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The stalking had really upset Louise and after the confrontation with Larcombe and the loss of Kezia and Youssef, Frank’s desertion and Kezia’s news about Bannister Louise felt that she desperate. The stalking had her lying awake at night in fear that harm would come to Kezia and Alexander, even though both were away from her. She woke at every sound in case someone was in the house, or setting fire to it. The house was wooden and would burn like a torch. She was in despair.
Despite kind Mrs Hohepa coming over from her house to be with her when she got home from work, Louise felt on her own, defenceless and with everything going wrong. She tried to share her feelings with Jayne Hyslop, who had become a good friend. Jayne made reassuring noises but they did not ease Louise’s anxiety about where the next attack would come from. The stress made her tired and weepy, and her work suffered to the extent that Professor Jackson took her aside.
“Nurse Copperfield,” he said. “You are run down and exhausted. For the first time ever you have given surgeons the wrong patient files, and when I looked into it, you had put the wrong information in other files. Mr Hanson, for example, did not have a C section. I am sorry to say I must return you to General Nursing Duties until you regain your equilibrium.”
That was the last straw. Louise felt ashamed, that she had let the side down. She simply could not face her workmates. Louise did not have to work for a living now she had her share of Frank’s money so she resigned from the hospital. Being on her own did not help her problem as she cried and sat solving Code Cracker problems and reading meaningless Facebook posts.
Her next hurdle was going to be the custody hearing, which Brett Shaw said would be a piece of cake. Louise said to herself that people could choke to death on a piece of cake. She knew that she had to regain her composure before then or she would lose Alexander.
That night, unable to sleep, she picked up the card from the counselling service that she had been given by the police officer who had dealt with Frank’s attack on Kezia. She would go and see them in the morning.