To The Doctor: A Daughter

‘Look, you’re surely not suggesting we stay home and stare at a baby all night?’

He caught himself at that. It did seem ridiculous. And the hospital was quiet. There were places available in kids’ ward.

He’d shelve the problem until tomorrow, he told himself. He’d give himself time to think.

‘Maybe it’s a good idea.’

‘Of course it’s a good idea.’

But as Nate lifted the tiny pink bundle into his arms—as he smelled the newborn milkiness of her and as he felt her nuzzle contentedly into his shoulder—he thought…

Stay at home and stare at a baby all night?

Suddenly it didn’t seem such a crazy idea at all.

‘My legs feel funny.’

Gemma bit her lip. She really had stretched Cady’s patience to the limit. He was four years old, he was exhausted and he was very, very hungry.

She’d stretched him to the limit time and time again in the past few weeks, she thought bitterly. That was half the reason she was demanding that Nate take responsibility for Mia. Fiona had left a pile of bills a mile high. Gemma had needed to drop everything to be with her during the birth. And then afterwards—the funeral arrangements—everything had fallen to her. And all this time Cady had struggled uncomplainingly by her side.

She lifted him high into her arms and hugged him hard.

‘It’s over now, sweetheart. We’re back to being just you and me.’

‘I liked the baby.’

‘I know. And she’s your sister. When you get a bit bigger you’ll be able to spend some time with her. I hope. But for now she’s better off with her daddy. And I’m better off with you.’

‘He was nice. I’d like a daddy like that.’

Yeah, right. As if. Gemma hugged harder as she carried the little boy into the roadhouse. The place was down at heel and looked distinctly seedy but its upside was that it also looked cheap. She could feed Cady enough to get them on the road back to Sydney.

He’d like a daddy like that?

She’d like one, too, she thought. She couldn’t remember her own father. For the last few years her mother had leaned on her, and the responsibilities for Fiona had all been hers.

And Alan was still there—a nightmare in her background.

Sometimes the responsibilities were far, far too much.

‘Let’s just concentrate on food,’ she told Cady. ‘One step at a time.’

‘Why can’t he be our daddy?’

Because he’d never look sideways at the likes of me, she thought bitterly. What man would? A woman encumbered with debt and child and responsibility up to her ears. And Alan…

Damn. To her horror she felt tears stinging the back of her eyes and she blinked them back with a fierceness that surprised her.

She must be more exhausted than she’d thought.

‘We’ll just get food and then we’ll go,’ she told him, and set him down at the first table she came to.

And he swayed.

‘Cady…’ Her hands came onto his shoulders to steady him. What was wrong? ‘Are you OK?’

‘N-no,’ he whispered, and she had to stoop to hear him. ‘Gemma, the room’s doing funny things. My eyes are doing funny things. Make them stop.’

‘Sure, we can keep her overnight.’ Jane, the cheerful night charge nurse accepted Mia with easy equanimity. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘As far as I know, nothing.’

‘She’s been abandoned,’ Donna chirped in from behind. She’d accompanied Nate across the road to the hospital and stood waiting—still bearing his dinner suit. ‘And we need to go to the Jazzfest.’

‘Of course you do. But…did you say abandoned?’ And then Jane lifted away the blanket covering the baby’s head and her breath sucked in with astonishment. Her eyes flew from the baby’s head to Nate’s and then back again.

Gemma was right. He’d never be able to disown this baby, Nate thought grimly. And the news would be from one end of the valley to the other by the morning. Dr Ethan’s baby, abandoned in Terama.

‘Just look after her for me for the night,’ he told Jane wearily. ‘I need to sort out a few things—in the morning.’

‘I’d imagine you do.’

His eyes flashed anger. ‘There’s no need to jump to conclusions.’

‘No?’ Jane was in her mid-forties. Nate was thirty-two so Jane was certainly not old enough to be his mother—but she sure acted like it.

‘No!’

‘Whatever you say, Dr Ethan.’ She hugged the baby close. ‘Oh, aren’t you just delicious? Looking after you will be pure pleasure.’ She waved Nate and Donna away. ‘Off you go, and enjoy yourselves. And then come back to one gorgeous baby.’

How the hell was he supposed to enjoy himself after that?

Nate somehow managed to respond to his friends and he tried to eat his dinner but only half his mind was on what he was doing. Or less. Maybe less than ten per cent of his mind. The rest was back in the children’s ward with a baby called Mia.

And maybe…maybe part of his mind was travelling up the highway toward Sydney, with one very weary doctor called Gemma and a little boy called Cady.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, he couldn’t worry about them. He had enough to worry about with Mia.

His daughter.

The knowledge went round and round his heart, insidious in its sweetness.

He should be panic-stricken, he thought, and a part of him was. The other…the other part remembered how his tiny daughter had felt snuggling into his chest. The way her fingers had curled around his. The feel of her soft curls under his chin…

Mia. His daughter.

And Gemma…