‘You know, his mother – she took him to the GP three times before they ended up in the ED. She said their doctor ruled out appendicitis and told her he had gastro,’ says Eddie.
‘Did he take his vital signs? Order any pathology tests?’ I ask.
‘Nope.’
My hand hovers in mid-air, forceps in hand. A tremble. Just a slight one. And just for a moment. Nobody notices. Not even Briony, who never skips a beat. This is not the time to think about Zac. I count to three and then return to the task at hand. There is no way we are losing William Summers on my watch.
No child should die from something like this. The sad fact of life is that sometimes, they do.
Five
Paige
It’s Saturday morning, and rubbing eyes that are still puffy from sleep, I follow the smell of melted butter and pad into the kitchen, where Nick is in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt, whistling as he stands in front of the hob, flipping pancakes. I yawn, stretching my arms in the air. Nick’s gym T-shirt, the one I claimed when I grew out of my normal pyjama top, rises up, exposing the bulge of my belly.
‘I made you a smoothie,’ he says, pointing to a tall glass on the island bench. He switches the gas off and carries the stack of pancakes over, setting them down between us.
‘Thanks,’ I say, reaching for the glass. ‘I waited up for you again last night.’ I don’t mean to sound harsh but that’s how it comes out. I pick up a card from the stack of pregnancy milestone cards we keep on the bench. Today I am 32 weeks. My baby is the size of a head of lettuce. I raise my eyebrows and turn the card around to show Nick. ‘Our baby boy is about the size of an iceberg lettuce.’
He smirks. ‘You were in bed when I got home,’ he says as he pours himself a coffee. ‘I got home around two.’
‘We had a reservation for Mr and Mrs Brigg’s at seven thirty.’
He watches me as I sip on the smoothie. Blueberry and apple with a hint of cinnamon and honey, exactly how I like it.
‘Mr and Mrs Brigg’s,’ he repeats, furrowing his brow, his eyes darting right and left. ‘I thought the reservation was for this Fri—’ He stops himself. ‘Paige, I’m sorry. We had a surgical emergency – gastroschisis needing immediate closure.’
And the day before that it was a small bowel obstruction. There is always something or someone needing Nick’s time and attention. He rarely goes into detail about his patients, but I always want to know whether they are at least okay. On occasions where things aren’t, he normally replies, ‘Scrabble,’ to which I nod and pull out the board game, and over a nice wine and a few slices of pizza, Nick opens up to me. He keeps the details fairly vague, maintaining balance between sadness and complete detachment. The scales have never tipped – in the ten years I’ve known him, I can tell when he’s been on the verge of tears, never quite getting to the point where he’s actually cried, and I’ve never seen him demonstrate total indifference.
‘The mother went into premature labour at thirty-six weeks,’ continues Nick, leaving it at that. He tsks, annoyed with himself. ‘I totally forgot about dinner.’
He waits for me to answer him, and when I don’t, he adds, ‘It was major abdominal surgery. I need to head in soon to check on the little guy.’
Biting down on my straw, I mindlessly pick up a pancake and tear a piece off. Unable to stomach another bite, I drop the rest of my pancake onto my plate and push my glass away. ‘This is only going to get harder, isn’t it?’
‘Is this about the Singapore trip? I told you months ago I didn’t have to go unless you were comfortable with it.’ Months ago, before we knew we were expecting, Nick was invited to a work conference to present a keynote on paediatric surgery advancements. It’s important, and it would be unfair for him not to go.
‘No, it’s not about the conference. You should go to the conference.’
‘You and this baby are top priority for me.’
‘I know that,’ I say finally.
‘It really couldn’t wait, Paige.’
I nod silently, offering a weak smile as I approach the kitchen sink. I rinse out my glass, look up at him and sigh. ‘But I did.’
After his shower, Nick pops his head into the laundry room. ‘Hey, I was thinking that tomorrow we could go to that winery in the Yarra Valley you love.’
‘It closed down six months ago.’
‘It did? Wow, doesn’t seem like long ago we were last there.’
‘Eight months,’ I say, pulling the clothing out of the dryer. I fill the basket and lift it onto my hip. ‘Also, I can’t drink wine.’
Nick extends his arms to take the basket from me, but I forge ahead, deposit it on the sofa and start haphazardly folding the towels at the top of the pile.
Nick isn’t having it. ‘What did those poor towels do to deserve that?’ he asks as he reaches for a T-shirt from the basket, which he folds with irritating precision. Normally I’d appreciate Nick’s ability to defuse a potential argument with a bad joke. It is, after all, a trick I often use myself.
When I don’t answer him, Nick prises one of the towels away from my fingers and gives me a knowing look. ‘This isn’t just about me forgetting about last night’s dinner reservation, is it?’
‘No, it’s not,’ I admit. ‘What if it happens when our child has a school concert? Or a parent–teacher interview?’
‘Hold on a second,’ says Nick, giving a quick shake of his head. ‘Aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves here? Shouldn’t we be concerned with sleepless nights and breastfeeding and nappy changes right now?’
‘Of course. But babies grow, Nick. They grow into little people like Ella and Ethan. They go to piano lessons and swimming lessons, and they have birthday parties and play dates and sports presentations. Where is that going to leave us? Or me? Have you even given any of this any thought? What’s going to happen when I go back to work after my maternity leave?’
‘You said you didn’t really want to go back to work.’
‘Yeah. For a year. And then? What if I want to go back?’
I love my job at Windsor Lakes but I’m not wedded to it in the same way Nick is to his. In truth, I haven’t really decided whether I want to go back at all. I like the idea of not working outside the home, but what if staying home with a baby bores me to tears? Or worse still, what if I’m not any good at it?
‘You go back. We get a nanny, or sitters, or politely ask your parents to help us. We work it out, like everybody else does.’
‘You make it sound so easy.’
‘Well, I’m not expecting it to be a walk in the park, in case that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’
‘Well, what do you mean?’ His eyes fill with genuine intrigue rather than frustration. This is one of the qualities about Nick I love the most: his ability to stay calm, listen and play down any kind of situation. Even in life-and-death situations, he is able to maintain level-headedness. After all, that’s what he’s been trained to do.