Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby. Carol Marinelli
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was a horrible afternoon.
Once the young patient was being dealt with by Trauma, Penny had an extremely tart word with Vanessa but she was just met with excuses.
‘I was trying to get through to Cardiology and then I was waiting for someone to come and check the drug with me, but everyone was in with the trauma or at lunch …’
And Penny said nothing. She didn’t have to, her look said it all.
‘Two staff members have to check morphine.’ Lisa stuck up for her nurse, of course. ‘And nurses do have to eat!’ Penny bit down on a brittle response, because she’d really love to have made it to lunch too. There was a gnawing of hunger in her stomach but more than that she was annoyed that Mrs Hunt had been in pain for a good fifteen minutes when the medication had been ordered well before that. ‘We do our best, Penny,’ Lisa said.
It just wasn’t good enough for Penny, though she held on to those words.
The police came in and so to did the parents and as the trauma team had taken the young man from CT straight to Theatre, it was Penny who had to speak to them.
‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ Lisa offered, but Penny shook her head.
‘I’ll be fine.’
Ethan watched as she walked towards the interview room and thanked God that today it wasn’t him about to break terrible news.
‘Mr and Mrs Monroe.’ Penny introduced herself and sat down. ‘I was the doctor on duty when Heath was brought in.’
And she went through everything with them. They didn’t need her tears, neither did they need false hope. She told them it was incredibly serious but that their son was in Theatre, and she watched as their lives fell apart. As she walked out of the interview room, Penny wondered if she could really bear to be a mum because the agony on their features, the sobbing that had come from Mrs Monroe was, Penny realised, from a kind of love she didn’t yet know.
‘How are they?’ Ethan asked when she came back to the nurses’ station.
‘They’re just having a nice cup of tea …’ Penny bristled and then checked herself. She was aware she was terribly brittle at times. Jasmine had happily told her that on several occasions, but speaking with Heath’s parents had been incredibly hard. ‘Awful,’ she admitted, then looked at his black suit and up into his hazel eyes and she could see they were a little bit bloodshot. Normally Penny didn’t ask questions, she liked to keep everything distanced, but she had seen his eyes shutter when he’d looked at the young patient, remembered the raw pain in his voice last night, and for once she crossed the line.
‘How was the funeral?’ Penny asked.
‘It wasn’t a funeral apparently, it was a celebration of life.’ He turned back to his notes. ‘It was a funeral to me.’
‘How was the son?’
‘Trying to be brave.’ He let out a breath.
He looked beautiful in a suit; in fact, Penny couldn’t believe that she’d never noticed until recently that he was a very good-looking man. Still, her mind had been in other places in recent weeks, but it was in an unfamiliar one now, because she wanted to say something more to him, wanted to somehow say the right thing. She just didn’t know what.
‘I need to get something to eat.’ Penny, of course, said the wrong thing, but she was actually feeling sick she was so hungry. ‘I’m sorry, Ethan, that sounded …’
‘It’s fine.’ For the first time that day Ethan actually smiled. Penny really was socially awkward, Ethan realised. It just didn’t offend him so much today.
‘Can I have a word, please, Penny?’ She turned at Jasmine’s voice, remembered she had been looking for her earlier.
‘Away from here.’ Penny saw how pale her sister was and even before they had reached her office, Penny couldn’t help but ask.
‘Is it the baby?’
‘No.’ Jasmine swallowed before speaking. ‘Jed’s mum had a stroke this morning.’
‘Oh! I’m sorry to hear that. How bad is it?’
‘We’re not sure yet. Jed’s trying to get away from work and then he’s going to fly over there.’
‘You need to go with him.’ Instantly, Penny understood her sister’s dilemma—Jed’s family were all in Sydney.
‘I can’t leave you now.’ Jasmine’s eyes were full of tears.
‘Jasmine. Your husband’s mum is ill, possibly seriously. How can you not go with him? You know how people had to just drop everything when Mum was sick.’
‘You’re mid-treatment and I promised you—’
‘You made a bigger promise to your husband when you married him.’ Penny was incredibly firm. ‘I will be fine.’ Jasmine gave her a very disbelieving look. After all, she was the one who gave Penny her injections and knew just how bad she was. ‘I will be,’ Penny insisted.
‘You’ll stop the treatment,’ Jasmine said.
‘I won’t. I’ll ring the clinic now and make an appointment or I’ll go to my GP. Jasmine, you know that you have to go with Jed.’
She did.
There really wasn’t a choice.
But what Penny didn’t tell her was that there was little chance of her getting to the clinic by six and even if she did, tomorrow she was on midday till nine.
‘Are you okay?’ Ethan frowned as she joined him at the nurses’ station.
‘I just had some bad news,’ Penny said. ‘Jed’s mother has had a stroke.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He saw tears starting to fill her very blue eyes and her nose starting to go red. ‘Are you close?’
‘No.’ Penny shook her head. ‘They live in Sydney, Jasmine is on her way there now.’
‘I meant close,’ Ethan said, as Penny seemed a little dazed, ‘as in are you close to her?’
‘Not really. I just met her once at the wedding.’ Penny blinked. ‘She seemed pretty nice, though. Ethan …’ Penny took a deep breath ‘… could I ask …?’ No, she couldn’t ask him to cover for her now, because even if he said yes to tonight, what about tomorrow and the next day? ‘It doesn’t matter.’
She went to walk off to her office and Ethan sat there frowning. Really, all he did was frown any time he spoke to Penny. She really was the most confusing woman he had ever met.
Cold one minute and then incredibly empathetic the next.
Ethan looked up and qualified his thought.
Make that empathetic one minute and a soon-to-be blubbering mess the next. Her face had gone bright red and she had stopped in the corridor by a sink and was pulling paper towels out of the dispenser, and her shoulders were heaving.
He didn’t know very much about Penny, she’d made sure of that, but from the little that he did know, Ethan was quite sure she would hate any of the staff seeing her like that. She was trying to dash off, but Lisa was calling out to her and he watched as the trauma registrar came into the department and caught a glimpse of her and, patient notes in hand, went to waylay her. Ethan stepped in.
‘I need a quick word with you, please, Penny.’ He took her by the elbow and sped her through the department into one of the patient interview rooms, and the second they were inside Penny broke down.
‘PLEASE, GO, ETHAN.’