Finding His Wife, Finding A Son

He accompanied the stretcher across the debris to the makeshift receiving tent the team had set up.

‘Status?’ Blake Cooper, ER consultant, had been working on an elderly man as Luc brought Beth in. The sheet drawn up over the man’s face told its own story, as did the slump of Blake’s shoulders.

‘Lacerations, bruises, but priority’s a broken ankle and crushed lower leg,’ Luc told him.

Blake cast him a fast, concerned look. His voice was thick, Luc realised, and it wasn’t from dust. ‘Do you need me to assess?’ He and Blake had worked together for so long they trusted each other implicitly. Luc knew Blake wasn’t asking about Luc’s ability, it was all about what he could see in Luc’s face.

He shook his head. The stretcher was set down on the examination bench and almost unconsciously Luc’s hand slid into Beth’s and held it.

Blake saw, and the concern on his face grew, but there was no room for explanation.

Neither was there room for evasion, from Blake or from Beth herself. It would be great to say, Beth’s ankle’s broken. We’ll fix it in no time, but the one thing he and Beth always had was total honesty. Sometimes it had broken them in two but it was something he couldn’t change. He knew she was listening through her haze of medication. Her medical degree meant she’d recognise sugar coating and he had to say it like it was.

‘I’ve given a peripheral nerve block,’ he told Blake. ‘There’s definitely fracture and dislocation of the ankle, and we need to check for compartment syndrome.’ Compartment syndrome had to be considered here. It was caused by extended crushing of the lower limb, forcing build-up of pressure in one section and loss of pressure in another. The long-term damage of sustained crushing was...unthinkable.

‘Do what you have to do,’ Beth said weakly, and Blake looked down into her face.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Dr Blake Cooper. You are...’

‘This is Beth,’ Luc said hoarsely, and then he added, because it seemed absurdly important for Blake to know. ‘Blake, Beth’s a doctor. She’s also...my ex-wife.’

There was a moment’s stillness while Blake took that on board. He searched Luc’s face and Luc could see him reassemble priorities. And then it was business as usual.

‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ Blake said, smiling down at Beth. ‘Though I could wish the circumstances were different.’ He took her wrist and felt her pulse, his face set in the lines of someone accustomed to triage, priorities. And Luc knew Beth was a priority. The risk of delayed treatment with compartment syndrome meant the possibility of a lifetime of pain, numbness or even amputation.

‘We need to get the pressure in your foot checked now,’ he said to Beth. ‘You know what’s going on?’

He’d accepted Beth’s medical background without question. ‘I... Yes,’ Beth managed.

‘Okay, I’m taking over,’ Blake told her, with another fast glance at Luc. And Luc knew the glance. It was an order.

Step away, Luc. You’re now a relative, too close to be objective and you need to let me take things from here.

‘Beth, we need Luc on triage,’ he told Beth. ‘You know there’s a small hospital here? I’m taking you through into Theatre. If I think there’s pressure differential—and by the look of it I suspect that’s inevitable—then I’ll make an incision to decompress. Your ankle will need to be stabilised. That can be done in Sydney but the pressure needs to be taken off now. Is that okay with you?’

‘I... Fine,’ Beth managed. ‘But... Toby?’

Blake looked a question at Luc and Luc managed to haul his attention from Beth to answer.

‘Toby’s Beth’s son. Twenty months old. He was brought out half an hour ago.’

Some of the tension on Blake’s face eased. ‘A toddler. I saw him. Sam did the assessment and he’s fine. He woke as she was examining him, demanding someone called Wobit...’

‘Robert,’ Beth said faintly. ‘Rabbit.’

‘Hey, we guessed right.’ Blake smiled down at her. ‘Apparently he was dropped, but one of the paramedics remembered and scooted over and rescued him.’

‘We’ve also found your bag and purse,’ Luc told her, still trying to keep his voice steady. ‘How good are we? But now... Is there anyone we can call to look after Toby?’

‘He has to come with me,’ Beth managed. ‘If I need to go to Sydney, Toby comes too. Luc, please... I need you to promise... I need...’

And something settled deep within.

‘It’s okay,’ Luc said, and touched her face. ‘I’ll take care of him. I’ll take care of you.’

And she managed a smile.

And then something odd happened. It was almost as if a ghost had touched him on the shoulder. He was looking down into Beth’s grimed, dust-caked, filthy face, but all he saw was the smile. And in that smile...strangely this wasn’t the Beth he’d remembered for the long years of divorce, the Beth who’d been his wife, the Beth he’d cared for for so long. Despite the filth, the fear, the pain, somehow this was Beth as he’d first seen her—a fellow med student laughing at him over a bench in the pathology lab. Her eyes had been sparkling with mischief. Someone must have made a joke. He couldn’t remember what it was now. All he remembered was how he’d been caught in that smile, almost mesmerised.

He’d forgotten, he thought. In all those years of need and care, and then the long separation, he’d forgotten what a beautiful woman she was. Stunning.

How could he be remembering now? What the...?

‘I’ll take it from here,’ Blake told him, looking at him strangely.

‘Thanks, Blake.’

He had work to do. He had to leave—but heaven only knew the effort it cost him to move away.

From...his wife?

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