The next morning, Ava drove with Zac over to the local Indigenous community to talk to Jessamine. The community lay spread across the expanse of desert, a busy, dusty place, with the occasional motorbike or old car, and a group of shirtless young men playing footy on a patch of bare earth out to the side of the settlement.
A drop-in with Zac seemed a good opportunity to have a doctor cast his eye over the twins now that they were more than a week old. Zac carried the big first-aid kit Ava never left home without. Normally, Ava would check the babies herself, but she wanted to share her world with Zac and this was one of the best parts of it – reconnecting with mothers and babies in their own environments. The prospect of seeing Jessamine and her twins again made her wish she’d phoned Denise.
‘I should have asked Denise to come out and meet us there, but it’s too late now. We should have come yesterday, but the light was fading by the time we made it home after touring the boundary fences.’
‘And Stella had been adamant that I rest before tea,’ Zac said dryly.
Ava laughed. Last night, she’d seen Zac’s eyebrows rise at her mother’s bossy orders, which amused her, probably unkindly, but still. Zac wasn’t used to it. She couldn’t help if it tickled her sense of humour to see him take himself to his room with a frown. But this morning, even her mother couldn’t complain about how well he looked. It was a shame Ava’s heart didn’t feel so healthy.
She dragged her thoughts back to their task. Hopefully Jessamine, who’d been home for a few days now, would be able to see them unless she’d gone north to see relatives.
‘The birth was amazing,’ Ava was saying as she steered into the sprawling settlement.
Zac said, ‘It’d be nice to remember that I’ve seen a spontaneous twin birth. And breech!’
That’s not all you can’t remember, Ava thought wistfully. She wished there were a brain exercise she could offer him, but there was only the healing of time. All she said was, ‘We don’t have breeches every day. And no more babies until I get back to work, please. Did you want to tell Jessamine about your memory loss, or do you want to just wing it?’
He looked weary as he thought about explaining. ‘I’ll wing it.’
When they arrived, they found Jessamine sitting on a blanket under a tree, Mother Earth with her two little babies feeding twin fashion at the breast. Ava’s heart swelled at the sight and she beamed at the young mum.
‘Look at you, sitting up there as relaxed as a grandmother. Go you, Jessamine.’
Jessamine smiled shyly at both of them, and glanced at Vivian, a woman Ava had shared midwifery care with in Alice Springs two years ago. Vivian, a cousin of Big Jim’s, knew Ava well as her baby had been born premature, and she’d had to spend weeks in Alice waiting for him to grow enough to come home.
Ava had tried to be available for Viv in the beginning, during her visits to the neonatal nursery. Their rapport was obvious by the warm smile Viv sent Ava, and Ava sighed with relief to see her. She hadn’t been sure Jessamine had friends yet, and Viv would be a support person with good sense.
‘Viv –’ she gestured to Zac – ‘this is Dr Zac. Zac, this is Vivian. Dr Zac was there when Jessamine had her babies, so I brought him with me today. I thought Jessamine might like him to check the babies over?’
‘Good to meet you, Vivian.’ Zac smiled at Viv.
Ava explained, ‘I was lucky enough to be at Vivian’s son’s birth – a terror of a two-year-old now.’ As if on cue, a dark-skinned, dark-eyed cherub appeared from behind his mother, clutching a battered green truck. ‘Ahh, there you are, Willy. When he was born he was as big as your hand, Zac.’
Zac smiled. ‘Hello there, Willy.’ They all pretended they didn’t see Jessamine taking the babies off the breast and tucking herself discreetly away. When she had covered herself, Zac turned to her.
‘What do you think, Jessamine? Would you like me to look at your boys?’
‘Be good,’ Jessamine agreed. ‘He makes a noise when he breathes and this one’s got a funny belly button.’
Zac smiled at that. ‘That sounds like healthy variations of normal, but let’s start with our noisy one. What’s this man’s name?’
‘Jarrah.’
‘A good, strong name.’ Ava watched Zac with his calm, friendly manner and the way he put Jessamine at ease while examining her babies. It made her heart ache for what might have been – a desert medical duo reaching out to those in need – and she turned away, blinking away the sting in her eyes as she gathered the little set of portable baby scales.
After Zac examined each baby, she weighed the little one then handed the naked baby back to his mother to dress. She wrote the weights down to pass on to the child-and-family nurses for their records.
Vivian had left; she’d taken Willy’s hand and they were small figures in the distance walking along the dusty road on some errand. Another mum hustled her toddler towards Zac, and Ava wondered if all the mothers would bring their children to see the doctor. Zac would enjoy that and the mums would be pleased to have any concerns clarified by him.
They’d seen most of the small children and had begun preparing to leave when the roar of a motorbike made them look up. The motorbike skidded to a halt beside them and the boy riding it gasped, ‘Viv, on the road! She needs the doctor now!’ He waved his hand behind him. ‘I didn’t see him.’
‘What happened?’ Zac voice was calm but firm.
The boy gulped, his eyes wild. ‘Willy. His arm. I hit him with the bike.’ His big dark eyes pleaded with Ava to understand. ‘I didn’t see him. He ran out.’
Ava scooped up the first-aid kit they’d just packed. ‘We’ll go. I know it was an accident,’ said Ava quietly. ‘Go find Willy’s dad and ask him to come and help Viv.’
The young man looked terrified at the thought; Ava didn’t blame him. ‘Can you find an elder and they might go with you?’ The boy nodded, relief clear in his eyes, and he took off at a run, leaving his motorbike on its side in the dirt.
Ava took off at a brisk pace towards the vehicle with Zac close behind her. A couple of kilometres down the road they found Viv kneeling in the dirt clutching Willy to her chest and they pulled over next to her.
Willy lay in his mother’s arms, a red welt crossing his thigh where the bike tyres had caught him, his mouth wide as he hollered his distress and thrashed. One thin arm lay obviously damaged across his chest, and every time Willy moved it he screamed louder. Zac’s eyes met Ava’s as he nodded at it.
Zac eased Willy from his mother as they knelt beside her, careful not to move the arm, and lay the screaming child down on the ground in front of them to quickly assess him. Zac’s big hands ran gently across the child’s stomach and thighs, the latter causing a shudder from the little boy as he pulled away, but the main damage seemed to be from Willy putting out his arm to protect himself.
‘His arm needs looking at, but the rest should be fine in a few days, Vivian,’ Zac soothed her. ‘Though he needs to be taken into Alice. You can see it’s out of shape.’
Viv sobbed a croaking agreement.
‘Zac and I will bind his arm to his chest, get the RFDS to come pick him up, and they’ll set his arm when he gets there.’
Ava put her arm around Viv’s shoulder. Willy continued to holler every time Zac adjusted the sling. ‘He’s very loud,’ Zac said with a smile. ‘He’ll grow up to have a very impressive voice when he’s big.’
‘And that’s a good sign. He’s well enough to let us know he’s not happy,’ Ava said, giving Viv’s shoulder a squeeze.
Tears streamed down Vivian’s face, but she was calming and Ava soothed her. ‘Poor little Willy. Poor Viv. Your boy is determined to cause you worry. One day, he’ll have babies of his own and then he’ll see what worry does.’
Viv hiccuped a small laugh and sniffed, and she nodded. ‘He’s so fast. Here one minute, gone the next.’ She glared at the spot on the road where it had happened. ‘That boy shouldn’t be riding so fast on the bike.’
‘No, he shouldn’t.’ Ava shook her head in agreement. ‘You reckon that will be Willy one day? Riding bikes too fast on the road?’
Viv gave Ava a rueful nod. ‘Maybe.’ Then she said, ‘You got that phone you always carry?’
Everyone knew Ava was the one with the sat phone. ‘Yep. We’ll phone for the plane. They can land on Setabilly and Mum will give you a nice cup of tea while we wait.’
They strapped young Willy up with his arm to his chest and sedated him, and by the time they got Viv and her son back to the homestead, the RFDS were on their way. They were lucky. Sometimes it took longer for response depending on the emergency calls, but today they’d be there soon.