Bride at Bay Hospital

‘Good on you,’ Sam said, easing away so he could bend over the cot and look at the tiny child.

In spite of the slight malformation in the facial features caused by the errant gene in Benjie’s make-up, Sam smiled to see the resemblance of the little boy to his dad.

‘He’s Ben all over again,’ he said to Jenny, reaching out to tuck the little starfish hand beneath the sheet.

‘Spitting image,’ Jenny agreed. ‘Everyone talks about it.’

‘And the leukaemia?’ Sam asked gently.

Jenny drew in a deep breath.

‘We’re fighting it, Sam. That’s all we can do. Benjie’s a fighter, too. Although I know the chemo is so much easier to take now, it still knocks him around for a day or two, but then he bounces back and is his normal, boisterous self. Although today—’

‘It might just have been the asthma attack.’ Sam was quick to assure her, although he was wondering whether Benjie had seen his father collapse with pain—seen the ambulance—and, little though he was, understood some of the significance of it.

‘I hope so,’ Jenny said, bending to kiss her son, then turning to Brad, who was the only child still awake in the ward. ‘I’m leaving you in charge,’ she told him. ‘You ring for someone if he wakes.’

Her instruction made Sam turn towards the desk, wondering if perhaps the hospital was so short-staffed a patient had to keep watch. But the nurse at the desk just smiled at him, leaving Jenny to explain as she accompanied him back to Ben’s room.

‘Brad’s been in and out of hospital so often he thinks he owns the place,’ she said. ‘So it’s natural to kid him around.’

She paused, then added, ‘And he loves Benjie, so he will watch over him.’

‘It sounds to me as if everyone loves Benjie,’ Sam said, and saw Jenny’s smile bring a glow to her cheeks.

‘Oh, they do,’ she whispered, then she went ahead, entering Ben’s room, eager to tell him his little son had settled down to sleep.

CHAPTER THREE

SAM sat in his office for a while, pretending to read the information in the files on his desk, but his mind wasn’t taking in much, wondering instead what time Meg might get home—and whether it would still be early enough for him to explain.

In the end he gave up and wandered back to the children’s ward where Jenny was sitting talking to Brad while keeping a watchful eye on her sleeping child.

‘Could I see Benjie’s file?’ he asked the nurse, who lifted a bulky package off the desk.

‘All of it or just the recent admissions?’ she asked.

He looked at the full file and realised he wouldn’t have time to read it all tonight. Maybe Jenny could explain.

She’d kissed Brad goodnight and was back by Benjie’s bed.

‘Ben’s fretting and I really need to be with him, but I hate leaving Benjie.’

‘He’s sleeping soundly, so I would think keeping Ben’s anxiety levels down would be the main concern,’ Sam said, resting his arm on her shoulder as she watched her sleeping child.

‘Come on,’ he said, turning her with a slight pressure of his hand. ‘As we walk back you can tell me about Benjie. How old is he and where’s he up to with his treatment?’

‘Don’t they call that diversion therapy?’ Jenny said, smiling at him as they walked into the corridor. ‘He’s two, diagnosed three and a half months ago. Dr Chan, the paediatrician here in the Bay, picked it up straight away and we did go to Brisbane for the initial intensive treatment, then for his catheter to be put in and for the five day block of treatment in the second month. What we’re up to now—the fourth month—is one daily 6-mercaptopurine tablet, weekly tablets of…Is it methotrexate?’

Sam nodded, remembering the protocols from his stint in paediatrics as an intern.

‘He comes in for monthly injections—I forget what that drug is—and later in the month we do five days of steroids. While he’s at the hospital for that day—tomorrow, it’s supposed to be—they do more blood tests and the results of those tests will determine if the tablets need to be changed.’

‘The dosage altered,’ Sam confirmed, as they paused outside Ben’s room to finish the conversation.

The curtains had been drawn across the internal windows so it wasn’t until they entered the room that he noticed Meg sitting by Ben’s bed. Again!

Sam watched as she stood up and kissed Jenny on the cheek. Watched as she carefully avoided either looking at him or acknowledging him.

‘I wondered if you wanted me to stay with Benjie tonight so you can be with Ben,’ she said, and Jenny’s smile and warm hug provided all the answer anyone needed. ‘I was filling Ben in on the SES meeting while I waited for you. He agrees we need a new captain but old Ned’s been there so long, no one has the heart to tell him it’s time to leave.’

The conversation continued for a few minutes, giving Sam the opportunity to watch the two women. They were obviously close friends—because Benjie was hospitalised so often?

‘Jenny was great to me that Christmas,’ Meg said, as he followed her out of the room a little later.

He knew immediately what Christmas she meant, but what bothered him was Meg’s seeming ability to read his mind. Or was she simply making conversation to get past the tension between them?

Not such a bad idea.

‘You don’t have staff to cover the little boy on a one-on-one basis?’ he asked. The awkwardness between them had increased since he’d mentioned the sister thing. It was like a glass wall—solid and impenetrable—but talking medical matters made pretence at normality easier.

‘Not unless the child is desperately ill. I’ve spoken to Kristianne, the doctor on duty, who, with Dr Chan, his paediatrician, admitted Benjie, and he’s OK, though I don’t know what the oncologist will say tomorrow.’

‘You have an oncologist come in just for him?’

Meg’s smile made him realise how incredulous he must have sounded. It also managed to penetrate the glass wall and cause quivers in his chest.

‘We have one on-line—a direct link so we can talk to him and he can talk to us. Kristianne took more blood from Benjie when he came in, and we’ll flick those test results through to the oncologist as soon as they’re available. It’ll be up to him whether Benjie has treatment tomorrow or not.’

It all sounded quite sensible to Meg, so why was Sam frowning at her? Was he thinking about that ridiculous statement he’d made earlier?

‘You went to an SES meeting,’ he said, accusation biting into the words. ‘So how come you know all this? Who admitted him—taking blood, all the details?’

‘I rode back to the hospital with Bill, who’s also in the SES. I guessed your page meant some kind of crisis and I don’t like to have stuff happening that I don’t know about.’

Sam smiled at her.

‘You never did,’ he reminded her, and though she knew she shouldn’t be feeling anything for Sam, she found herself smiling back.

They stood by Benjie’s bed, looking down at the sleeping child. Meg leant forward to adjust the blue striped beanie the little boy wore.

‘Local football colours, aren’t they?’ Sam asked, feeling strange that he and Meg should be standing beside a small child’s cot.

Strange, yet somehow right…

And he didn’t do emotion?

‘Bay Dolphins,’ she confirmed. ‘They’ve adopted Benjie as a mascot. They donated all the gate takings from their final game towards the Benjie Fund that helps out with the expenses of the family.’