SATURDAY. THE DAY of the yard sale.
There’d been an emergency at Sydney Central the night before. An aneurism, a young mum. Bryn had arrived home in the small hours, mentally and physically wiped. He’d expected the house to be in darkness, but Kiara must have heard his car pull into the yard as she’d come into the hall to greet him.
‘How?’ she’d asked simply, and he’d managed a tired smile. His leg was aching, he was exhausted, but underneath there was a tinge of hopeful triumph.
‘We think she’ll make it. She’ll be in an induced coma for a few days to let the swelling subside, but the worst of the pressure’s off. We can hope.’
‘Well done, you,’ she’d said, and for a moment he’d thought she might walk forward and hug him. And he badly wanted her to.
But neither of them had moved. ‘If you want, there’s a bowl of pasta ready to be microwaved,’ she’d said simply. ‘Or toast and tea if you’re past it.’
‘Thank you.’ He’d hesitated. ‘I see the stalls are set up outside for the morning. Do you need help?’
‘You sleep and let us worry about everything else,’ she’d told him. ‘Alice and I are into money making tomorrow. You need to recoup so you can keep on saving the world.’ And once again there had been that moment of hesitation where he’d thought...hug?
It didn’t happen. They were adults who knew where their boundaries lay.
‘Goodnight,’ she’d said simply, and disappeared back to her bedroom.
And he’d taken her at her word. He’d left his alarm off and slept, and it was almost nine when he woke. There was noise coming from the yard. He flipped back the curtains and saw...people. The yard was packed, and he could see a line of cars stretching back along the road until they were out of sight.
Ten minutes later he was outside, and Alice was racing to greet him, Bunji at her side.
‘Bryn, come and see, come and see. Kiara gave me my own stall and it’s all sold out. Grandma had shells—you must have seen them, she collected them for ever—and I sold the big ones for two dollars and the little ones for a dollar, and I’ve made a hundred and thirty-seven dollars! And Maureen made pink cupcakes, but she was feeling tired, so I helped her sell them, too. And the man called Howard is going to auction other stuff, and a whole lot of people have got dogs and they know who Bunji is, and there’s even a dog-biscuit stall. Come and see!’
He couldn’t believe it. His damaged, introverted niece, towing him around the yard as if she owned it.
It was a miracle. Kiara’s miracle.
And here was Kiara, haggling with a gentleman over the sale of a hay-rake. She’d opened the run-down sheds at the back of the property to reveal her grandmother’s mass of ancient farm equipment. There were prices on everything.
‘It’s vintage,’ she was saying.
‘It’s a piece of junk. I could use it as scrap metal.’
‘Howard says it’s collectible and he also pointed you out as a dealer,’ she said stoutly. ‘He gave me a bottom price. Take it or leave it.’
And the guy took it, and Kiara pocketed her wad of banknotes and beamed as she saw Bryn and Alice.
‘He did not,’ she crowed. ‘Howard did not tell me a reserve price, or that a falling to bits hay-rake was worth anything, but he did tell me that guy was a dealer. Hooray for Grandma. Hooray for me.’
She’d obviously spent the morning carting out and selling the dusty, rusty shed contents. Her hair must have been caught back to start with, but it had tugged out of its band and curls were wisping everywhere. She was wearing baggy overalls over jeans and T-shirt, and grease and rust were liberally spread. A smudge of grease lay right across her cheek and he wanted...
No. He did not want.
Liar. He wanted so badly. But she was grinning in triumph and high-fiving Alice when Alice told her she’d finished selling all Maureen’s cupcakes and...
And she didn’t want him.
And then a voice boomed across the crowd, that the auction of some of the more valuable goods was about to start, so Kiara closed her shed and headed over to stand under the jacaranda trees in the front yard to watch.
And Bryn and Alice stood with her and Bryn thought...
Family?
The thought almost blindsided him. What was he thinking?
But he was thinking it.
This was a woman who cared. She cared for her lost dogs, and she cared for the little girl who stood beside her now.
‘Twenty dollars feeds all our dogs for a day,’ Alice had told him, and he could practically see the dollars adding up and being divided. An ancient wicker pram, surely too old to be of practical use to anyone, sold for a hundred and twenty dollars, and Alice and Kiara high-fived again.
They were having fun. He was having fun.
And the idea in his head was growing stronger.
There was a query about two of the auction items-could they be sold as a pair or not?-and Kiara moved away to confer with Howard. Alice went with her.
And then someone nudged him—Donna—he recognised the town’s newsagent. ‘Doc?’
He was busy watching Kiara thread her way through the crowd and talk to Howard. He was watching her excitement. Watching her hold Alice’s hand, smiling, engaging with the kid as if she were her own. He didn’t want to be distracted.
‘Doc?’
The voice was more urgent and reluctantly he turned away. ‘Yes?’
‘Doc, it’s Maureen.’ Donna’s face was creased in concern. ‘She said she was feeling queer. I’ve helped her up to a seat on the veranda. She doesn’t want a fuss and she’s been saying she just has a headache, but now her speech is a bit funny. I don’t like the way she looks.’
He frowned and turned away. As he did Kiara turned to find his face in the crowd, her beam a mile wide. They’d sold the two vases as a pair, and the price was astonishing.
He smiled back, caught in that gorgeous smile, but Donna had grasped his arm and there was no mistaking her urgency. ‘Please... We need you.’
He pulled out of the crowd and limped as fast as he could over to the veranda. As he reached the steps, Kiara was suddenly back beside him.
Without Alice? He glanced back and saw Alice was at the to-be-sold table, handing something up to the auctioneer. Given a job?
What had Kiara read in his face—or Donna’s face—to have her delegate so swiftly? To think of a need to delegate?
‘What’s wrong?’ she breathed, but Donna was already hauling him up the steps and he had no time to answer.
Maureen was slumped in one of the ancient wicker chairs on the veranda. A little woman, she was dressed as she always was, in a vast flowery polyester dress that made her look a whole lot more voluminous than she really was. In honour of the occasion, she was also wearing a straw sun hat, liberally decorated with fresh daisies. A capacious apron covered her middle, its white surface showing signs of the cupcakes she’d been selling.
One hand lay limply on her thigh, and she was clutching that hand with the other. She looked...terrified.
The sounds of the crowd, Donna’s presence—even Kiara’s presence—dropped away as Bryn slipped back into the role he was trained for. He crouched beside her and took her hand. Her pulse was racing. ‘Hey, Maureen. Donna says you have a headache.’
She tried to turn her head to see him but failed. Gently he supported her neck, holding her face so he could meet her eyes.
And also search...
‘I... I dunno...’ Her speech was slurred and came with a massive effort, and Bryn was already making a tentative diagnosis. As she spoke, one side of her face didn’t move. The left side of her mouth had drooped.
‘Can you lift your arms?’ he said gently, and she gave him a look of helplessness. One arm lifted, the other didn’t.
A stroke? By the look of it, a big one.
‘Let’s get you inside,’ he told her. Her pulse was dangerously fast. Cardiac failure? ‘No, don’t move, I’m going to carry you.’ He was unbuttoning the top of her dress as he spoke, then pulling free her tight apron ties. Her dress seemed capacious enough—a quick touch of her tummy told him there was no corset restricting things underneath. He needed to lie her down, put her in the recovery position, do a full check, but he couldn’t do it here. The veranda was being used to store sold items. It was crowded with junk, and already people were turning to look up in concern.
With one easy movement he lifted her into his arms. Kiara protested—ʻBryn, your leg...’—but he was stable enough to hold her. And as he did, he felt the rigidity of her panic, plus that racing heart.
‘Maureen, I’m thinking you could be having a minor stroke,’ he said as he held her. ‘No biggie. We’ve caught it fast and I know what to do. You haven’t had any surgery in the last few months, have you? Any accidents?’
‘N... n...’ She could hardly get it out.
‘Have you taken aspirin for your headache? Or at any time in the last few days?’
Her eyes answered, she couldn’t.
Kiara was holding the front door wide. He carried Maureen through, and Kiara was looking almost as terrified as Maureen.
He was thinking back to something Kiara had said to him when she’d introduced Maureen.
‘Sometimes I think without Maureen I might fall apart.’
Kiara was a woman who’d been brought up mostly with the same bleak childhood as his, but there had been people who loved her. Her grandmother. Maureen.
Was that what enabled her to love in return? Was that why she’d seamlessly taken the wounded Alice under her wing?
Was that why he felt...?
Enough. There was no time for examination of emotions now.
‘How long have you had the headache?’ he asked, and Maureen looked up at him wildly. Either she didn’t understand or there was no way she could respond.
‘She told Alice she had a headache almost an hour ago,’ Kiara said, her voice unsteady. ‘That’s when Alice took over her cupcake stall. I should have...’
‘There’s no need for should haves,’ he said, and managed a reassuring smile. ‘I’m sure the last thing Maureen wanted was a fuss, isn’t that right, Maureen? And she has help now. Donna, the keys to my car are in my left trouser pocket.’ He was laying Maureen down on the settee, carefully supporting her limp arm. Seeing the way her left leg flopped, her foot falling limply to the side.
This was definitely a stroke, but what sort? An ischaemic stroke, caused by a blood clot, meant urgent intervention, an IV injection of a plasminogen activator—alteplase—to dissolve the clot before it could cause major, long-term brain injury. For optimum results that injection had to happen within three hours—and how long since Maureen had started displaying symptoms? An hour, when she’d first confessed to a headache? Or longer?
But he couldn’t administer alteplase yet.
The alternative to an ischaemic stroke, something that could be causing similar symptoms, was a haemorrhage. If it was a haemorrhage, clot treatment would turn an emergency into a disaster.
Maureen needed state-of-the-art medical tools for diagnosis, and she needed them now.
‘My car’s the crimson sports coupé in the driveway.’ He was talking to Donna as he thought. ‘Can you grab my bag from the trunk? There’s a portable defibrillator there, too, clearly marked. I doubt we’ll need it but bring it anyway. Kiara, I want you to ring emergency services. Tell them who I am—a neurologist at Sydney Central. Tell them I believe Maureen’s having a stroke and we need urgent assistance. Tell them sirens, speed. And I want a MICA unit to meet them—I’ll talk to them if necessary.’ A MICA vehicle—a mobile intensive care ambulance—would be absolutely essential if Maureen’s heart was to fail under pressure.
‘S...str... Am...am I...?’ Maureen was trying to talk but only one side of her face was working. He was adjusting cushions, supporting her so she was lying on her side with her head slightly raised. While he worked, Kiara crouched in front of her, gripping her hands.
‘It’s okay, Maureen. You’ll be safe. If this is a stroke, we have the best doctor in the world right here, isn’t that right, Dr Dalton?’
And she smiled at Maureen with such love, with such assurance, that Bryn felt his breath catch. Kiara’s smile would make a patient recover all by itself.
‘Bryn?’ Kiara’s voice was reproving, and he hauled himself together. What had she said?
‘Best doctor in the world’?
‘Yep, I’m good,’ he agreed, because there was no choice. Maureen needed reassurance. She needed to believe he knew what he was doing.
He set up a drip. He quietly asked Kiara to have the defibrillator ready. He was swiftly preparing for anything a stroke could throw at him.
He knew his medicine, but anything else? Like the way he was feeling about Kiara?
He knew nothing at all.
The two paramedics who arrived with the ambulance turned out to be young and inexperienced. The only available MICA crew was caught up on another job. Bryn therefore needed to accompany Maureen, and there was room in the ambulance for no one else.
Bryn knew that Kiara wanted—desperately—to follow in her van but she couldn’t. Once Alice had realised something was wrong, she’d come running, and one look at Maureen and she’d disintegrated. Alice knew dreadful things happened, and to her this seemed yet another. Staring down at Maureen, who’d bossed her and mothered her over the last few days, she’d turned again into the solitary, white-faced child she’d been only weeks ago.
‘Bryn, I’ll stay,’ Kiara decreed, seeing Alice’s fear as soon as he did. ‘I’ll phone Maureen’s family, and then Alice and I will look after things here. Take care of her for me, though, won’t you?’ Her voice trembled, but as they stretchered Maureen to the ambulance she pulled herself together.
‘Right, Alice, that’s Maureen, on her way to get better. I have no doubt your uncle will have her home in no time. I’ll make a couple of phone calls and then we need to get back to selling stuff. Let’s see how much money Maureen’s cupcakes made. She’ll be wanting to know that the minute her head stops hurting. How are you at counting? I’m terrible, but if we both do it, we should manage.’
The ambulance doors closed—leaving Bryn with a vision of Kiara standing in the driveway, surrounded by a crowd of concerned onlookers. Her community. Her hand was holding Alice’s. Bunji was at her side.
Why that should make him feel...
And then Maureen’s heart faltered and there was time for nothing but medicine. Which was the way he always wanted it.
Wasn’t it?