Midwife in a Million (6 page)

When you go back!
The words were like a bucket of ice over the warmth he’d been feeling as he shared this moment with Kate and Lucy. He shook the
thought off but some of the excitement had been diluted by reality.

‘It’s coming,’ Lucy said on an exhaled breath and Rory stopped talking. He saw Lucy’s hand clenching on the sheet and he slipped his hand over hers. She grabbed his fingers gratefully and he cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner.

‘You’re doing a great job, Lucy,’ he whispered in her ear and squeezed her hand back gently.

Kate was down the business end. ‘Here comes baby, Lucy. Nice and slow.’ There was a pause and then the rest of the head appeared, then, strangely, baby’s face turned as if to look the other way. Rory looked up at Kate with a question.

‘Restitution,’ she said quietly. ‘Untwisting of the neck that happens as the head is born. Baby’s head is lining back up with the shoulders.’

Then, gracefully, one pale shoulder appeared and seemed to take a dive towards the bed and then the other was out and in a rush it was all over as hips and knees and feet all tumbled into Kate’s waiting hands. Kate held up the baby so Lucy could see the sex of her baby.

They all waited for the first indrawn breath or cry. The little girl lay limp and still like a stunned fish in Kate’s hands, dark blue eyes wide open in a tiny unmoving face—no cry, no breath.

Kate froze. Time stopped. Her breath jammed and her heart dived sickeningly in her chest to beat one slow beat after another. It was as if she’d fallen, un
suspecting, into a freezing black shaft filled with ghouls. Down and down and down into a bottomless hell. The seconds ticked with aching slowness as the shock battered her. Dead like her baby! Lucy’s baby couldn’t be…

‘Kate?’ Rory’s voice shocked her back to the real world and she looked at him and then shook her head to rid it of the panic. The world sped up.

‘I’m sorry.’ She sucked in a breath. Lucy’s baby would be fine. It was just blue and stunned. ‘Towel,’ she said to Rory. She even sounded calm as she rubbed the flaccid baby until it began to gasp and flex in protest.

Oblivious to those seconds of Kate’s frozen moment of horror, Lucy reached down to touch her baby. ‘A little girl.’ Tears ran down Lucy’s face. ‘A shame my mum wasn’t here to see.’ Then she reached for her daughter and Kate passed the towel back to Rory and slipped the little girl up to her mother.

‘There you go, Lucy.’ Lucy closed her arms over Missy.

Kate looked at Rory and their eyes met over the new mother and her baby. She could tell Rory was euphoric at the birth, and the fact that he’d shared it with her. She just needed a hug.

She didn’t even want to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t been here. How long would she have stayed frozen?

‘This is the needle I spoke about to help separate
the placenta, Lucy.’ Kate slid the needle in Lucy’s thigh but Lucy didn’t seem to notice, then Rory watched Kate clamp and cut the cord.

He wanted to hug Kate. All these things she had to remember. He murmured a saying he’d once heard. ‘The midwife, methodical through the beginning of life.’

Rory was back in that warm place of sharing; his throat felt tight from emotion and he looked at Kate and then Lucy with wonder, and maybe even a tear in his eye. ‘You are amazing, Lucy. Congratulations on your beautiful daughter.’ He pumped the blood pressure cuff up as he spoke.

‘Thank you.’ Lucy smiled up at him shyly. ‘And thanks for holding my hand.’

‘My privilege.’ Rory watched the meter as he let the cuff down and winced at the height of Lucy’s blood pressure. ‘One eighty on one ten.’ He shifted back out of the way.

Kate nodded and tucked the blankets around mother and baby so that Kate’s daughter was chest to chest with her mother’s skin and her little head was bonneted and turned to face Kate. ‘I expected that. I’ll give another dose of Hydralazine now the placenta is delivered.’ She smiled a wooden smile at Lucy. ‘The good news is your daughter looks great. She’s tiny, probably about four pounds, but perfect. She was just a little stunned at birth and will be looking for a real feed because she’s smaller than she
should be. I think she’s not too prem, just very hungry from the placenta shutting down. See, her ears are perfectly formed.’

Kate took the Hydralazine from Rory and slowly injected it into Lucy’s second drip line.

When she’d finished, Rory gave her the saline flush to clear the line, then said, ‘I’ll get us up to the house,’ and he crawled back through to the front of the vehicle.

Within seconds they were making their way up the driveway. All the lights were on and the door flew open as they arrived.

The next half hour blurred as Lucy was transferred from the vehicle to a comfortable bed. Mrs McRoberts had been a theatre sister before her marriage and she insisted that Kate and Rory relax after their adventures for ‘five minutes at least’ with a cup of tea while she watched Lucy and her baby.

It had been a stressful couple of hours and Rory was happy to take advantage of the offer. He wasn’t sure about Kate, who was circling the table as if she couldn’t bear to sit down. She stopped with her back to him and faced the paddocks.

Rory hesitated and then crossed to stand behind her. When he touched her shoulder she flinched so violently his hand flew up in the air. ‘Hey,’ he said and deliberately put both his hands firmly onto her shoulders and eased her back against his body. ‘Take a couple of those deep breaths you keep recommending everyone else takes.’

To his relief, she did, her shoulders rising and falling beneath his hands. After an initial stiffness, she relaxed enough to lean into him a little, then inexplicably she pulled away and sat down. Rory let his hands fall through the empty air and turned to look at her where she sat.

He didn’t get this woman at all—which would be fine if it didn’t feel as if he’d just been kicked in the gut every time she shut him out—so he shrugged and sat down himself.

When she spoke it was as if nothing had happened between them and Rory decided to drink his tea. He had to find a way to stop her messing with his head.

‘Apparently, after the storm left here it seems to have headed Jabiru way,’ she said. ‘No chance they’ll have planes landing on the strip there.’ The way she avoided his eyes and spoke reminded him of this morning, before they’d left, and he felt as if he were riding a roller coaster of emotions. One minute she was fine, the next she’d retreated so far he could barely see the real Kate.

She poured more tea and then glanced at her watch. ‘Mrs McRoberts said the plane’s only half an hour away from here. We can head back after that.’

Something was going on and he had no idea where her thoughts were. He watched her face. ‘So you’re not going to go with Lucy to Derby?’

She shook her head. ‘No. She’s had her baby now, and they’re both fine.’ She shut her mouth with a
snap and he almost missed the moment when she started to shake with reaction. The shudders grew until her whole body shook the chair. Almost like Lucy’s fit, only with such anguish on her face he could no more not go to her than not breathe.

Rory pushed his chair out and dropped to the ground to kneel beside her chair. He pulled her head down onto his chest and held her. ‘It’s okay, baby. Everything’s fine. You did wonderfully.’

She stared straight through him and for a moment a horrifying feeling hit him that he’d lost her to some place he couldn’t go.

‘Kate? Honey? You okay?’ She didn’t move and he tilted her chin and looked into her face. Eyes tightly shut, she leaned into him and her arms crept round his chest, drawing comfort as if she couldn’t help herself. They sat like that, him rocking her, for what seemed to Rory like forever.

After a few minutes she sighed and sucked in a shuddering breath before she rested her forehead against his chest. When she leaned back her eyes opened and she blinked at him. She glanced away and then back. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that. Thank you.’

He smiled and brushed her cheek with his finger before he sat back on his heels. Ignored her deliberate distance as if it wasn’t there. ‘You’re welcome. It’s been a pretty big day.’ He brushed the hair away from her eyes so he could see her face. ‘You okay now?’

She drew another erratic breath. ‘When the baby was born…’ Kate shook her head at the memory. ‘I had a brain freeze. I thought the baby was going to die. I’ve never done anything like that before in my life.’

He stroked her hair. ‘I didn’t see that. It must have been quick because we didn’t notice. I thought you were just waiting for the baby to breathe by herself. It was only seconds until you dried her.’

She frowned. ‘I shouldn’t be here. It’s all been too much.’

‘You’ve had a lot of responsibility with Lucy.’

‘Not just Lucy.’ She shook her head again. ‘My father, you coming back…’ she paused ‘…and the past.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t.’ He watched her emotions shut off from him like a roller door closing until there was nothing. No connection at all.

The last thing he wanted to do was upset her again. ‘Fine.’ He stood up and moved back to his chair as if he’d done something mundane like picking a napkin off the floor. He moved the topic on to what he hoped was safer ground. ‘So Lucy will go on from here without us?’

He watched Kate sit back in her chair and compose herself more. She took a sip of tea, a couple of breaths and even offered a false smile before she nodded. ‘The flight nurses are excellent and her aunt’s at the other end. Her aunt will stay with her
until Mary can come. I need to get back to town and eventually back to Jabiru Station and my father.’

Rory didn’t want to think about Kate’s father, what the man had done to his parents, and his own issues with him. Or what he’d done to Kate to have her wound up like this. The return part of the trip would be hard going enough without broaching the subject of Lyle Onslow. Not yet. Maybe never.

He scouted for a safer topic. ‘Lucy’s daughter is a cute baby. Missy’s a cute name. What do you reckon she weighs?’

Kate looked away towards the room where Lucy lay cosseted by Mrs McRoberts and she smiled for real this time. ‘Nearly four and a half pounds on the kitchen scales. She looks almost term, good creases on her feet and hands. So her tiny size is because she’s been having it harsh in there with Lucy’s blood pressure. Hypertension plays havoc with transfer of food and oxygen from the placenta. Our baby’s got a bit of catch-up feeding to do.’

The expression made him smile. ‘Our baby. I like the sound of that.’ Rory repeated the words without thinking but he was unprepared for the absolute devastation in Kate’s face.

He could only blink in disbelief as Kate pushed her chair out and turned away. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Kate? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. Leave it.’ He could hear the anguish in her voice and Rory felt the waves of despair radiat
ing from her as she put her hand up to ward off any questions. She hurried away to Lucy and he stood and stared after her as his brain tried scenarios to explain what had just happened.

He looked back at the table with the two half-finished cups and he shook his head. His eyes narrowed. He didn’t understand but he would. Later, when the plane had gone.

He picked up the cups and headed through to the kitchen to thank the housekeeper. The rain had stopped. He’d tidy the truck and refuel and when the RFDS arrived he and Kate would run Lucy out to the airstrip and say goodbye. Then all this would be settled.

T
HIS
was exactly why she’d known seeing Rory was a bad idea. Not once since that dreadful morning when they’d said her child had died had she spoken about her loss.

Ten years ago she’d been confused, isolated from anyone she knew and told to pretend it had all been a bad dream. She’d spent the next six weeks physically healing and mentally bricking up what had happened behind an impenetrable barrier.

Until Rory. The one person she couldn’t hide from.

How was she going to get through the return trip? He was going to ask, in that caring, genuine way of his, about something he more than anyone had the right to ask. Did she have the right not to tell him?

Kate felt like throwing herself off the veranda and running into the hills so that Rory wouldn’t find her but of course she couldn’t. No wonder she’d decided emotions were better left out of the equation and her life.

The time for her to be alone with Rory drew closer and the tension inside her built until she was sure she’d explode. Finally, Rory and Kate stood together beside the truck out on the dirt airstrip. They waved to Lucy as she was loaded onto the small aircraft with her baby for the flight.

Her eyes slid sideways as Rory shaded his eyes to watch the door close. Shame Rory hadn’t taken that plane back to Derby, Kate thought. Then she wouldn’t have to go through this. ‘You should have gone with them, Rory. You could have made connections and been in Perth tonight.’

They watched the RFDS taxi off down the runway under the heavy sky and Kate chewed her lip as she wished she’d decided to go with Lucy.

‘That would defeat the purpose of my trip.’ Rory looked at her. ‘Wouldn’t it?’ He frowned. ‘Have you forgotten why I’m here?’

As if she could. ‘I’m quite able to drive the truck back myself.’

Rory examined her lovely but stubborn profile as she watched the plane. ‘I’m sure you could manage the truck beautifully. But it’s not happening.’ He turned away. ‘It’s later than we anticipated. Do you want to stay here the night or leave now?’

His gut instinct said to stay the night here and not risk the trip back to Jabiru on the slim off chance they’d get through but he knew Kate wanted to get home. Either way, he planned to get her alone and
find out what it was that had changed her from the young woman he’d left behind ten years ago.

Still she didn’t look at him. ‘My patient’s gone. I’d prefer to leave now but it’s your call.’

He sighed. ‘It’s after four. It would be very late if we did make Jabiru tonight. But if we leave tomorrow to cross the larger rivers there’s less chance the crossings will be passable at all.’

‘Then leave now.’ Still that monotone from Kate that had him frowning down at her.

‘I think we should freshen up as long as we’re quick. They’ve offered late lunch and a hamper for the road. It seems sensible to take advantage of the hospitality.’

‘You can’t do both, Rory. Make up your mind.’

‘Sure we can. We’ll eat quick and I’ve already fuelled the truck.’

Kate looked through him. ‘You’ve decided, then. Why ask me?’

He shook his head. Women. She’d changed since that incident earlier. Her face looked drawn and closed and he could barely picture her smiling in the back of the truck during the drive.

It was a battle he wasn’t going to win at this moment. The RFDS plane was in the air now. ‘Let’s go, then.’

They were on the road within half an hour and Rory picked up the speed a bit because he had no patient to be bounced around in the back and Kate safely beside him in the front.

She hadn’t spoken a word since she’d buckled her seat belt and he had things to think about too. Like why she’d had such a crisis and been angry with him when he’d done nothing that he could see to cause her displeasure. He took a stab in the dark, which seemed appropriate because the sky had suddenly become grey with threatened rain.

‘Have you had a bad experience with a patient’s baby in the past, Kate?’ He glanced across at her and then back at the road. ‘Is that why you were upset at the homestead?’ It was all he could think of.

At first he thought she wasn’t going to answer but grudgingly the words came at the same time as a gust of wind rocked the truck. ‘You could say that.’

He tightened his hands on the wheel to keep the wheels in a straight line as he thought about her choice of words.

He knew all about bad cases at work. Emotional debris from other people’s lives and disasters. Especially the good people it seemed to happen to. Maybe this was what’d changed her. He could understand that. ‘Can you talk about it?’

She turned to look at him and he could see she’d erected a sheer wall like the steep-sided gorges that ran with water at the side of the road. The gorges had taken millions of years to form. He wondered how long that wall had taken to evolve in Kate.

She sighed and began, but her lack of expression was as eerie as the strange light they were driving
through. ‘The baby’s mother had pregnancy induced hypertension the same as Lucy. Our dash with Lucy brought it all back to me.’

He nodded. ‘I can understand that. Want to tell me about it?’

‘No.’ She stared at the road in front and he bit back a sigh. And waited. After a few minutes’ silence he deliberately didn’t break she did begin. ‘They flew the mother out to Perth…’ her voice trailed off ‘…but it was too late for the baby in the end. The placenta separated, she bled and the baby died.’

Rory could tell she needed to talk about it. He’d learnt that over the years in his job. The hard way. ‘So did you go all the way with them? What happened to the mother?’

‘Oh, I was there.’ He thought for a moment she was going to cry and he had the urge to stop her from telling more. Protect her from the grief she’d bottled up, but maybe she’d never get over it if she didn’t speak about it now.

Maybe he was the only person she could tell. His voice was only loud enough so she could hear over the wind. ‘Go on if you can.’

‘She was young like Lucy and quite sick for the next week. You know what they did? They never showed her the baby. By the time she was well enough to realise what had happened it was too late and she never saw her baby. They told her to forget it ever happened.’

‘Monsters,’ he muttered, and Kate nodded and he realised he must have said it out loud.

‘You’d hate that happening to any patient,’ he said and tried to imagine the ramifications for the young mother. ‘No wonder you were upset.’

Kate nodded again and he saw the shine of tears in her eyes before she turned away. He’d bet there was more. The case had obviously affected Kate heavily. He knew ambulance personnel who’d had a series of similar cases that built up inside and then one last bad one could paralyse with grief and regret.

‘And that’s why you agreed to transfer Lucy? Because you were scared that would happen again?’

‘To make sure it didn’t happen again.’ She flicked a glance at him and he winced at the hunted expression in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

He wasn’t satisfied but backed off and then they rounded a corner and suddenly the world intruded again. It seemed it had a habit of doing that.

They nearly ploughed into a long-wheelbase luxury camper that had skidded and come to rest diagonally across the road in front of them. With their side of the road blocked and reluctant to brake too heavily in the greasy conditions, Rory aimed for the gap on the other side of the road.

He steered between the rock of the mountain they were circling, careered past the vehicle before he could slow the truck enough to stop without skidding, then pulled back onto their side of the road and slid to a halt.

He looked across at Kate to make sure she was safe and for the first time in a long time there was an animated expression on her face.

‘Not bad, sir. Maybe I’m glad I’m not driving.’

‘High praise indeed from you.’ He grinned at her and she grinned back and the sudden rush of joy that blossomed inside him warned of danger and he tried to damp it down. Then the smile ran away from her face and he was sad to see it go because he’d felt as if they’d bonded briefly in that moment of relief.

Then again, that way lay pain and he’d have to stop putting himself out there for the hits. He looked away to the camper. ‘Let’s see if they’re okay.’

Kate slid from the truck onto the muddy roadside and it felt as if she’d just escaped from prison. She couldn’t believe she’d started to talk about her loss, even if she’d hidden behind her fictitious patient.

The mire sucked at her boots as she crossed the road and she realised the driver of the van was knee-deep in mud behind the bus. The rear wheels were buried as he tried to manoeuvre what looked like plastic planks down to drive out over. His face was covered in smears and stripes of red slimy soil, as were most of his clothes. He didn’t look too happy about it.

Kate mentally shrugged. He would have been more unhappy if they’d hit him. A little mud wouldn’t kill him.

‘I’m sorry,’ the man said. ‘I asked her to stand at the corner and wave people down but she was too
busy telling me how stupid I am.’ He glared at the open door of the Winnebago before he looked back at them. ‘I can’t do anything with her.’

Kate turned to see a diminutive brunette, beautifully dressed and made-up, poke her head out of the door. The woman limped theatrically onto the top step with her red-tipped fingernails resting on her hips and waited for maximum effect before she stepped gingerly down another rung. Still safe above the layer of plebeian mud, she bestowed an overjoyed smile on Rory. ‘Well, if it isn’t Rory McIver.’

‘Oh, Lord.’ Kate heard Rory’s muttered comment as she turned to look at him but his face was bland. He avoided Kate’s unspoken question by looking at the other woman. ‘Hello, Sybil,’ he said.

Sybil’s appearance was so incongruous—she was dressed for a shopping expedition rather than a bush road trip—followed by Sybil’s tone of voice when she’d addressed Rory, that Kate couldn’t think of a thing to say. It shouldn’t matter that Rory knew this woman or that he wasn’t comfortable with meeting her here; what mattered was that some other vehicle didn’t career around the corner and collect the lot of them.

Kate shook her head at the delay. ‘We’ve hazard signs in the ambulance. I’ll put them out on each corner and hopefully nobody else will have to steer for their life.’

With a narrow look at Rory, which confirmed that he actually seemed relieved she was going, Kate
squelched her way in disgust to the rear of their vehicle and opened the back. Now who the heck was Sybil? And just how well did she know Rory McIver?

Kate ground her teeth. Well, what did she expect? She hadn’t seen him since he’d left Jabiru ten years ago and just because she’d been miserable didn’t mean he had to be the same. As far as he was concerned, he hadn’t lost a baby and had to claw himself back to sanity.

Rory watched Kate yank the signs from the back of the truck and sighed. He turned back to the job at hand. The sooner they were out of here the better, for lots of reasons.

‘Why couldn’t you be sensible like that lady?’ the man said peevishly.

Sybil laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Philip. Look at the cost. She’s filthy like you already.’

Rory flicked a glance at Sybil before he made his way over to Philip. ‘Watch it, Sybil. Kate and I can easily drive away and leave you.’

‘But I need you to look at my ankle, and you wouldn’t do that, Rory. I
know
you.’ There was a world of meaning in her words and Rory couldn’t help glancing to see if Kate had heard. His heart sank when he saw her toss her hair as she stomped up the road with a sign. Yep. Explanations later, though.

Rory declined to answer Sybil and glanced at the dark sky. At least it had stopped raining for the moment. ‘So what’s your plan? Philip, is it? I’m
Rory.’ Rory held out his hand and Philip wiped his palm on a reasonably clean piece of shirt and shook Rory’s hand ruefully.

‘I was going to use these board things I found in the back. Apparently they’re the best thing out for this, but if you’ve ideas I’m happy to listen. This whole trip—’ he glared at the door Sybil had disappeared through ‘—was a bad idea.’

‘Not your idea, I gather?’

‘We’re supposed to be going to the diamond mines. I wanted to fly but she wanted to drive through some town called Jabiru on the way. I was pretty happy up until an hour ago when she turned into a petulant witch.’

‘That’s Sybil for you.’ Rory turned and measured with a glance the distance to the other side of the road and the logistics of the ambulance simply pulling them out. ‘There isn’t enough room for us to pull you forward, though if we slew sideways we might leave you worse off. Your vehicle’s heavy.’

He rubbed the back of his neck as he thought. ‘We’ll winch you forward from one of the trees across the road; that’s the safest. The problem is you’ll be facing the wrong way when we finish. You’ll have to turn around up the road if you want to come back this way.’

‘I’m happy to head back to Derby and Broome. I don’t suppose the road gets better this way?’

‘Only worse with river crossings.’

‘Let’s do what you suggest.’ Philip narrowed his eyes at the camper. ‘She’s not getting her pink diamond now, anyway.’

‘If you’ll take some advice, don’t tell her that until Broome or your trip will be hell.’

Phillip laughed. ‘You really do know her.’

Rory raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ve paid my dues.’

Kate came back and helped with the reversing and soon the whole road was churned by their efforts. Kate could feel her tenuous hold on her temper begin to slip. At the edge of her vision Sybil limped dramatically on the dry side of the road as she tried to distract Rory. Everything seemed to be taking forever.

Kate didn’t want a night beside the road with Rory, was terrified of it, in fact, yet the afternoon was slipping away.

Finally they managed to winch the vehicle free but by the time they were finished everyone, except Sybil, was covered in mud.

‘Now can you look at my ankle, Rory?’ Sybil’s plaintive voice broke into the feeling of accomplishment the workers were finally savouring.