foetus, and her scans are showing spina bifida. Heinz Zigler, our paediatric neurologist, says the operation has to be done now. He can do the spinal stuff but he doesn’t have the skills to stop the foetus aborting. Oliver, there are more and more of these cases, and we’re offering you a full-time job. If you get here fast, we might save this kid shunts, possible brain damage, a life with limited movement below the waist. Short term, I want you to fight to give this kid a happy ending. Long term we’re happy to fund your research. We’ll cover the costs of whatever extra training you want, any staff you need. We want the best, Oliver, and we’re prepared to pay, but we want you now.’

The offer had been great, but he’d had serious reservations about returning to Melbourne. He’d walked away from his marriage five years ago, and he’d thought he’d stay away. Em had deserved a new life, a chance to start again with someone who’d give her what she needed.

And it seemed his decision had been justified. Seeing her this morning, driving a family wagon, with milk stains on her shoulder, with every sign of being a frazzled young working mum, he’d thought …

Actually, he hadn’t thought. The sight had knocked him sideways and he was still knocked sideways. But he needed to focus on something other than his marriage. After a brief introduction with Charles, he was in the examination room with Ruby Dowell. Teenage mother, pregnant with a baby with spina bifida.

‘At twenty-two weeks we need to get on with this fast,’ Charles had told him. ‘There’s such a short window for meaningful intervention.’

Ruby was lying on the examination couch in a cubicle in the antenatal clinic and, as with all his patients, he took a moment at the start to assess the whole package. Her notes said she was seventeen. She’d been attending clinics in the Victoria’s Teenage Mums-To-Be programme. When the spina bifida had been detected on the scans she’d been offered termination but had declined, although the notes said she intended to give the baby up for adoption after birth. Right now she was dressed in shorts and an oversized T-shirt. Her mouse-blonde, shoulder-length hair was in need of a wash and a good cut. Apart from the bump of her pregnancy she was waif thin, and her eyes were red-rimmed and wide with fear.

She looked like a wild creature trapped in a cage, he thought. Hell, why was she alone? Her notes said she was a single mum, but she should have her mother with her, or a sister, or at least a friend.

It was unthinkable that such a kid was alone. Charles had said that Isla, his daughter and also the Victoria’s head midwife, was in charge of the Teenage Mums-To-Be programme. Why hadn’t she organised to be here, or at least sent a midwife in her place?

But now wasn’t the time to head to the nurses’ station and blast the powers that be for leaving her like this. Now was the time for reassurance.

‘Hey,’ he said, walking into the cubicle but deliberately leaving the screens open. He didn’t need to do a physical examination yet, and he didn’t want that trapped look to stay a moment longer. ‘I’m the baby surgeon, Oliver Evans. I’m an obstetrician who’s specially trained in operating on babies when they’re still needing to stay inside their mums. And you’re Ruby Dowell?’

He hauled a chair up to the bedside and summoned his best reassuring manner. ‘Ruby, I’m here to get to know you, that’s all. Nothing’s happening right now. I’m just here to talk.’

But the terrified look stayed. She actually cringed back on the bed, fear radiating off her in waves. ‘I’m … I’m scared of operations,’ she stuttered. ‘I don’t want to be here.’

But then the screen was pulled back still further. A woman in nursing uniform, baggy tunic over loose pants, was fastening the screen so Ruby could see the nurses’ station at the end of the corridor.

Emily. His wife.

His ex-wife? She’d never asked for a divorce but it had been simply a matter of signing the papers, any time these last five years.

‘I’m scared of operations, too,’ Em said, matter-of-factly, as if she’d been involved in the conversation from the start. ‘I think everyone is. But Dr Evans here is the best baby surgeon in the known universe, I promise. I’ve known him for ever. If it was my baby there’d be no one else I’d want. Dr Evans is great, Ruby. He’s kind, he’s skilled and he’ll give your baby the best chance of survival she can possibly have.’

‘But I told you … I don’t want her.’ Ruby was sobbing now, swiping away tears with the back of her hand. ‘My mum said I should have had an abortion. She would have paid. I don’t know why I didn’t. And now you’re operating on a baby I don’t even want. I just want you all to go away.’

In-utero surgery was fraught at the best of times. It was full of potential dangers for both mother and baby. To operate on a mother who didn’t want her baby to survive …

He didn’t know where to start—but he didn’t need to, because Em simply walked forward, tugged the girl into her arms and held her.

Ruby stiffened. She held herself rigid, but Em’s fingers stroked her hair.

‘Hey, it’s okay, Ruby. We all know how hard this is. Pregnancy’s the pits. You feel so on your own, and you’re especially on your own. You decided not to go ahead with an abortion, going against what your family wanted you to do. That took courage, but there’s only so much courage a girl can be expected to show. That’s why Isla’s been helping you and it’s why I’m here now. I’m your midwife, Ruby. I’ll be with you every step of the way. All the decisions will be yours but I’m right with you. Right now, if you want Dr Evans to go away and come back later, he will. Just say the word.’

She met Oliver’s gaze over Ruby’s shoulder and her message was unmistakable. Back me up.

So Em was this girl’s midwife? Then where the hell had she been when he’d walked in?

Coping with her crashed car, that’s where, and then changing out of her mum clothes into nursing gear. Still, surely she could have made it earlier.

‘We’ve had a drama with a prem birth I had to help with,’ she said, as if he’d voiced his question out loud. She was still holding, still hugging, as Ruby’s sobs went on. ‘That’s why I’m late, Ruby, and I’m sorry. I wanted to be here when you arrived. But I’m here now, and if you decide to proceed with this operation then you’re my number one priority. Do you need some tissues? Dr Evans, hand me some tissues.’

‘You helped with an earlier birth?’ he asked, before he could help himself, and she had the temerity to glare at him.

‘Yep. I had to step in and help the moment I hit the wards. Plus I crashed my car this morning. I crashed my wagon, Ruby, and guess whose gorgeous car I drove into? None other than Dr Evans. It’s his first day on the job and I hit him. It’s a wonder he hasn’t tossed me out of the room already.’

And Ruby’s sobs hiccupped to a halt. She pulled back and looked at Em, then turned and stared at Oliver.

‘She hit your car?’

‘Yes,’ he said. He wouldn’t normally impart personal information to a patient but he guessed what Em was doing, and he could only agree. What Ruby needed was space to settle. He could help with that—even though he had to get personal to give it to her.

‘I have a sixty-four Morgan Plus-4 sports car,’ he said, mournfully, like the end of the world was nigh, which was about how he’d felt when he’d seen the damage—before he’d realised the driver of the other car had been Em. ‘It’s two-tone burgundy with black interior, a gorgeous two-seater. It’s fitted with super sports upgrades, including twin Weber carbs, a Derrington header and a bonnet scoop. It also has chrome wire wheels, a badge bar with twin Lucas fog lamps and a tonneau cover. Oh, and it’s retrofitted with overdrive transmission. Now it’s also fitted with one smashed side—courtesy of your midwife.’

‘Yikes,’ Em said, but she didn’t sound in the least subdued. ‘Twin Weber carbs and a Derrington header, hey? Did I damage all that?’

‘And if you knew how long it took to get those fog lamps …’

‘Whoops. Sorry. But you scratched my car, too.’ But Em was talking at Ruby rather than at him and she still sounded cheerful. Chirpy even.

‘Scratched …’ he muttered, and she grinned.

‘That’s okay. I forgive you. And they’re cars. They’re just things. That’s what insurance is for. Whereas babies aren’t things at all,’ Em continued, leading seamlessly back to the reason they were all there. ‘Ruby, your little girl is a person, not a thing, and she’s far, far more precious. You made the decision to go ahead with this pregnancy. You made the decision early not to choose abortion and you chose it again when the scan showed spina bifida. But you’ve been telling me you think you might have her adopted when she’s born …’

‘I can’t … deal with it.’

‘You don’t have to deal with it,’ Em said soundly. ‘There are lots of parents out there who’ll give their eye teeth to have a baby like yours to love. That’s right, isn’t it, Dr Evans?’

‘I … Yes.’ But her words were like a punch in the gut. That last night … He’d tried to make her see one last time. ‘Em, I can’t. I know adoption’s the only way, but I can’t do it. I can’t guarantee to love a child who’s not our own.’

‘It will be our own.’

‘Em, no.’

It had been their last conversation. He’d turned and walked away from the only woman he’d ever loved and it had nearly killed him. But she’d deserved the family she’d wanted so much. He’d had to give her that chance, and from the evidence he’d seen today, she’d taken it.

But now wasn’t about him. It was all about Ruby. The kid’s terror had been put aside. He had to take advantage of it.

Which meant putting thoughts of Em aside. Putting aside the knowledge that his wife, his ex-wife, presumably—did you need to formally sign papers to accept a marriage was over?—was in the same room.

‘Ruby, you created this little girl,’ he said, as Em continued to hold her. ‘You can have her adopted at birth, but until then you need to look after her. And the staff here have already explained to you—to look after her means an operation now.’

‘But why?’ Ruby demanded, suddenly belligerent. ‘I don’t understand. The kid’s got spina bifida—Dr Zigler showed me on the scans. What difference does it make whether you operate now or operate when it’s born?’

There was fear behind the question. Oliver recognised it. He’d done many in-utero procedures by now, and sometimes one of the hardest things was having the mum understand that the tiny child inside her was an independent being already. Something totally separate from her. This was a child who could be shifted in her uterus, who even at twenty-two weeks could cope with complex surgery and then be resettled, because, no matter how amazing the technology, the womb was still the safest place for her to be.