The Doctor's Tender Secret

‘Complications.’ Judith grimaced. ‘I’m more worried about the baby. Less than five mums a year die of eclampsia in this country—but it kills ten or eleven babies every week.’

Yeah. He knew that. Knew that the hard way.

This wasn’t going to be the same, he told himself fiercely. It wasn’t. Yes, it would be another emergency section of a mum with eclampsia. But this time the baby would live. The baby would be fine. The mother would be fine. Nothing was going to go wrong.

He watched the anaesthetist checking all the vital signs. Watched Judith make the small incision along the bikini line, watched her partner press down on Susie Thornton’s abdomen, watched Judith guide the baby out.

And all the time, he was seeing a different woman. A tall, beautiful blonde who’d held his hand so tightly, so desperately, willing everything to be all right. A woman whose panic had grown in those first seconds after the baby had been delivered—those long, agonising seconds when they’d waited for their little girl to cry. Waited for a sound. Heard the suction as they’d cleared the baby’s airways. Waited again for a sound. Still waited as the paediatric team had started CPR. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

The baby’s cry shocked him into action. Brad forced the bitterness of the past out of his mind and took the baby from Judith’s hands.

A little girl. A beautiful little girl. Covered with vernix, the greasy white substance that protected the baby’s skin from the amniotic fluid, just as Cassandra had been. But the big difference was that this little girl was crying. Her heart rate was fine. Her muscle tone was fine. She was starting to pink up nicely. She was breathing. He went through his mental checklist and smiled. ‘She’s got an Apgar of nine,’ he said.

A more detailed examination of the baby stopped the panic that had started to beat through him, silenced all the ‘what ifs’. ‘She’s absolutely fine,’ he said, handing her to the midwife to be weighed. ‘Though I think mum and baby should be in Special Care for the first twenty-four hours. Just to be on the safe side.’

‘Standard procedure,’ Judith said with a smile. ‘Susie’s blood pressure should be back to normal within a week, and the protein in her urine should have cleared within six weeks. All being well.’

‘Yeah.’ Concentrate on the here and now, he told himself, forcing himself to smile back. ‘I’d better be getting back to my paperwork,’ he said.

‘Thanks for your help, Brad.’

‘Pleasure.’

Though his smile faded when he left Theatre. Even though this case had turned out all right, hadn’t turned into the nightmare he’d lived through last year, it had still unsettled him. Brought back all the memories. Lara’s tortured face when she’d learned that their little girl hadn’t made it. The bleakness in her eyes. The bitterness in his mouth every time he’d had to explain that, no, he didn’t have good news. Their little girl had been stillborn. Phone call after phone call. The more often he’d said it, the more he should have got used to it. But every time the words had cut out another piece of his heart, left him bleeding inside. And when he’d lost Lara as well…

All my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?

She’d said it was the most heartbreaking line in Macbeth. And he’d learned that the hard way.

He couldn’t face the ward. Not right now. Maybe a strong, dark coffee would revive him enough to let him carry on as if nothing was wrong. Maybe.

But when he reached the doors of the staff restaurant, he turned away. He couldn’t face that either. Sitting all alone with a cup of coffee while people walked right by him. Here, it would be because they didn’t know him. In California, it had been because they hadn’t known what to say, and walking straight past him without a word had been easier than trying to stumble through some form of condolences. Some people had even crossed the road rather than talk to him.

A muscle flickered in his jaw. He’d known he’d have to face this at some point in his career. Statistically, he knew he’d face at least one case of eclampsia a year in a major hospital. He’d thought he could handle it, because London City General was a different hospital in a different country, not the one where Lara and Cassandra had died. He’d thought he’d been prepared for it.

How wrong he’d been.

Brad returned to his office on autopilot. Started working through the reports, doggedly concentrating on the words and willing the pain to stay away. He didn’t hear the knock on his door. Or the second, louder knock.

Zoe opened the door. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

Of course he wasn’t. But he also wasn’t up to explaining why.

‘What’s happened?’

He shook his head.

Zoe closed the door behind her, pulled his blind down and crossed his office in two paces. ‘It’s better out than in,’ she said softly. ‘And if you’re worried about the office grapevine, I should tell you now that I don’t do gossip.’

Yeah. He knew that without having to ask. She might tell Holly and Judith in confidence, if she thought it would help him, but she’d make very sure they kept her confidence.

Even so… ‘I’m OK,’ he muttered.

‘You don’t look it.’ She took his hand. ‘What is it? Bad news from home?’

Home? He didn’t have a home any more. He’d sold the house he’d shared with Lara, put most of his things into storage and come over here. To a rented, anonymous flat. A place to live—not home.

‘Brad. Talk to me.’

If he didn’t, she’d nag him until he did. If he did…No. He didn’t want to see the pity in her eyes. Didn’t want to see the pity in anyone’s eyes. He’d had enough pity to last him several lifetimes.

She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand, a comforting pressure. ‘Is there anyone I can call for you?’

‘No.’ He didn’t have a family any more. Well. In name, perhaps. His older brother, whose reaction to anything bad was to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t happening and it would eventually go away. Or his mother, who only ever acknowledged the impact things had on her. He hadn’t bothered asking either of them for support after Lara and Cassandra had died, knowing from long experience that he wouldn’t get it. His brother would simply have changed the subject, because it was easier to stick his head in the sand than to deal with something painful, and his mother would have sobbed about how much she missed poor dear Lara, how terrible it was not to be a grandmother after all, and whatever was she going to do without them? And Brad would have had to put his own feelings to one side, comfort her when all the time he’d have been crying inside for someone to hold him, comfort him, tell him there was a light at the end of the tunnel and he just had to keep walking towards it.

No.

‘There’s no one,’ he said softly.

‘Then talk to me,’ she said, equally softly.

‘There’s nothing to tell.’

‘I think there is. You look like hell,’ she said honestly. ‘You’re chalk white beneath that tan. What’s happened?’

‘I had a call to Theatre. A case of eclampsia.’

‘That’s pretty rare.’ She paused. ‘I take it you couldn’t save the baby?’