A Father This Christmas?. Louisa Heaton
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and daddy.’
She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to get that call, being a mother herself. Luckily, so far, Seb hadn’t been involved in anything serious like that. The only time she’d ever been woken by a phone call was when he’d gone for a sleepover at a friend’s house and the mother had rung at about eleven o’clock at night to say that Seb couldn’t get to sleep without his cuddly lion.
Nothing like this, thank goodness.
But having Ariana in front of her was making her doubtful. This sweet little girl looked familiar, and she felt so sure that Seb had a girl in his nursery class called Ariana...
If it was the same preschool as Seb... If he’d been hurt...
Her stomach did a crazy tumble.
She glanced across at the other teams. Sarah was busy assessing a patient and Brandon and Jacob were looking after their own little charge.
She turned back to Ariana, who was now holding her hand, and showed her the Wong-Baker FACES pain-rating scale—a series of cartoon faces that helped really young children scale their pain.
‘Which one of these are you, Ariana? Zero? Which means no hurting? Or ten? Which means hurting the worst?’
She watched as Ariana looked at all the little cartoon faces and pointed at four—‘Hurts A Little More’.
Good—the painkillers were taking effect. Hopefully that four would drop. Earlier, the paramedic had said her pain score was eight, so it was better, even if it wasn’t perfect.
Eva continued to hold Ariana’s hand. It was a soothing thing to do whilst they waited for their turn at CT and X-ray. If it had been Seb trapped in a hospital bed she would hope that the doctor caring for him would do the same thing, too, until she arrived.
* * *
Ariana’s CT scan was clear. The computer tomography scan showed internal slices through the body, so that breaks or bleeds could be seen much more clearly. Her pelvis was fine, as was her neck. Eva decided that she’d wait until they got back to Resus before she took off the immobiliser from Ariana’s neck and the brace from her pelvis.
As they wheeled her out of CT one of the nurses let Eva know that Ariana’s parents were on their way.
When they arrived back in the department Eva made the decision to take Ariana to the cubicles. Minors was busy, as some of the lesser injured children from the minibus had filled it up, and they still had a waiting room full of patients who hadn’t been involved but had come in with various ailments or injuries.
‘We’ll wait in here for Mummy and Daddy. This is much less scary than where we were before, isn’t it?’ She smiled at her patient.
Ariana was looking much happier now that the immobiliser and brace were off. She’d been a very lucky girl.
‘Ariana... I know you were going on a trip with your nursery. Which nursery do you go to?’
Please don’t say Pear Tree Pre-School!
‘The one next to the big school.’
Pear Tree Pre-School was next to an infant school...
‘What’s your teacher’s name?’
Seb’s teacher was Miss Dale. She was a very pretty young woman, with the sweetest nature, and Eva secretly wondered how she managed to keep her perfect composure all day long when surrounded by thirty-odd preschoolers.
‘Miss Dale.’
Oh, my God! Seb!
‘Ariana, I just need to check on something. Stay here, honey.’
She yanked open the curtain and fled from the cubicle, flagging down a passing nurse to sit with Ariana before heading straight to the minors board, looking for her son’s name.
Her eyes skim-read all the names until she saw it: Corday, Sebastian.
Please let him be all right!
She was about to rush off and find him when she did a double take, noticing the name of the doctor tending to him.
Jacob Dolan.
A sick chill had pervaded her body and her limbs felt numb and lifeless.
Jacob was with his son and he didn’t even know it!
Seb was talking to his father and he had no clue!
She forced her limbs to move. Forced her heavy body to start making its way to the cubicle where her life would change drastically.
Cubicle number four.
What were they talking about? Seb couldn’t be that injured if he was in Minors, but how bad was he? Was he sitting up in bed, chatting with his father? Was her secret out already?
No, not possible. Surely...?
Eva walked towards the cubicle with its closed curtain, a feeling of dread sitting low and heavy in her stomach. She could hear laughter inside, and Seb’s gentle chuckling.
She was just about to pull the curtain back when she felt a hand on her arm.
Sarah and Brandon wanted to give feedback. One child had a small fracture of the wrist and severe bruising where the seat belt had crossed the body. Another had dislocated her shoulder, but it had been reduced and put into a sling. The teacher driving and all the other adults had got away with nothing more than whiplash and bruising.
‘Nothing more severe? Thank goodness for that. They’ve been lucky, all of them.’
As Sarah and Brandon went back to their respective charges Eva couldn’t help but relax her shoulders, but she took a deep breath before she whipped back the curtain.
Seb was sitting up in bed, a broad smile on a face that was peppered with cuts. Jacob was seated on a stool next to him, about to glue a cut on his scalp.
‘Mummy!’ Seb saw her and lifted his arms for a cuddle.
Eva hurried over to him, waiting for the axe to fall, waiting for Jacob to do the maths and accuse her of being some heartless witch...
‘Seb! Are you okay?’
Jacob held off with the glue, giving them a moment. ‘Hello, Seb’s mum.’
She chose not to look at Jacob, knowing that if she did her eyes would give her away. Instead, she rapidly checked her son over, her hands grasping at his limbs, feeling for hidden injury. Apart from the cut on his scalp, he didn’t seem too bad.
She picked up his chart from the end of the bed and read through it. ‘Nothing serious, thank goodness.’
Jacob was watching her. ‘Just some minor cuts and scratches, thankfully. His head was banged against the side window, which has given him the small laceration that I was going to glue. He should be fine.’
‘Does he need a head CT?’
‘Dr Ranjit has checked him and said it wasn’t necessary.’
Dr Ranjit was a paediatric neurologist, so she had to assume he was right. ‘I see...’
‘Seb and I were just talking about lions. Apparently they’re his favourite animal.’
‘He loves lions.’
Jacob tilted his head at her curt tone, looking at her curiously. Then he asked Seb to put his head back against the pillow so that he could administer the glue. ‘Be brave, now—this might tingle a bit.’
Eva gripped her son’s hand tightly, smiling brightly into his face to encourage him to be brave.
He looked so like Jacob! Couldn’t Jacob see it? They both had the same almost black hair, slightly wavy. The same bright blue eyes...the same nose and mouth. It seemed that when genetics were being decided upon Mother