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Maggie was holding the door open; she was still smiling but she was giving him no choice.
With one more despairing glance at this hard-hearted nurse, at the crackling fire, at the sleeping dogs, at a domesticity he hardly recognised, he accepted he had no choice.
He walked out into the night.
With … his baby?
She shouldn’t have done it.
The door closed behind him and Maggie stared at it like it was a prosecutor in a criminal court.
Maggie stands accused of abandoning one defenceless baby …
To her uncle. To a doctor. To her landlord.
To a guy recovering from an appendectomy.
To a guy who was capable of driving from Sydney to the valley, to someone who was well on the way to recovery, to someone who was more than capable of looking after his baby.
His baby. Not hers.
This was not her problem. She was a professional. She cared for babies when they needed her medical intervention, and she handed them right back.
She’d done enough of the personal caring to last a lifetime.
She gazed down into the glowing embers of the fire and thought, My fire.
It had taken so much courage, so much resolution, so much desperation to find a house of her own. Corella Valley had practically no rental properties. She had so little money. It had taken all the courage and hope she possessed to gird her loins, approach Blake at the funeral and say, ‘I’m looking after your dad’s dogs; why don’t you let me take care of your house until you put it on the market? I’ll live in the housekeeper’s residence and I’ll keep the place tidy so if you need to use it it’ll be ready for you.’
The feeling she’d had when he’d said yes …
Her family still lived less than a mile away, on this side of the river. She was still here for them when they needed her—but she wasn’t here for everyone when they needed her. She was not ‘good old Maggie’ for Blake. This baby was Blake’s problem. Blake’s niece. Blake’s baby, to love or to organise another future for.
If she’d responded to the desperation in his eyes, she’d have a baby here, right now. A baby to twist her heart as it had been twisted all her life.
Eight brothers and sisters. Parents who couldn’t give a toss. Maggie, who spent her life having her heart twisted.
‘Of course you’ll stay home today and look after your brother. Yes, he’s ill, but your father and I are heading for Nimbin for a couple of days for the festival … You’re a good girl, Maggie.’
Two guitar-toting layabouts with nine kids between them, and Maggie, the oldest, the one who had cared for them all.
She did not need any more responsibility, not in a million years. She had two dogs. She had her own apartment, even if it was only until Blake sold the property.
She was not taking Blake’s baby.
And on the other side of the wall, Blake settled the sleeping baby into a cocoon of bedding he’d made in a tugged-out bureau drawer, then stood and stared down at her for a very long time.
Even in two hours she’d changed. Her face had filled out a little, and the signs of dehydration were fading. She’d been stressed since birth, he thought. She was sleeping as if she was intent on staying asleep, because being awake was frightening and lonely and hard.
He was reading too much into the expression of one sleeping baby. How did he know what she’d been through? How could he possibly guess?
This little one was nothing to do with him. As soon as the river went down he’d hand her over to the appropriate authorities and let them deal with her. But until then …
Maggie should take her, he thought. That was the reasonable plan. A trained midwife, accustomed to dealing with babies every day of her working life, was a far more suitable person to take care of a little one as young as this.
But there was something about Maggie that was implacable. Not My Problem. The sign was right up there, hanging over her head like a speech bubble. Said or not, it was what she meant and it was how she’d acted.
She’d sent him home with his niece.
His niece.
He watched her sleep for a while longer. Ruby, he thought.
His niece?
He didn’t feel like he had a niece. He didn’t feel like he had a sister. He’d only seen his sister that one appalling time, when she’d been little older than Ruby. The moment had been filled with sounds enough to terrify a six-year-old, two women screeching at each other, his father threatening, the baby crying and crying and crying.
He remembered thinking, Why don’t they stop yelling and cuddle her? He’d even thought of doing it himself, but six was too young to be brave. He’d wanted a cuddle himself. He’d been scared by the yelling and far too young to cope with a baby.
Was he old enough now?
He didn’t feel old enough.
He looked down at the tightly wrapped bundle and thought of the tiny feet, facing inwards, needing work to be aligned. He could do that. He was an orthopaedic surgeon. Fixing twisted limbs was what he did.
Not the rest.
Maggie was just through the door. A trained midwife.
The phone rang and he picked it up with relief. It’d be Maggie, he thought, changing her mind, worrying about a baby who should rightly be in her charge.
It wasn’t. It was Miriam, doing what she’d promised. ‘I’ll ring you when I’ve finished for the day,’ she’d told him. ‘You don’t mind if it’s late? You know I’d like to be with you but the board meets next week to appoint the head of ophthalmology and I need to be present to be in the running.’
Of course he’d agreed. They were two ambitious professionals, and a little thing like an appendectomy shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of what was needed for their careers.
A little thing like a baby?
Miriam didn’t notice that he was preoccupied. She asked about the floods. He told her briefly that the bridge was blocked, that he was fine, that she needn’t worry. Not that she’d have worried anyway. She knew he could take care of himself.
There was little she didn’t know about him. They’d been colleagues for years now, in a casual relationship, maybe drifting toward marriage.
And now …
Now he was about to shock her.
‘I have a baby,’ he told her, and was met with stunned silence. He heard her think it through, regroup, decide he was joking.
‘That was fast. You only left town on Friday. You’ve met a girl, got her pregnant, had a baby …’ She chuckled—and then the chuckle died as she heard his continued silence. ‘You’re not serious?’
He outlined the night’s events, the letter, Maggie, their decision not to call for medical evacuation and Maggie’s insistence that he do the caring. He heard her incredulity—and her anger towards a nurse she’d never met.
‘She’s dumped it on you?’
‘I guess.’ But it was hardly that.
‘Then dump it right back,’ she snapped. ‘Fast. She has to take care of it. She’s the local nurse. It’s her job. This is like someone turning up in your office with a fractured leg and you refusing to help.’
‘She did help. She bathed and fed her.’
‘Her?’
‘She’s a little girl. Ruby.’
‘Don’t even think about getting attached.’ Miriam’s voice was almost a hiss. ‘That’s what she’ll be counting on. You being soft.’
‘I’m not soft.’
‘I know that, but does she? The nurse? And this sister you’ve never told me about … Who is she?’
‘I know nothing about her other than she’s called Wendy. I can’t be soft to someone I don’t know.’
‘So call in the authorities, now. If the bridge is properly cut …’
‘It is.’
‘How did they get over?’
‘They went round the road block and risked their lives.’
‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘I don’t want you risking your life. You’ll probably have to wait till morning but then call for a medical evacuation.’
‘She’s not sick, Mim.’
‘She’s not your problem,’ Miriam snapped. ‘And don’t call me Mim. You know I hate it. Call the police, say you have a baby you know nothing about on your doorstep and let them deal with it.’
‘This is my father’s grandchild. My … niece.’
There was a hiss of indrawn breath. ‘So what are you saying? You want to keep it?’
‘No!’ He was watching the baby while he talked. She’d managed to wriggle a fist free from the bundle Maggie had wrapped her in, and her tiny knuckles were in her mouth. They were giving her comfort, he thought, and wondered how much she’d needed those knuckles in her few short weeks of life.
This was not his problem. Nothing to do with him.
She was his niece. His father’s grandchild.
He’d loathed his father. He’d left this place when he’d been six years old and had had two short access visits since. Both had been misery from first to last.
His father had been a bully and a thug.
Maggie had known him better, he thought. Had there been anything under that brutish exterior?
He could ask.
‘Just take the baby back to the midwife and insist,’ Miriam was saying. ‘It’s her professional responsibility. You could … I don’t know … threaten to have her struck off if she doesn’t?’
‘For handing a baby back to her family?’
‘You’re not her family.’
‘I’m all she has.’
‘Her parents are all she has. The police can find them tomorrow. Meanwhile, lean on the nurse. You’re recovering, Blake. You do not need this hassle. Okay, misconduct mightn’t fly but there are other ways. You’re her landlord. Threaten to evict her.’
‘Mim—’
‘Just do whatever you need to do,’ she snapped. ‘Look, love, I rang to tell you about the paper I presented this afternoon. It went really well. Can I finally tell you about it?’
‘Of course,’ he said, and he thought that would settle him. He could stand here and listen to Miriam talk medicine and he could forget all about his little stranger who’d be gone tomorrow.
And he could also forget about the woman who’d refused to take her.
Maggie.
Why was he thinking about Maggie?
He was remembering her at the funeral. It had been pouring. She’d been dressed in a vast overcoat and gum-boots, sensible garments in the tiny, country graveyard. She’d stomped across to him, half-hidden by her enormous umbrella, and she’d put it over him, enclosing him for the first time, giving him his only sense of inclusion in this bleak little ceremony.
‘I took on your father’s dogs because I couldn’t bear them to be put down,’ she’d said. ‘But I’m sharing a too-small house with my too-big family. The dogs make the situation unworkable. I assume your dad’s farm will be empty for a while. It has a housekeeper’s residence at the back. If I pay a reasonable rent, how about you let me live there until you decide what to do with it?’
‘Yes,’ he’d said without any hesitation, and he’d watched something akin to joy flash across her face.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘You won’t regret it,’ she’d said gruffly. ‘The dogs and I will love it.’ Then she’d hesitated and looked across at the men filling in the open grave. ‘He was a hard man, your father,’ she’d said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’
And he’d thought, uncomfortably, that she understood.
Did this whole district understand? That he and his father had had no relationship at all?
They weren’t a family.
Family …
His mother had gone on to three or four more relationships, all disastrous. He’d never worked out the concept of family. Now …
He listened on to Miriam and he watched the sleeping baby. Would he and Miriam ever have babies? Family?
