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‘Stupid, stupid girl! You know we can talk about anything, yet you didn’t tell me. Honestly, Regan, sometimes I wonder if all your brains are in your toes. But you’ll be all right, pet. The doctor will fix you up and everything will be fine, but I tell you, if you ever, ever pull a stunt like this again, I will personally kill you then cut you into tiny pieces and feed them to the dog!’
‘Oh, Mum!’ Regan sobbed into her mother’s shoulder. ‘I was so scared.’
‘Of course you were,’ her mother whispered brokenly, crying now as much as her daughter. ‘All the silly stuff I told you about my getting pregnant too early and the struggle I had to keep you. Of course you didn’t want to tell me.’
Carlos watched and listened with a sense of wonder and discovery, as if he’d sailed into foreign seas—or landed on a planet called ‘Women’—and was learning firsthand just how different this world was. For these two were angry and upset yet obviously deeply loving towards each other in spite of the other emotions—the mother accepting, concerned, forgiving and nurturing all at once.
He could never handle that role for Emmaline…
It was obviously something only women could do…
He glanced towards Marty, who’d stood back and watched the reunion with that small shy smile on her face.
She already loved his baby…
‘Moving time, people,’ she said briskly. ‘Ms Collins, you can come with us up to the next floor. There’s a waiting room there where you can get tea or coffee. Do you have to let anyone know you’re here?’
The woman shook her head, gave her daughter one last pat, then stood back so the professionals could do their job.
‘She obviously loves her daughter very much,’ Carlos murmured to Marty as they fell in a small distance behind the procession. ‘So why was Regan so concerned?’
This time Marty’s smile was just for him.
‘It’s complicated,’ she said.
‘That I had realised,’ he assured her. ‘But how? Why?’
‘It’s a lot to do with expectations,’ Marty explained. ‘For some reason they seem to grow exponentially with love. Because these two are very close, Regan feels far worse about disappointing her mother than she would if perhaps she had a less involved and caring mother. Her mother has probably always told her she can talk about anything with her, and Regan believes that, but she also feels that her mother would be disappointed in her if she found out Regan wanted to have sex with her boyfriend, so to avoid hurting her mother she didn’t tell her.’
She smiled again, this time less shyly, and added, ‘That probably doesn’t make a jot of sense to you but, believe me, in the spider’s web of mother-daughter relationships, it’s near to normal.’
They’d reached the theatre and Marty was once again all business.
‘I’d have suggested you do it for practice,’ she said to Carlos, ‘but given how the haemorrhage happened, I’d better see what’s happening in there. If we leave a bit of tissue, she could end up with infection, and if there’s damage to the uterine wall, I’ll need to fix it.’
More than happy to be left on the sidelines, Carlos moved to stand beside the anaesthetist, who was questioning Regan about her health and explaining what she was about to do, inserting a mild sedative into the drip, attaching an oxygen mask, talking quietly and reassuringly as she worked.
Female anaesthetist, female surgeon—a woman’s world again. Was he more aware of it because in Sudan he’d seen less of the women? Their husbands brought the children for attention, or brought their wives and explained their conditions, wary about letting a man touch—or even look at in some cases—their women.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WAS the pregnancy compromised?’ Carlos asked Marty, when Regan was in Recovery and Marty was completing her write-up of the operation.
She turned to study him for a moment, not answering—a questioning look in her eyes.
‘And you’re asking because?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
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