Kissing Maggie Silver (7 page)

“Whatever is the matter?” His appearance frightened her.
His face was the color of putty with the dark circles of his eyes standing out in stark relief.

“It’s June…and the baby,” he fell into a kitchen chair as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up any more.
“She had to have an emergency caesarean. It all happened so fast. At first things were fine, but as soon as her water broke the doctor started yelling for the emergency team. It was horrible.”

“But why? She’s never had any problems before
has she?”

“
No, none at all but this was different. She had…it was...a prolapsed cord or something. The doctor said it doesn’t…he said it’s quite rare…but when it does happen the baby can die if they don’t get it out quickly. Apparently the baby’s head can press so hard against the cord during the birth that it can cut off its own lifeline, so they can’t afford to waste even a minute.”

“They did get it out in time though?” Maggie’s question was tentative.
She was scared of the answer.

He buried his head in his hands and she heard his voice break.
“Yes…he’s alive, but there might be some brain damage. We won’t know for a few days. He’s in the neonatal unit because he needs to have a lot of tests…I... he wasn’t breathing when he was born Maggie.”

Not sure what else she could do, she walked around the table and put her arms around him. “What about June?” she whispered.

“She’s okay,” he said, holding onto her. “Shocked of course, and sore, but she’s okay. She’s just feeling desperate about the baby.”

* * *

Much later, after Mark had had a shower and changed his clothes, and Maggie had cooked him bacon and egg and then thrown most of it, uneaten, into the trash can, and Mark had kissed Sophie and Amy goodbye and returned to the hospital, Ruairi arrived.

Maggie opened the door, took one look at his smiling face, and burst into tears.

“Whatever’s happened?” his smile changed to alarm when she couldn’t answer him. He gripped her shoulders and lowered his head so that his eyes were on a level with hers. “Maggie, tell me what’s the matter. Is it the children?”

“No,
no they’re both fine,” she made an effort and pulled herself together. “It’s June and the baby.”

* * *

Telling Ruairi about June and the birth trauma she and Mark had just been through should have been straightforward, and it would have been despite her stupid tears, except that he kept touching her. First he put an arm around her shoulders and led her inside. Then he kept it there while he pulled out a chair and sat her down at the kitchen table. And as if that was not enough, when he sat in the chair opposite he took hold of both her hands. He was still holding them when she finished her story.

She made no attempt to withdraw them though because the warm feeling that was growing inside her had little to do with the fact that the touch of his fingers was making her heart beat too fast, and everything to do with the fact that he was worried about her.
Of course he was desperately sad for Mark and June, but right at this minute it was her he was thinking about, and Maggie, who wasn’t used to anyone recognizing she had feelings of her own, was letting it go to her head.

Maggie and her
opinions always came way down the list as far as her family was concerned. As far as she could tell they only remembered she existed when she was needed as a baby sitter or it was time to attend a big family party, and they only worried about her when she wouldn’t do what they wanted, so Ruairi’s reaction to her distress had the opposite effect to what he intended. It made her cry harder, something that left her feeling not only stupid but also very ashamed. How could she even think like this when such a terrible thing had happened to Mark and June? She should be concentrating on Sophie and Amy, not sitting at the kitchen table holding hands with Ruairi O’Connor.

“The girls!” she gasped, suddenly coming to her senses. She pulled her hands free and pushed back her chair. “How could I have forgotten them?
I must go and see what they’re up to.”

Ruairi stood up too
and nodded towards the window. “They’re playing in the garden. Digging by the look of it.”

She swung round.
Sure enough, he’d had a clear view of the children the whole time she had been such a sniveling wreck, and he was right, they were digging, quite happily, in their sandpit.

“You see, nothing to worry about. Shall we go out and check with them that pizza is still their preferred dining experience, or would you rather stay here in case Mark comes back?”

“I think it would be better if we took them out,” Maggie said after a moment’s thought. “They know something’s wrong, but not what it is, and until Mark is ready to tell them I think the best thing we can do is distract them.” She paused then and gave him a shamefaced smile. “I can’t believe I’ve just spent the past ten minutes ignoring them when I should have been putting them first.”

Ruairi rested his arm lightly across her shoulders again as they left the kitchen and made
their way out into the garden. “I don’t think they noticed,” he told her. “And just occasionally you are allowed to put your own feelings first Maggie Silver, or has no-one ever told you that?”

Chapter
Six

Considering how the day had started, Maggie, Ruairi and the children managed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.

After pizza and ice cream Ruairi drove them all to the park where he had almost kissed Maggie, and
they let Sophie and Amy paddle and splash at the edge of the quiet river that looped and meandered its way beneath the trees. Then, when they had worn themselves out, Maggie and the girls sat under the shading branches of a sycamore tree while Ruairi fetched cold drinks for everyone.

When he returned Maggie was checking her cell phone.
She had been checking it regularly all day for texts, or just in case she had missed a call, but there was still nothing.

Seeing the tension in her face, Ruairi was glad his hands were too full for him to do what he wanted to, which was to hold her close and kiss away the l
ines of strain around her mouth and the frown between her eyes. He gave an inward sigh, pushed straws into the juice cartons for the children, handed one to Maggie, and then drank from his own before making a suggestion.

“Do you think…would it be a good idea if we stopped off at th
e hospital on the way home so you can go and see June for yourself and find out how things are?”

She hesitated and then nodded. “I’d like that. Anything will be better than not knowing what’s going on.”

“Come on then,” he got to his feet again, picked up Sophie and hoisted her onto his shoulders, tucked a very sleepy Amy against his chest, and set off towards the car park. Maggie, following along behind carrying discarded sandals and cardigans, was more grateful than she had expected to be that she didn’t have to do everything on her own. Not that it would be for long because as soon as she could telephone the rest of the family to tell them how things were, they would all rally round. She couldn’t do that until June and Mark wanted her to though, and this morning Mark had been very specific when he told her he and June needed time to come to terms with what had happened. He’d said they didn’t feel ready to celebrate with lots of visitors, not until the baby had had all his tests and they knew the full situation, so right at this moment it was just down to her and Ruairi.

* * *

Ruairi stayed in the car with the children while Maggie walked through the hospital following the signs to the Neo Natal unit. When she found it, the first person she saw was Mark. He was standing talking to a nurse on the other side of the security door. She tapped on the small observation window and when he saw her he asked the nurse to let her in. He greeted her with a tired smile and a question in his voice.

“Maggie?”

“I just had to know about the baby, and about June too,” she told him, searching his face for any sign that things had improved.

He looked shamefaced.
“I’m sorry…I should have telephoned, given you an update, asked how you are coping with the girls…it’s just that it’s been…I mean it’s a lot to take in and I don’t seem to be able to think of anything else.”

“I know
,” she gave his hand a squeeze. “And Sophie and Amy are fine. They’re sitting in the car with Ruairi trying to find out if he has any songs on his iPod that they actually like.”

He gave a proper smile then and it washed away some of the strain in his eyes.
“Poor Ruairi! After this he’ll be glad to disappear into the jungle again, or to where ever his next outlandish outpost is.”

Maggie gave a nod of agreement as she resolutely pushed away the thought that when that day came her heart would break, and when it did it would shatter into a lot more pieces than it had when she was thirteen.

“June and the baby?” her gentle question brought him back to the reason for her visit.

“June’s with him now.
Come and see, although you won’t be allowed into the room. I can’t go in either dressed like this. I have to put sterilized scrubs on before I’m allowed near either of them.”

Maggie followed him along a corridor until he stopped outside some double doors and another observation window. He peered through it and waved when June saw him.
She got up from the chair she had been sitting in, next to an incubator, and walked over to the other side of the glass. When she saw Maggie the lines of exhaustion on her pretty face lifted and she smiled and gave a thumbs up sign.

“Does that mean the baby is going to be alright?” Maggie asked as she blew her sister-in-law a kiss.

“Maybe…at least the doctors think so. He has to have quite a few more tests over the next few months but the pediatrician doesn’t think there is any lasting damage. Of course he’ll have to stay here for a few more days yet.” He paused then, as he belatedly realized what that would mean for Maggie.

She shook her head impatiently.
“It’s fine Mark. I don’t care how long I have to stay with the girls if it means the baby is going to be all right.”

With a farewell wave to June, they turned and walked back to the unit’s main reception area. Maggie reached up and kissed her brother’s cheek as a nurse tapped in the security code that would open the door for her.
“Don’t worry about a thing. Just let me know if you need anything because Ruairi has offered to do the fetching and carrying. And let me know when I can visit properly and hold my new nephew.”

He nodded and then turned away, his mind already back with his wife and
newborn son, so that when Maggie asked him what they were going to call the baby he didn’t hear her through the closing gap of the heavy door.

* * *

Climbing back into the car beside Ruairi she smiled at him. “The pediatrician thinks everything is going to be fine although they won’t know for sure for a few months yet.”

His smile was as relieved as her own. He turned to the little girls who were scrambling back into the child seats that Maggie had transferred from Mark’s family saloon into Ruairi’s hire car.

“Did you hear that girls? Your little brother is strong and healthy.”

“Just like me,” Sophie said.

“And me!” Amy wasn’t going to be outdone in healthiness. “And rabbit too,” she added.

“You are all very strong and healthy, especially rabbit,” agreed Maggie as Ruairi turned on the ignition and backed out of the parking space.

“Does strong and healthy call for a celebration,” he asked as they left the hospital car park and filtered out onto the main road.
“Because if it does, then I know just the place.”

“But we’ve already been out for lunch,” Maggie said. “Besides it’s nearly the girl’s bedtime.”

Then she realized where he was taking them and began to protest in earnest. “No Ruairi, not to your hotel. We all look like ragamuffins. We’re covered in grass stains and ice cream, and Sophie and Amy aren’t even wearing their shoes. You can’t possibly take us there.”

“Watch me!” he chuckled as he turned the car sharply into the entrance of the underground car park and found an empty space near the hotel elevator.

“Now everybody out because this hotel makes special food for hungry little girls, and besides, I know there’s someone here who will want to hear all about your new baby. And about your day in the park too,” he added.

Maggie gave in.
“You really are a glutton for punishment,” she told him and then laughed as Sophie and Amy scrambled up into his arms as if it was the most natural thing in the world, leaving her to collect all the debris of their day and trail behind them again.

* * *

When the elevator stopped at the ground floor to collect more passengers, the first person they saw as the doors opened was Marie O’Connor.

“Gracious me, am I about to have company?” she asked, as she joined them in the lift, her face wreathed in smiles.