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‘Thanks, and tell them that I’ll come back down and talk to them at length as soon as I can.’
‘Who’s been dealing with the parents?’ Jed asked when the paediatrician had gone.
‘Me,’ Jasmine said. ‘Lisa’s in there with them now. The police are here as well.’
‘I’ll speak first to the parents,’ Jed said. ‘Probably just keep it with Lisa. She’ll be dealing with them all day.’
Jasmine nodded. ‘They wanted a chaplain.’ She could hear the police walkie-talkies outside and her heart ached for the parents, not just for the terrible news but having to go over and over it, not only with family but with doctors and the police, and for all that was to come.
‘I’ll go and ring the chaplain,’ Greg said. ‘And I’d better write up the drugs now.’ He looked at the chaos. There were vials and wrappers everywhere, all the drawers on the trolley were open. They really had tried everything, but all to no avail.
‘I’ll sort out the baby,’ Vanessa said, and Jasmine, who had never shied away from anything before, was relieved that she wouldn’t have to deal with him.
‘I’ll restock,’ Jasmine said.
Which was as essential as the other two things, Jasmine told herself as she started to tidy up, because you never knew what was coming through the door. The day staff were arriving and things needed to be left in order.
Except Jasmine was hiding and deep down she knew it, had been so relieved when Jed had suggested keeping things with Lisa. She screwed her eyes closed as screams carried through the department. Jed must have broken the news.
She just wanted to go home to her own baby, could not stand to think of their grief.
‘Are you okay, Jasmine?’ Vanessa asked as she stocked her trolley to take into Resus, preparing to wash and dress the baby so that his parents could hold him.
‘I’ll get there.’ She just wanted the shift to be over, to ring her mum and check that Simon was okay, for the past hour not to have happened, because it wasn’t fair, it simply was not fair. But of course patients kept coming in with headaches and chest pains and toothaches and there was still the crash trolley to restock and plenty of work to do.
And now here was Penny, all crisp and ready for work.
‘Morning!’ She smiled and no one really returned it. ‘Bad night?’ she asked Jed, who, having told the parents and spoken to the police, was admitting another patient.
‘We just had a neonatal death,’ Jed said. ‘Two weeks old.’
‘God.’ Penny closed her eyes. ‘How are the parents?’
‘The paediatrician is in there with them now,’ Jed said. Jasmine was restocking the trolley, trying not to listen, just trying to tick everything off her list. ‘But they’re beside themselves, of course,’ Jed said. ‘Beautiful baby,’ he added.
‘Any ideas as to why?’ Penny asked.
‘It looks, at this stage, like an accidental overlay. Mum brought baby back to bed and fell asleep feeding him, Dad woke up to go to work and found him.’
She heard them discussing what had happened and heard Lisa come in and ask Vanessa if the baby was ready, because she wanted to take him into his parents. She didn’t turn around, she didn’t want to risk seeing him, so instead Jasmine just kept restocking the drugs they had used and the needles and wrappers and tiny little ET tubes and trying, and failing, to find a replacement flask of paediatric sodium bicarbonate that had been used in the resuscitation. Then she heard Penny’s voice …
‘The guidelines now say not to co-sleep.’
And it wasn’t because it was Penny that the words riled Jasmine so much, or was it?
No.
It was just the wrong words at the wrong time.
‘Guidelines?’ Jasmine had heard enough, could not stand to hear Penny’s cool analysis, and swung around. ‘Where are the guidelines at three in the morning when you haven’t slept all night and your new baby’s screaming? Where are the guidelines when—?’
‘You need to calm down, Nurse,’ Penny warned.
That just infuriated Jasmine even more. ‘It’s been a long night. I don’t feel particularly calm,’ Jasmine retorted. ‘Those parents have to live with this, have to live with not adhering to the guidelines, when they were simply doing what parents have done for centuries.’
Jasmine marched off to the IV room and swiped her ID card to get in, anger fizzing inside her, not just towards her sister but towards the world that was now minus that beautiful baby, and for all the pain and the grief the parents would face. Would she have said that if Penny hadn’t been her sister?
The fact was, she would have said it, and probably a whole lot more.
Yes, Penny was right.
And the guidelines were right too.
But it was just so unfair.
She still couldn’t find the paediatric sodium bicarbonate solution and rummaged through the racks because it had to be there, or maybe she should ring the children’s ward and ask if they had some till pharmacy was delivered.
Then she heard the door swipe and Jed came in.
He was good like that, often setting up his drips and things himself. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Great!’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘I know that Penny comes across as unfeeling,’ Jed said, ‘but we all deal with this sort of thing in different ways.’
‘I know we do.’ Jasmine climbed up onto a stool, trying to find the IV flask. She so did not need the grief speech right now, did not need the debrief that was supposed to solve everything, that made things manageable, did not really want the world to be put into perspective just yet.
‘She was just going through the thought process,’ Jed continued.
‘I get it.’
He could hear her angrily moving things, hear the upset in her voice, and maybe he should get Lisa to speak to her, except Lisa was busy with the parents right now and Greg was checking drugs and handing over to the day staff. Still, the staff looked out for each other in cases like this, and so that was what Jed did.
Or tried to.
‘Jasmine, why don’t you go and get a coffee and …?’ He decided against suggesting that it might calm her down.
‘I’m just finishing stocking up and then I’m going home.’
‘Not yet. Look—’ he was very patient and practical ‘—you’re clearly upset.’
‘Please.’ Jasmine put up her hand. ‘I really don’t need to hear it.’
‘I think you do,’ Jed said.
‘From whom?’
‘Excuse me?’ He clearly had no idea what she was alluding to, but there was a bubble of anger that was dangerously close to popping now, not just for this morning’s terrible events but for the weeks of confusion, for the man who could be nice one minute and cool and distant the next, and she wanted to know which one she was dealing with.
‘Am I being lectured to by Dr Devlin, or am I being spoken to by Jed?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re distressed.’ He knew exactly what she was talking about, knew exactly what she meant, yet of course he could not tell her that. Jed also knew he was handling this terribly, that fifteen minutes sitting in the staffroom being debriefed by him wasn’t going to help either of them.
‘I’m not distressed.’
‘Perhaps not, but I think it would be very silly to leave like this. It would be extremely irresponsible to get into a car and drive home right now, so I’m suggesting that you go to the staffroom and sit down for fifteen minutes.’ She stood there furious as she was being told what to do, not asked, she knew that.
‘Fine.’ She gave a terse smile. ‘I will have a coffee and then I’ll go home, but first I have to put this back on the crash trolley and order some more from pharmacy.’
‘Do that, and then I’ll be around shortly to talk to you.’ Jed said, ‘Look, I know it’s hard, especially with one so young. It affects all of us in different ways. I know that I’m upset …’
She didn’t say it, but the roll of her eyes as he spoke told him he couldn’t possibly know, couldn’t possibly understand how she felt.
‘Oh, I get it,’ Jed said. ‘I can’t be upset, I don’t really get it, do I? Because I don’t have a child, I couldn’t possibly be as devastated as you.’ His voice was rising, his own well-restrained anger at this morning’s events starting to build. ‘I’m just the machine that walks in and tells the parents that their baby’s dead. What the hell would I know?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ She knew then that she was being selfish in her upset, but grief was a selfish place and one not easy to share.
‘Oh, but I think you did,’ Jed said. ‘I think you meant exactly that.’
And he was right, she had, except that wasn’t fair on either of them, because she had cried many times over a lost baby, it just felt different somehow when you had one at home. There was a mixture of guilt and pain tempered with shameful relief that it hadn’t happened to her, because, yes, she’d taken Simon into bed with her, despite what the guidelines might say, and it wasn’t fair on anyone.
It simply wasn’t fair.
Jasmine had no idea how the next part happened. Later she would be tempted to ring Security and ask if she could review the security footage in treatment room two between seven twenty and seven twenty-five, because she’d finally located the sodium bicarbonate and stepped down from the stool and stood facing him, ready to row, both of them ready to argue their point, and the next moment she was being kissed to within an inch of her life.
Or was it the other way around?
She had no way of knowing who had initiated it, all she was certain of was that neither tried to stop it.
It was an angry, out-of-control kiss.
His chin was rough and dragged on her skin, and his tongue was fierce and probing. He tasted of a mixture of peppermint and coffee and she probably tasted of instant tomato soup or salty tears, but it was like no other kiss she had known.
It was violent.
She heard the clatter of a trolley that moved as they did.
It was a kiss that came with no warning and rapidly escalated.
It was a kiss that was completely out of bounds and out of hand.
She was pressed into the wall and Jed was pressing into her; his hands were everywhere and so too were hers; she could feel his erection pressing into her. More than that she too was pushing herself up against him, her hands just as urgent as his, pulling his face into hers, and never had she lost control so quickly, never had she been more unaware of her surroundings because only the crackle of the intercom above reminded them of their location—only that, or shamefully she knew it could have gone further. Somehow they stopped themselves, somehow they halted it, except they were still holding each other’s heads.
‘And you thought driving would be careless and irresponsible,’ Jasmine said.
He sort of blew out his breath. ‘Jasmine …’ He was right on the edge here, Jed realised, shocked at himself. ‘I apologise.’
‘No need to apologise,’ Jasmine said. ‘Or should I?’
‘Of course not.’ His mouth was there, right there, they were holding each other, restraining the other, and both still dangerously close to resuming what they mustn’t. She could hear their breathing, fast and ragged and fighting to slow, and slowly too they let go of each other.
Her blouse was undone, just one button, and she didn’t really know how, but he looked away as she did it up and moved away from him to pick up the flask she had dropped. She left him setting up his IV and went to head back out, but she could still taste him, was still not thinking straight. And then Lisa came in.
‘Shouldn’t you be heading home?’
‘I couldn’t find the paediatric sodium bicarb,’ Jasmine said. ‘There’s only one left after this.’
‘Thanks,’ Lisa said. ‘I’ll get Joan to add it to the pharmacy order. Thanks for everything, Jasmine. I know that can’t have been an easy shift.’
‘How are the parents?’
‘They’re spending some time with him. The hospital chaplain is in with them and the police have been lovely.’ Lisa looked at Jasmine. ‘Maybe go and get a coffee before you go home.’
‘I think I just want my bed,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘I just need to finish the crash trolley off and order some more of this.’
‘I’ll do that.’ Lisa took the flask from her and they stepped aside as Jed walked past with his IV trolley. Very deliberately, neither met the other’s eye.
‘You go to bed and get a well-earned rest,’ Lisa said.
Fat chance of that.
Jasmine did have a cup of coffee before she drove home.
Except she certainly wasn’t hanging around to see Jed. Instead, she chose to head to the kiosk and get a takeaway.
And, of course, on the way to her car, she rang her mum.
‘How was Simon last night?’ Jasmine asked the second her mum answered.
‘Fantastic. I haven’t heard a peep out of him.’
‘He’s not up yet?’
‘No, but he didn’t go down to sleep till quite late.’
‘You’ve checked him, though?’ Jasmine could hear the anxiety in her voice
‘I checked him before I went to bed. Jasmine, it’s eight a.m. Surely it’s good if he’s having a little lie-in when he often has to be up at six for crèche?’
‘Mum …’
She heard her mother’s weary sigh as she walked through the house and then silence for a moment. She was being ridiculous, but even so, she needed the reassurance.
‘He’s asleep,’ her mum said, ‘and, yes, he’s breathing.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Bad night?’
