Five

 

Two beers and a very filling meal later, Aidan admitted that he owed me.

"Why?" I asked diffidently, sipping my beer.

"Your patient today should have been mine. If you hadn't been there, I would have stuffed up and I don't know what would have happened. I'm terrified of babies." From his wide-eyed expression, I judged that this was not a joke but the truth.

For the first time, I smiled. "How can you be afraid of babies?"

He looked embarrassed. "I'm the youngest of eight kids back in Ireland. One of my aunties moved over here and married an Australian, so I came over to do my internship, when I finished my medical degree. I've never delivered a baby and this one would have been my first. Mum never let me hold any of my nieces and nephews, because she was afraid I'd drop the babies. I guess I got scared I'd drop them, too. They're so tiny!" He spread out his big hands, wide enough to cradle the premature baby I'd delivered this afternoon.

"Ah." I nodded, understanding. His fear was like that of most first-time fathers, or at least the few I'd seen. Most of the babies I'd delivered never knew their fathers. This was probably for the best. It was the ones who never knew their mothers that made me...

I hurriedly gulped down the last of my beer as he drained his second. Coming from such a fertile family, he'd surely never experienced the loss I'd suffered. He wouldn't understand.

We both stood up at the same time. Together, we walked to the cashier and paid for our meal.

Outside the pub, he thanked me for joining him for dinner.

I replied in kind and headed into the darkness toward my car before he could follow. My tears dripped silently to the blackness of the parking lot, unseen and unheard by any but me.