Maybe This Christmas…?

‘Oh… no…’

A nurse, Carla, was climbing down the ladder she had used to fasten the huge star on the top of the tree.

‘Oh no,’ she echoed, but she was laughing. ‘Not again, John Boy. That plastic vomit joke is getting old, you know?’

Andy nudged the offensive-looking puddle with his foot. Sure enough, the edge lifted cleanly. John Boy was laughing so hard he had to hold onto the side of his wheelchair to stop him falling out and the sound was so contagious everybody in the room was either laughing or smiling. The noise level was almost enough to drown out the sound of Andy’s pager.

Still grinning, he walked to the wall phone and took the call. Within seconds his grin was only a memory and the frown on his face was enough to raise Carla’s eyebrows. She straightened swiftly from picking up the plastic vomit. She dropped it in John Boy’s lap, which caused a new paroxysm of mirth.

‘What’s up, Andy?’

But he couldn’t tell her. He didn’t want to tell anyone. It couldn’t be true, surely? He kept his eyes focused on John Boy instead. On a patient. An anchor in his real world.

‘His lips are getting blue,’ he growled. ‘Get him back to his room and get some oxygen on, would you, please, Carla?’

He knew they were both staring at him as he left the room. He knew that the tone of his voice had been enough to stop John Boy laughing as if a switch had been flicked off and he hated it that he’d been responsible for that.

But he hadn’t been able to prevent that tone. Not when he was struggling to hold back so many memories. Bad memories.

Oh… God… If this was really happening, why on earth did it have to happen tonight of all nights?

The emergency department was packed to the gills.

Andy entered through the internal double doors. Serious cases were filling the resuscitation bays. He could see an elderly man hooked up to monitors, sitting up and struggling to breathe even with the assistance of CPAP. Heart failure secondary to an infarction, probably. Ambulance officers were still hovering in the next bay where a trauma victim was being assessed. One of them was holding a cyclist’s helmet, which was in two pieces. The next bay had staff intubating an unconscious man. A woman was standing in the corner of the bay, sobbing.

‘I told him not to go up on the roof,’ Andy heard her gasp. ‘I didn’t even want a stupid flashing reindeer.’

The cubicles were next and they were also full. One had a very well-dressed woman lying on the bed, a crooked tinsel halo still on her head.

‘Can’t you do something?’ The man with her was glaring at the poor junior registrar. ‘She’s pregnant, for God’s sake…’

So many people who were having their Christmas Eves ruined by illness or accident. This would have been a very depressing place to be except for the numerous staff members. Some of the nurses were wearing Santa hats or had flashing earrings. All of them, even the ones having to deal with life-threatening situations, were doing it with skill and patience and as much good cheer as was possible. Andy caught more than one smile of greeting. These people were his colleagues. The closest thing he had to family, in fact.

He smiled back and reached the central station to find a nurse he’d actually taken out once, a long time ago. Julia had made it very clear that she was disappointed it had never gone any further and she greeted him now with a very warm smile.

‘Andy… Merry Christmas, almost.’

‘You, too.’ Julia’s long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail that had tinsel wound around the top. ‘You guys look busy.’

‘One of our biggest nights. Have you just come to visit?’

‘No, I got paged. A baby…’ Andy had to swallow rather hard. ‘Query meningitis?’

Julia looked up at the glass board with the spaces for each cubicle had names and details that it was her job tonight to keep updated. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell…’

‘Brought in by a woman called Gemma… Baxter.’ The hesitation was momentary but significant. Would Gemma have gone back to her maiden name by now? She couldn’t have got married again. Not when they’d never formalised a divorce. Julia didn’t seem to notice the surname and Andy hurried on. ‘Someone called Janice called it through.’

‘Janice?’ Julia looked puzzled. ‘She’s on Reception. In the waiting room.’ Julia frowned. ‘If she’s got a query meningitis it should have come through as a priority. I hope she’s not waiting for a bed or something. Let me go and check.’

‘That’s OK, I’ll do that.’ He could almost hear the wheels turning for Julia now. She was staring at him with an odd expression.

‘Did you say her name was Baxter? Is she a relative?’

Was she? Did it still count if you were still legally married to someone even if they’d simply walked out of your life?

Andy had reached the external set of double doors that led into the waiting room. He spotted Gemma the instant he pushed through the doors. It didn’t matter that the place was crowded and it should have been hard to find anybody—his gaze went unswervingly straight towards her as if it was some kind of magnetic force.

The impact was enough to stop him in his tracks for a moment.

His head was telling him that it didn’t count. Their marriage had been over a very long time ago and there was nothing there for him now.

His heart was telling him something very different.

This was the woman he had vowed to love, honour and cherish until they were parted by death. He’d meant every single word of those marriage vows.

For a moment, Andy could ignore everything that had happened since the day those vows had been spoken. He could forget about the way they’d been driven apart by forces too overwhelming for either of them to even begin to fight. He could forget that it had been years since he’d seen Gemma or heard the sound of her voice.

What he couldn’t forget was what had drawn them together in the first place. That absolute surety that they were perfect for each other.

True soul mates.

For just that blink of time that pure feeling, one far too big to be enclosed by a tiny word like love, shone out of the dark corner of his heart that had been locked and abandoned for so long.

And… and that glow hurt, dammit.

Sophie was starting to grizzle again.

Gemma bounced her gently and started walking in a small circle, away from the queue waiting to see the receptionist. What was going on? She’d been told to wait but she’d expected to at least be shown through to a cubicle in the department. With the drama of the staff rushing to attend to the woman having a threatened miscarriage she seemed to have been forgotten.

Had they rung Andy? Was he on call or… even worse, had they rung him at home and made him feel obliged to come in on Christmas Eve and sort out a ghost from his past?

Oh… Lord. He probably had a new partner by now. He might even have his own kids. Except, if that was the case, why hadn’t he contacted her to ask for a divorce? She’d had no contact at all. For four years. Ever since she’d packed that bag and—

‘Gemma?’

The voice was angry. And it was male, but even before Gemma whirled to face the speaker she knew it wasn’t Andy.

‘Simon! What are you doing here?’

Not only was it Simon, he had the children in tow. All of them. Seven-year-old Hazel, five-year-old Jamie and the twins, Chloe and Ben, who were three and a half.

‘Go on,’ she heard him snap. ‘There she is.’

Hazel, bless her, was hanging onto a twin with each hand and hauling them forward. No easy task because they were clearly exhausted. What were they doing out of bed? They’d been asleep when Gemma had left the house and they were in their pyjamas and rubbing bleary eyes now, as though they hadn’t woken up properly. Ben was clutching his favourite soft toy as if afraid someone was about to rip it out of his arms.

A sudden fear gripped Gemma. They were sick. With whatever Sophie had wrong with her.

But why was Simon here? OK, he’d arrived at the house a few minutes before the babysitter had been due and she’d had to rush off with Sophie but… but Hazel’s bottom lip was wobbling and she was like another little mother to these children and never cried.