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It was different at Jack’s place. He tossed and turned most of the night. His mind had been alive with thoughts of Laura since meeting her again. Shock, amazement, excitement—he had felt them all. Even the bitterness that still lingered over her desertion. But above all he could not believe the overwhelming urge he had to protect her. It was as strong today as it had been ten years ago.
No, no, no! He shook his head, trying to banish her image from his mind. He reminded himself he didn’t do involvement any more. Once you got too involved, women wanted more. Before you knew it there was talk of wedding bells and kids…that he couldn’t do. Since his marriage break-up and subsequent divorce, Jack had been determined to keep any relationship light and friendly and short.
Anna…he groaned as he thought about his ex-wife and the total mess he’d made of their marriage. Not for the first time he found himself wishing they had never married. He thanked God there had been no children. In fact, the whole issue had been the crux of their marital problems. He could not go through that again.
With his mind so preoccupied with Laura, it was inevitable that the dream would come again. There she lay, trapped, unhurt but unable to get out. She was reaching her hand out to him, her tear-streaked face pleading for his help. He tried to reach for her hand but the more he stretched the further away she became. Her sobs, bordering on hysteria, mocked his attempts to reach her. And then the remaining structure crumpled and…
Jack sat bolt upright in bed. Sweat glistened on his brow and his bare chest. His heart palpated like a galloping stallion and echoed loudly in his ears. He clenched the sheets in his hands and flung himself back on the damp material.
Dawn was breaking through his bedroom window. He sighed and closed his eyes, hoping to get some sleep. Maybe he would see her today.
* * *
The next morning Laura sat with Marie and Steve, getting handover from the night shift. They sat at the nurses’ station where a central screen displayed information relayed from the bedside monitors.
Marie wasn’t taking a clinical load today but, as boss, she liked to keep up to date with the patients. Laura was in charge of the shift and Steve would float between the bed spaces, helping wherever he was needed.
Staffing was a major issue for intensive care units as a one-to-one nurse-patient ratio was essential. Critically ill patients could crash in seconds, necessitating the bedside nurse to be there all the time—just in case. This meant meal breaks through to toilet stops had to be covered by another nurse.
‘So,’ said Marie as they finished and rose to start work, ‘what’s the story with you and Jack?’
Even though Laura had been expecting it, she still wasn’t quite ready with an answer. Marie had been a good friend over the years, and it was only natural she would be curious.
‘Not much to tell really. I knew him briefly ten years ago.’ Laura shrugged, trying to be nonchalant.
‘Looked a bit more than that. Looked like you knew each other well.’ Marie emphasised the last word, giving it just the right amount of innuendo.
‘If you’re asking me if we had an affair, the answer is no. Prior to yesterday I only knew him for a handful of hours. Probably doesn’t even add up to a whole day.’
OK, so she was being economical with the truth, but one night really didn’t count as an affair. Did it? Let’s be real, she thought, it was a one-night stand. Mindblowingly wonderful but nonetheless…
‘But—’
‘Marie,’ Laura interrupted, smiling to soften her words, ‘I really don’t want to talk about it.’
‘OK, OK.’ She laughed, putting up her hands in surrender. ‘None of my business.’
Laura breathed a sigh of relief to be let off the hook. Maybe now she could get on with her day. She was here to work after all!
Laura went from bed to bed, checking on patients and helping out where required. Mr Reid was her first port of call. She put on a gown and entered the isolation room. Mr Reid had had a bone-marrow transplant two weeks ago and had developed severe complications. In Theatre the previous day they had found a perforated bowel.
Today the tubes and wires running all over the bed seemed to have multiplied. She helped the bedside nurse who was scrubbing up to access the central line to administer another bag of blood.
The two drains that came from his operative site were half-full of blood. Laura looked at his lab results on the bedside computer and noted with concern the upward trend. If they continued to worsen and he went into full-blown kidney failure, dialysis would be the next step. Poor Mr Reid! He really had an uphill battle.
Laura de-gowned and moved on to one of the two postop cardiac bypass patients.
‘How are you feeling, Charlie?’ she asked. Now that his breathing tube had been removed, he could talk.
‘Awful.’ His voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘If I had known I was going to feel this bad, I’d have never gone through with it.’
‘I know you feel that way now,’ Laura said, squeezing his hand, ‘but in a week’s time, when you can actually walk around without getting chest pain or feeling out of breath, you’ll feel differently. I promise.’
Laura wished she had a dollar for every bypass patient that had told her the same thing. It was a huge operation involving the chest being cracked open and the blood being shunted out of the body through an artificial pump. Most patients described it afterwards as feeling like they’d been run over by a truck. But the improvement in their lives was astounding.
Laura saw Dr Jenny Dexter, the intensive care consultant, arrive and head for the tearoom. She checked her watch. It was time for morning rounds.
The only really routine event on the unit was eight a.m. rounds. It was a multi-disciplinary meeting with all specialities represented. Individual patients’ surgical and/or medical teams, as well as those in allied health fields, attended—occupational therapy, physiotherapy, pharmacy, social work. With a full unit, ward rounds often took an hour, sometimes longer.
As team leader, Laura attended. It was Steve’s job to relieve the bedside nurse as each patient was discussed, so they could also contribute information. The medical staff and the nurses worked as a close team on the unit. The doctors relied on the bedside nurses and valued their opinions and judgements. The good doctors, anyway.
Laura was surprised to see Jack enter the room. She knew from nursing handover that one of his patients had been admitted overnight but he didn’t need to be here himself.
She eyed him suspiciously as he smiled and plonked himself in the chair beside her.
‘Don’t you have a registrar?’ she whispered as she leaned in, immediately regretting the impulse. The smell of his aftershave lured her into the past. How could she ever forget how he had smelt the day they had made love? The mix of aftershave and pheromones had created an intoxicating aroma.
He looked at her and winked. Jenny called for quiet. Laura blinked, snapping back to the present. For heaven’s sake! It had been ten years. You’d think the man would have changed his brand of aftershave!
‘Right, as you’re here first, Jack, we might as well discuss Simon Adams. He’s your patient, I believe?’ said Jenny.
‘I’ve just taken over his treatment. He’s been clinically depressed since his wife died last year.’
‘Has he expressed a suicidal tendency before?’
‘Initially, yes, but not for some time.’
‘Well, something happened yesterday because his eleven-year-old son found him unconscious with two empty pill bottles beside him,’ said Jenny, indicating for the night registrar to begin her patient review.
Laura watched Jack as he joined in the discussion. He was quite animated when he spoke, using his hands, sitting forward in the chair. Every movement caused his sleeve to brush against her bare arm. It was like a caress and Laura fought the urge to purr.
His voice was just as she remembered it, too. Deep and rumbling. She knew his voice intimately, even more than his body. For hours, as she’d lain trapped, his voice had been her only connection with the outside world. She knew every lilt and nuance. His voice had kept her from the brink of despair.
‘How much longer does he need to be here?’ asked Jack as Laura got back on track with the round.
‘Because of the potential for cardiac toxicity and lethal arrhythmia, we’ll need to keep him for another twenty-four hours. He should be over the worst of the effects by then.’
‘Right, well, I’ll go and talk to him now and if you can discharge him to the psych unit tomorrow, we can follow him up properly. I may need to section him if he doesn’t voluntarily agree to stay. I hope it doesn’t come to that.’
There was a general murmur of agreement and they moved on to the next patient.
‘See you outside,’ Jack whispered in Laura’s ear, and then excused himself.
She took a sip of her hot tea as his aroma invaded her personal space again. She grimaced as the delicate mucous membranes of her mouth protested the temperature of the hot beverage. The discomfort gave her something else to concentrate on.
By the end of the round Laura had noted down three discharges. She emerged from the tearoom organising in her head what would be required and trying to factor in teabreaks and not think about Jack and his aftershave. Thankfully, he appeared to have left.
She noticed a young boy standing beside Simon Adams’s bed. It must be his son. Poor boy! He didn’t look much older than Isaac. How terrible to find your father like that.
Her heart went out to him. If it wasn’t enough that he lost his mother last year, his father obviously wasn’t coping. How alone and sad he must be at the moment.
She watched as his young face crumpled and tears spilled from his eyes. The boy turned away from his father and ran blindly towards the front doors.
Laura gave chase, not wanting him to be alone at a time like this or end up lost somewhere in the hospital because he wasn’t paying any attention to where he was going.
She rounded the corner in time to witness the boy running smack bang into Jack.
‘Whoa there, matey,’ he said holding the boy gently by the shoulders. ‘What’s your rush, Andrew?’
‘Let me go. Let me go,’ Andrew sobbed, pushing ineffectually against Jack’s hold.
‘Come on, mate,’ Jack said quietly as Laura approached. ‘Why don’t I buy you a soft drink from the machine and we can have a talk?’
The boy’s shoulders sagged as his struggle died and he nodded his head miserably. He walked back to the unit with Laura and she showed him into the ‘quiet’ room.
It was a small but comfortably appointed room generally used as a place for relatives of new admissions to wait, as well as a place for doctors to talk to relatives about their loved ones. More often than not it was the place where bad news was given.
She tried to engage Andrew in conversation but he sat tight-lipped and head bowed. Laura felt a little inadequate. She had a son about his age, surely she could think of something to say to help Andrew to open up?
Jack arrived with a can of lemonade. He cracked the lid and handed it to the boy.
‘Thanks,’ he said quietly, and took a small sip.
Jack weighed up the situation as Andrew continued to stare at the floor, hoping he was up to the challenge. Children weren’t exactly his forte. Would he be able to reach the boy?
‘Tough time, huh?’ asked Jack tentatively, initiating dialogue.
‘I guess.’ Andrew shrugged.
‘Want to talk about it?’
Jack held his breath as Andrew stared solemnly into his lemonade can. Just when Jack thought he’d have to try a different tack, Andrew raised his head slowly and fixed him with a stare that belied his young years.
‘Why did he do it?’
Laura’s heart lurched at the directness of this eleven-year-old boy.
‘Your dad’s very sad at the moment. He’s finding it really hard since your mum died.’
‘But he’s got me. Why does he want to leave me as well?’ Andrew’s voice broke.
Jack felt helpless in the face of such earnestness. How did you explain the complexities of adult emotions to children when they dealt in simplistics?
‘Andrew, mate, he doesn’t want to leave you. It’s not about that. He loves you. He loves you with all his heart and all his soul and all his mind. He’s just so sad at the moment he’s not thinking properly. He just wanted to stop feeling so sad. It’s not about leaving you, I promise.’
The boy was quiet as he mulled over Jack’s words. ‘Can you help him?’
There was that directness again!
‘I reckon I can. I reckon we both can. What do you say? Partners?’ Jack held out his hand palm up and waited.
Andrew sat unmoving for a moment and then a slight smile tugged at his lips as he raised his hands and gave Jack a high five.
Laura left them chatting about the latest video games, incredibly moved by what she had just witnessed. And this was a man who didn’t want children? He had been amazing with Andrew. OK, he was a psychiatrist, he knew the right techniques, but it had been more than that.
He had connected with Andrew, had got down to his level. She thought about how he would be with Isaac. Something told her he would be a fantastic father. Unfortunately he seemed so opposed to the idea, even worse than ten years ago, he couldn’t see what was blindingly obvious. He was a natural with kids.
Fortunately the business of the day didn’t give her any time to dwell over the conundrum. There were three discharges to organise and for the first time in weeks there was no one to take their places. The tide appeared to have ebbed.
After lunch it was Laura’s pleasure to say goodbye to one of their long-term patients, Bill, who after fifty-two days was finally well enough to go to a general ward. He had been in a car accident, sustaining major chest trauma that had developed into severe respiratory collapse. But he’d hung in there and today he was being awarded his get-out-of-jail-free card.
Bill had a tear in his eye as he squeezed Laura’s hand.
‘Sister, thank you so much. Thank you. You saved my life, you all did. I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to thank you enough.’
‘It was a pleasure, Bill.’ Laura smiled. ‘Our pleasure. Seeing you well again is all the thanks we need.’
As Laura waved him off she reflected on the truth of her words. It was as she had told Jack yesterday. This was why she did the job, for moments just like these. This was what made her job so special.
Despite the busy workload, Laura was constantly aware of Jack’s presence. He was spending a considerable amount of time at Simon’s bedside, talking to his patient and spending time with Andrew. This was significant given that, as head of the department, he would have a killer schedule. She guessed that now he had built a rapport with the boy he would be reluctant to blow the tenuous relationship by passing the case off to another member of his team.
Jack approached her as she was at Jason Smith’s bedside. His nurse had called her over to discuss his deteriorating condition. Jason had been involved in a teenage pub brawl, sustaining several blows to the head. He had a moderate closed head injury that hadn’t required surgical intervention, but he hadn’t regained consciousness yet. His heart rate was slowing and his blood pressure was rising.
‘Laura, can I talk to you about Simon?’
‘Not right now, Jack,’ she said distractedly. ‘I just need to—’
Her words were cut short by Jason’s monitor suddenly blaring loudly. She looked over and saw the young man’s arms and legs jerking rhythmically. He was fitting.
‘Give him a bolus of sedation,’ she instructed the bedside nurse. ‘Jack, help me get him on his side.’
Jack assisted as the nurse held her finger on the purge button of the syringe driver that delivered a standard mix of sedative drugs.
‘How much?’ she asked.
‘Until he stops,’ Laura said.
‘He needs some mannitol to reduce the swelling in his brain and we should load him with an anti-epileptic, too,’ said Jack, reaching for the suction tubing and inserting the plastic head into Jason’s mouth to clear the secretions from his oropharynx. ‘Phenytoin,’ he ordered.
Laura stared at Jack over the top of their patient’s head. He had taken the words right out of her mouth. She felt admiration for him mix with her satisfaction that they were working together as a team.
Jason’s movements slowly subsided. Laura handed Jack an airway and watched as he deftly inserted the curved hollow device into Jason’s mouth to prevent his tongue from falling back and occluding his airway.
‘He needs a CAT scan,’ he said, and her admiration grew a little more.
A flurry of activity ensued, the bedspace becoming quite crowded, so Jack excused himself to write in Simon’s notes. He watched Laura surreptitiously in the middle of the action, discussing the developments concerning Jason with the rest of the medical team. She was so in control, so focussed. He hoped there wouldn’t come a time when an emergency triggered a different response. How would she ever cope with feeling out of her depth?
Laura worked with Steve quickly to get Jason prepared for another CAT scan. The team felt he had probably extended his head injury by having a further bleed, causing an increase in his intracranial pressure. The scan would confirm this.
