THE children’s ward had never looked so festive.
The paediatrician heading for the treatment room had never felt so bleak.
‘Dr Costa! Look at me!’
A tiny child was propelling a custom-built wheelchair at speed along the central corridor of the paediatric ward and came to a halt, barely missing Toni’s toes.
The small boy was wearing a Superman costume. The mask was far too big, covering most of his face, but the misshapen body in the chair would have been instantly recognisable in any case.
Toni sounded as puzzled as possible, however. ‘Goodness me, who can this be?’
‘It’s me!’ The mask was dragged upwards. ‘Nathan. See?’
‘So it is! I’d never have guessed.’
Nathan beamed at him. He knew perfectly well that his doctor was being less than honest but it was the correct response. The familiar broad grin of this long-term patient was welcome. Nathan had spent far too many of his six years in and out of hospital to deal with the management and complications of his physical abnormalities but he never seemed to resent any of it. His mission in life was clearly to have as much fun as possible and nobody could resist the uplifting effect of his personality.
Even Toni, the way he had been feeling for days now. Ever since Pip had apparently accepted his offer to step out of her life.
‘It’s Hallowe’ en,’ Nathan informed Toni. ‘And I’m going in the parade!’
‘So am I.’ Eight-year-old Jasmine, sporting a pair of sky-blue fairy wings and wielding a glittery wand in a rather menacing fashion, emerged from the nearby bathroom.
‘Cool bananas,’ Toni said, still smiling.
This celebration had been planned for weeks. Parents, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and everybody else concerned with the wellbeing of the children in this ward had been using the calendar date as inspiration to keep their young patients motivated, distracted or just amused. Masks and costumes had been made or hired and all those well enough were going to go on a pre-planned ‘trick or treat’ parade through carefully primed areas of the hospital such as the geriatric wards, cafeteria, pharmacy, the waiting area of the emergency department and even the chapel.
A baby with a pumpkin hat that took attention away from the dressings covering a recently repaired cleft palate and hare-lip was carried past, and an older girl with a nasal cannula supplying oxygen from a tank she pushed in front of her had the cylinder disguised with a large bunch of straw that had a stick poking up from the centre.
‘It’s my broom,’ she told Toni when he raised his eyebrows.
‘You’re going as a sweeper, Jodi?’
‘No, silly.’ Jodi had to catch her breath. The chest infection complicating management of her cystic fibrosis was not yet conquered. ‘I’m going to be…a witch. Mum’s bringing…my costume.’
Another wheelchair came to clutter the part of the corridor Toni had stopped in and a nurse carrying one of their young arthritic patients, who was looking extra-cute in a tiger suit, shook her head.
‘I might have known,’ she said. ‘If there’s a traffic jam of kids anywhere, it’ll be Dr Costa in the middle of it.’
Toni eyed her headband that had sparkling red devil’s horns attached. ‘Very appropriate, Mandy.’ He nodded approvingly.
The nurse sniffed. ‘I’ll find a costume for you, don’t worry.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘What? You’re not coming on the parade?’ Several sets of horrified eyes were glued on Toni.
‘Of course I’m coming.’ He may not feel anything like as enthusiastic as he managed to sound but the delight displayed by Nathan and his fellow ward members made the effort worthwhile.
‘What are you…coming as?’ Jodi asked.
‘Hmm, let me think.’ Toni kept up a thoughtful silence but was uninspired. ‘Maybe I could come as…a doctor?’ He waggled the end of the stethoscope hanging round his neck but the children all shook their heads sadly.
Mandy giggled. ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’
Toni was spared any further efforts by another nurse appearing in a nearby doorway.
‘We’re ready for you, Toni.’
He escaped to the relative security of the treatment room where an anxious mother was waiting, holding a ten-month-old girl.
‘You’ve had this procedure explained to you?’ Toni queried.
‘Yes. I wish there was a different way to get the urine specimen, though. It seems horrible, having to stick a needle through Emily’s stomach.’
‘It’s a very fine needle,’ Toni assured her. ‘And a quick procedure. I’ll be very gentle.’
‘Is it really necessary?’
Toni nodded. ‘It’s important that we find the source of Emily’s infection so we can make sure we’ve got her on the right antibiotics. This won’t take long but she’s not going to be happy about us doing it. Would you rather the nurse looked after her and you waited back in Emily’s room?’
Relief and worry vied to take over Emily’s mother’s expression. ‘Would that be all right? I’d feel terrible leaving her.’
‘If it’s going to upset you, then it’s probably better for Emily if you’re not here. We’ll get another nurse to help us and we’ll take very good care of her, I promise. You’ll be able to give her all the cuddling she needs as soon as it’s over.’
The woman burst into tears as she left the room and Toni could sympathise. Most mothers would far rather have a procedure themselves than witness their children suffering. Some, like Emily’s mother, found it unbearable, whereas others refused to be parted from their children no matter how dreadful the procedure might be.
The bond between mothers and their children had always fascinated Toni. Perhaps he was more conscious of it than most because the lack of experiencing it personally had always haunted him. He was confident that the awareness had made him a better doctor. He approved of the bond. He went out of his way to support the parents of his small patients.
So he had no right to feel rejected because Pip was putting Alice’s needs ahead of his own, had he?
Or to feel resentful of Alice. To feel that she was knowingly depriving him of what he most wanted.
A family.
She wasn’t even prepared to acknowledge her mother at the moment. She had no idea how lucky she was to have someone who loved her that much. Someone who was prepared to sacrifice something as important as a relationship with a lover to make things better for her child.
Toni scrubbed his hands at the basin in the treatment room while the nurse jiggled baby Emily, who was grizzling loudly in the wake of her mother’s disappearance.
‘Could you poke your head out the door, please?’ Toni asked. ‘See if Mandy or someone is free to help us for a minute. We’ll need two people to keep Emily still enough.’
He dried his hands and tried to shake off the downward spiral of his spirits that had begun yet again by thinking about Pip and Alice, but day by day a negative interpretation of their current situation seemed to become more prominent and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.
Toni couldn’t take the first step, no matter how much he might want to. He couldn’t force his way back into Pip’s life. What would be the point? She had to want him.
If Pip felt anything like the same level of emotion he did, she would find it impossible to exclude him, no matter how powerful the bond with her child was. He could have helped to find another way through this impasse but he hadn’t even been given the opportunity. As each day had passed, the feeling of being less than significant in Pip’s life had increased.
And something even more negative than the sensation of rejection had blossomed. Betrayal. The kind of betrayal he had sworn never to make himself vulnerable to again. For the first time in his adult life Toni had totally trusted a woman. Had given himself heart and soul. He was missing Pip terribly. A dozen times he had picked up his phone, intending to call or text. Compelled to jump over that boundary line and find out if she was all right and whether there was any way he could help. Each time, something had stopped him.
And he knew exactly what it was.
The echo of her vehemence in assuring Alice that she had no intention of marrying him or having his babies refused to fade. If anything, it got louder every time it clawed its way back into his head.
‘It’s not going to happen,’ she’d said.
It’s not going to happen.
Surely Pip would realise the interpretation he could have put on those words? The damage they could have done? Toni was quite prepared to believe the more positive spin of it being a promise to include Alice in their lives, and even the smallest gesture on Pip’s part would have been enough to make him feel wanted and repair the damage. Just a phone call. Even a text. Just…contact.
There hadn’t been any.
This was the fourth day since Alice had confronted Pip with those awful accusations of being less than a real mother. Shona had been discharged the next day and must be doing well enough for Pip to continue working because he’d seen her car in the car park on more than one occasion. Probably because he’d been looking for it.
Mandy came into the room as Toni snapped on some gloves. ‘Thanks, Mandy. We’ve just got a suprapubic aspiration to do on Emily for a urine sample. Shouldn’t take long.’ He leaned over the baby as the nurses positioned her on the table, keeping her body and legs as still as possible.
Toni swabbed the crease in the skin above the symphysis pubis with an alcohol wipe. He inserted the fine, 23-gauge needle to its full length and then drew it back, aspirating with the attached 2-ml syringe at the same time. Urine flowed into the barrel of the syringe almost immediately, and by the time Emily had gathered enough lung power to express her outrage, the procedure was virtually completed.
‘Looks pretty cloudy,’ Toni commented. ‘I’d like a result back on this as soon as possible.’
‘I’ll take her back to Mum,’ Mandy offered, scooping the baby up for a cuddle. ‘It’s the only thing that’s going to cheer you up, isn’t it, button?’
Toni dropped his gloves into the bin. The only thing that would cheer him up would be time with Pip and finding out that she did want a future with him. A family. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen in a hurry, was it?
Maybe it would never happen.
It was no wonder they said that timing was everything. If Shona hadn’t become ill when she had, things would be very different. None of those wounding words would have been uttered. It had been cool for Pip to have a boyfriend until the prospect of losing the head of their small family had been revealed. Alice could have shared a ‘sister’ but not a mother. And why should she? Her need for Pip’s love and attention was much greater than Toni’s.
It just didn’t feel like that.
‘Heaven’s above, what’s all that commotion?’
‘It’s all right, Mrs Evans. Try and keep still while I get this dressing in place.’ The frightened twitch had been enough for paper-thin skin to slough away from the raw flesh Pip had been trying to re-cover.
‘But the noise!’
There certainly was something happening in the corridor near the cubicle Mrs Evans was occupying. It sounded like a busload of children had been deposited around the waiting area for the emergency department, except they sounded far too happy to be unwell or injured.
‘I’ll go and see what it is in a minute. There…’ Pip smoothed the wrinkles from the skin flap and reached for a dressing to hold it in place. ‘You’ll have to be careful of this for a while.’
‘Oh, I know, dear.’ Mrs Evans sighed wheezily. ‘It’s such a curse, having skin that tears like this. I barely touched that cabinet door.’
‘It’s the medication you’re on that makes it like that. You’ve been using steroids for your breathing problems for a long time, haven’t you?”
‘I have a terrible chest,’ Mrs Evans agreed. ‘I was trying to get my puffer when I knocked my arm. Never seen so much blood! I had to call an ambulance.’
‘How’s your breathing feeling at the moment?”
‘Terrible! I’m as tight as a drum.’
‘I’ll have a listen to your chest.’ Pip wound a crêpe bandage over the dressing to avoid having to use anything sticky on her elderly patient’s fragile skin.
The noise in the corridor had subsided but started again as Pip was trying to sort out the significance of the various wheezes and crackles she could hear in Mrs Evans’s lungs. She hooked her stethoscope around her neck and slipped through the curtains to see what was going on.
The sight made her smile and it felt like the first time her lips had moved in such a direction for many days.
A procession of children in bright costumes was coming back through the double doors that led to the main reception and waiting area. They carried bags and were shouting ‘Trick or treat’ at regular intervals. They were obviously paediatric inpatients as a lot of staff were accompanying them and some of the children were in wheelchairs or being carried. One was in a bed decorated to look like a rowing boat and the child was waving a set of cardboard oars. He was being pushed by a pirate.
A large pirate with a jaunty hat and a patch over one eye, who was laughing as he tried to cope with other children who wanted to be so close they were making the task of pushing the boat somewhat hazardous. Pip recognised him well before she heard him say, ‘Shiver me timbers,’ in that delicious accent and she had to catch her breath as she watched.
He looked to be completely in his element. Surrounded by children and enjoying every moment of it. Shona had been right, hadn’t she? Toni would want to have his own children and he should have them. A whole tribe of them. He’d be the most amazing father.
Did he look this happy because of his small companions or was there something else that could be contributing? The fact that she was allowing him his freedom perhaps? The chance to quietly distance himself from the baggage and inadequacy she brought with her and find someone else who would be far better mother material for his own children? He looked so much happier than Pip thought she could ever feel again.
Toni must have felt her stare because he looked in her direction and her heart twisted painfully at the way his smile faded so rapidly. The way his face emptied of that happiness cut into her like a knife. Only a week ago, seeing her would have had the opposite effect on his features. Pip hadn’t seen him for days now. She’d been hoping he would come down to Emergency or at least ring her.
It was proving a lot more difficult than she’d imagined, sticking to her resolve of putting Alice first and giving Toni the opportunity to escape the dramas her family situation represented. She missed him desperately and had to remind herself repeatedly that putting her own wishes first would be reinforcing Alice’s impression of her selfishness. If she made any move to contact Toni it would be the thin edge of a wedge she would never be able to control. An admission of defeat. But if he contacted her, it would be different. Pip wasn’t quite sure of her reasoning, she just knew it could somehow be justified. That if he thought enough of her to put up with the kind of stress her family represented, the chance of a future together would be virtually guaranteed.
He hadn’t rung. Pip hadn’t even received a text message to ask how she was.
‘What’s going on, dear?’ Mrs Evans sounded querulous.
‘It’s Hallowe’en,’ Pip said over her shoulder. ‘The children’s ward is having a procession. They’re all dressed up.’
‘Lot of nonsense,’ Mrs Evans pronounced. ‘And they’re far too noisy. There are sick people in here.’ She coughed, as if to prove her point.
‘Mmm.’ Pip was waiting until the procession passed her. If Toni glanced her way again, she was going to smile. To say hello. Maybe even suggest they meet for a coffee. It was too hard, this staying away from him. There had to be a way to work something out that wouldn’t undermine the repair work she was trying to accomplish with her daughter.
‘Trick or treat!’ a small fairy said.
‘Sorry, hon, I haven’t got anything I can give you.’
Toni and the boat were almost level with her now, a large island in a slow-moving sea of small children.
‘Hey,’ Pip called softly. ‘You look like you’re having a good time.’
‘We are indeed.’ Toni’s return smile was brief. Detached. It had less warmth than a new patient would receive. Pip knew that because she’d seen that kind of introductory smile. She’d also seen the kind of smile he gave someone he loved and this one couldn’t be less like it. ‘How are you, Pippa?’
‘I’m fine.’ Such an automatic response but to say anything else would barely give lip service to the tip of the iceberg that had undermined Pip’s life to such an overwhelming extent. A stressful job. A hostile daughter. A potentially broken relationship…a dying mother.
‘Good.’ The word was clipped. Part of an exchange that was going to be fleeting because the forward movement of the procession had not ceased. Fleeting—and painful. The few seconds of eye contact so far had been searing.
‘And your mother? How is she?’
‘Doing well.’ For now. ‘We’ve got her insulin levels under control.’
Toni’s nod was as brief as his smile had been. ‘And Alice?’
‘Still not talking to me.’ Pip had to blink quickly. Tears she had been holding back successfully for days were alarmingly close. ‘And you? How are you, Toni?’ The words were rushed. A desperate attempt to keep a line of communication open. They were too formal. Totally inadequate.
‘Oh, I’m fine, too.’ Toni broke the eye contact, turning his head. ‘You OK, Jodi? Keeping up? Want a ride on the boat, cara?’
Pip’s gaze followed his to the girl pushing the oxygen cylinder, who did look out of breath. Then it slid further. How many more children would need to be waited for? How much longer would Toni be this close? Was she going to have a chance to say anything else? But what could she say?
A nurse carrying a small tiger was bringing up the rear of the procession but Pip’s eye was caught by the figure right behind the nurse.
Alice. Arriving, as arranged, for her lift home after school.
Looking as sullen and uncommunicative as she had for the last four days. She was staring at the unusual spectacle in the corridor ahead of her and seemed to be focused on the pirate. Had she recognised Toni? Had she seen Pip and guessed that she was talking to him?
Suddenly her daughter’s expression didn’t strike Pip as being sullen. It was more like being desperately unhappy. When she caught her gaze, Pip smiled and waved.
Toni turned his head as though wanting to see what had caught her attention. Then he shoved the bed onwards.
‘Good to see you, Pippa,’ he said, without turning his head.
And then he was gone.
Pip went back to her patient. Alice knew the way to the staffroom and would be engrossed in her homework by the time Pip went to collect her. The distraction of treating a patient was exactly what Pip needed right now. Alice’s timing had been perfect, hadn’t it? Especially just after her realisation that Toni should have his own children—with a mother who was a lot more capable of parenting than she was. Maybe their relationship would have foundered without the crisis in her family. Maybe Alice had done them all a favour with her pre-emptive strike.
Wishing things could be different was a waste of emotional energy and Pip was tired enough to realise her store was not inexhaustible. What strength she did have had to be reserved for her mother and her daughter. She wasn’t going to let either of them down, no matter how hard it was.
‘I haven’t seen Toni for days,’ Shona remarked. ‘Must be almost a week. And you’ve been home every evening you’re not working, Pip. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Philippa!’ It was exactly the tone Pip adopted with Alice when she knew the answer was way less than truthful.
Pip let out a resigned breath. ‘I’m not seeing him just at the moment.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘I need to show Alice she’s more important than a boyfriend, I guess.’
‘Is that what all these “no-speaks” are about? I thought it was just that shoplifting business.’
‘I’m talking to Alice. She’s the one who’s not speaking.’ Pip started clearing the table. ‘At least she’s not avoiding you any more, Mum.’
‘Quite the opposite. She’s gone all clingy. She’ll be waiting for me now in the living room, I expect, wanting to show me all her homework.’
‘Are you up to it? You don’t want an early night?’
‘I’m fine. I want to make sure she’s all right. I thought she was looking a bit pale, didn’t you?’
‘She’s been looking like that for days. Unhappy.’
‘She hardly touched her dinner.’
‘No. Maybe she didn’t like it. Ask her if she wants a sandwich.’ Pip smiled at her mother. ‘How are you feeling, anyway? You’re actually looking a bit brighter.’
‘I’m feeling a lot better. And I intend to make the most of every moment I have left with my family, you know. Sleeping’s a waste of time.’ She was watching Pip rinse the plates. ‘And you shouldn’t waste time either. You should talk to Toni and patch things up. You can’t let him think he’s not important. Unless you’ve changed your mind about him.’
‘No, I haven’t changed my mind. I still love him. But I think it might be too late. I think he might be relieved to be away from me.’ Pip sighed heavily. ‘And it hasn’t really helped with Alice. I don’t seem to be able to the right thing whichever way I turn.’
‘Welcome to parenthood.’ Shona smiled wryly. ‘Seriously, though, love—you can’t put what Alice wants above what’s going to make you happy. Self-sacrifice never works in the long term. It just builds resentment. It’s a ticking bomb.’
‘Look who’s talking! How much did you give up to help me raise Alice?’
‘It wasn’t purely altruistic, as you well know. I did it because it made me happy. It gave me a reason to carry on after Dad died and…and maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do.’ Shona pushed her chair back, got slowly to her feet and went to hug her daughter. ‘Maybe it’s my fault that things are difficult between you two at present, with neither of you having the kind of relationship you should have had.’
‘Don’t say that, Mum.’ Pip hugged her mother back, hating how thin Shona was now. ‘It worked. It was a wonderful thing to do and I love you for it. And Alice adores you.’
‘Yes. I’ve had something not many grandmothers are blessed with, that’s for sure.’
‘It’s just the wrong time to let someone else into my life.’
‘No.’ Shona almost pushed Pip away so that she could see her face. ‘It’s the perfect time. You can’t give up on it just because Alice is disgruntled. On top of everything else, she’s a teenager almost. She’ll get over herself eventually. She loves you, Pip. She wants you to be happy.’ Shona’s smile was amused now. ‘She just doesn’t realise it yet.’
‘But I can’t give Toni what he wants anyway. It would never work.’
‘Why not? What is it that you can’t give him?’
‘Children. A family.’
‘What’s Alice, then? Chopped liver?’
‘You know what I mean. You said it yourself. He’ll want his own children and I can’t give him that.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
What was Shona asking? Pip wondered. Whether she might change her mind about having more children? Or whether she was sure that that was what Toni wanted in his future? How could she be so sure when they hadn’t even talked about it? Hadn’t talked about anything at all in days.
Pip had to close her eyes and take a deep breath to deal with the wave of misery that came with the strength of missing Toni this much.
‘I guess I’m not totally sure,’ she admitted finally.
‘Then talk to Toni,’ Shona said. ‘Always talk about everything, love. It always worked for your father and me and it’s the best advice I can pass on. Not talking will make a mountain out of a molehill every time.’
Maybe the mountain was finding the courage to initiate such a conversation with Toni in the first place. Or finding the time to make any contact at all.
Having thought about her mother’s advice all night, Pip had come to work determined to find a way to talk to Toni. A phone call had been deemed too impersonal but when she used her break time to visit his office, she found it empty.
It was even harder to summon the courage to make another attempt. Far easier to allow herself to be swept into the controlled chaos of an unusually busy afternoon in the emergency department.
Patient after patient to see. Assessments to be made, tests ordered, results reviewed and treatments decided on and initiated. The ambulance service was being run off its feet as well. Stretcher after stretcher rolled in. People were having heart attacks and strokes. Asthma attacks and accidents.
Pip barely registered the call for a paediatric consult from the neighbouring resus bay as the department dealt with the aftermath of an MVA involving two carloads of mothers and their young children. She was looking after one of the mothers and she had barely finished her primary survey of airway, breathing and circulation adequacy when her patient screwed up her face and groaned in an alarming fashion.
‘What’s wrong, Stephanie?’ Pip queried sharply. ‘What’s hurting?’
‘I think…it’s the baby.’
Stephanie was pregnant with her third child. Her oldest was in the next-door resus bay and sounded like he’d been concussed badly enough to warrant a specialist consult. With the pregnancy being almost full term, Pip had included a foetal check in her primary survey but there had been no sign of imminent labour and the baby’s heartbeat had sounded strong and regular. Pip had been about to order an ultrasound examination in any case, because of the possibility of abdominal trauma for the mother after the driver’s airbag had been deployed in the collision.
‘Try not to push.’ Pip was pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. ‘I’ll see what’s going on.’
It was immediately apparent that there was a lot going on. The bed was soaked with amniotic fluid and the bulge that was about to become a baby’s head was growing rapidly.
‘You’re right,’ Pip told Stephanie. ‘Your baby doesn’t want to wait any longer.’ She caught the attending nurse’s startled gaze. ‘Grab a birth kit for me, please. And some entonox.’
Stephanie groaned again and, as always, the undertone of agony triggered unpleasant memories for Pip. She knew exactly how excruciating the pain of labour could be but at least Stephanie wasn’t going to have to endure hours and hours of it. By the look of how fast this labour was progressing, it could well be over before they could even set up the entonox for pain relief.
‘How long did your last labour go for?’
‘About an hour. Ah-h-h!’ The sound became strangled. There was no point in asking Stephanie not to push. The force was clearly well beyond her control.
Pip held her hands ready to catch the baby. There was no time to call for assistance. Or even to check the position of the umbilical cord or use suction to clear the nasopharynx as the head emerged. It seemed that one moment the head was crowning and the next Pip was holding the slippery bundle, keeping it head down to help drain any fluid in its airways.
‘Oh!’ Stephanie seemed as stunned as Pip had been by the precipitous birth. ‘Oh, my God! Is he all right?’
‘He’s a she,’ Pip responded. ‘You’ve got a little girl, Stephanie.’
The baby’s warbling cry was a huge relief. An emergency department resus bay was probably not the ideal facility to resuscitate a limp newborn. There wasn’t even a paediatrician within shouting distance.
Or was there? The nurse had just arrived back with the birthing kit and an entonox cylinder. Her jaw dropped.
‘Can you see if anyone from Paeds has arrived next door yet?’ Pip asked.
‘I’m right here.’ The tall figure of Toni loomed behind the nurse. ‘I heard the cry. What’s the Apgar score?’
‘I haven’t done one yet.’ The baby was pinking up nicely, though. She was moving in Pip’s hands and her cry was increasing steadily in volume.
‘Here, let me.’ Toni held out his arms. ‘I’ll hold her while you cut the cord.’ He smiled at Stephanie. ‘I love babies,’ he told her.
The third stage of Stephanie’s labour was not going to be as fast as the rest had been. Pip waited, running a check of Stephanie’s vital signs and trying to watch Toni at the same time as he examined the baby, checking its muscle tone, heart and respiration rate, colour and movement.
‘She’s perfect,’ he pronounced. ‘We don’t have any scales here so we’ll weigh her as soon as we get you up to the ward.’
He wrapped the baby in a clean, fluffy towel the nurse had ready but he didn’t give her back to Stephanie immediately. He stood there, the tiny baby in his arms, smiling at it.
And something inside Pip simply dissolved.
He was born to be a father, this man. And she wanted him to be able to hold his own child like that one day.
Their child?
Was it actually possible that her love for this man was strong enough for her to overcome the massive block she had set in place after Alice’s birth and cemented into place a little more firmly every time she considered herself to have failed as a mother in some way? Was her reluctance really a memory blown out of all proportion because of the other circumstances surrounding it? Like being so afraid of being a mother. Of ruining her life. Alice had been a noisy, demanding, terrifying little bundle and Pip had always felt desperately out of her depth.
Maybe things would be very different now she was older. If she had a child who had a father.
If that father was Toni.
In a totally unexpected flip, Pip realised how sad it would be if Toni didn’t want children of his own. How sad it would be if she never had the joy of seeing him hold a child of theirs like that. Of having the chance to try again as a mother after all she had learned and do things differently. Better.
As he moved to hand the infant to her mother, Toni looked up and caught Pip’s gaze. She tried to smile but her lips wouldn’t co-operate. They wobbled. Worse, Toni didn’t even try to smile back. It was impossible to interpret the expression in those dark eyes.
Was he still upset with her?
Remembering those words that denied him the chance of having children if she was his partner?
Was there some way she could communicate, with just a look, what she was feeling right now? That her love for him was strong enough to overcome any obstacles—as long as he felt the same way?
No. There was no chance. Pip’s name was being called. She turned to see that Suzie had her head through the gap in the curtains.
‘What’s up, Suzie?’
‘There’s an ambulance coming in. Twelve-year-old girl who collapsed at school.’
‘You want me to take it?’ Pip was puzzled. It was taking a moment to refocus on a professional level. They must be very busy if she needed to leave a patient before she could arrange transfer to the next step in her care.
‘Not exactly…’ Suzie bit her lip. ‘I just thought you should know. I’m sorry, Pip…but it’s Alice.’