Bride on the Children's Ward / Marriage Reunited: Baby on the Way (25 page)

‘W
ELL
! Go on! Say it,’ Liz said, as the silence in the vehicle stretched and took on a presence of its own.

‘Say what?’ Jack glanced at her briefly, then turned his attention to backing out of the parking space.

‘That I should have told you about the damned classes.’

He slotted the stick into gear. ‘I guess you had your reasons.’

‘That’s right. I did.’ She folded her arms and tried to ignore the gymnastics happening in her belly. ‘I’m not going to feel bad about this.
I’m not.
I made a decision. I weighed the evidence and I made a decision.’

‘Not to tell me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, then.’

‘That’s it? Just okay?’ His easy acceptance stung. Didn’t he think it was worth fighting for his rights as a father-to-be?

He sighed. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘That you care, damn it. But you don’t, do you?’
Shut up, shut up!
She knew he was doing the best he could, better than she’d expected him to do. She knew he was…but somehow her combative words seemed to have developed a momentum of their own. ‘You don’t want to come to the bloody classes because you don’t care.’

‘I haven’t come to the bloody classes because I didn’t know about them.’

‘Well, now you do know about them.’ She closed her eyes, hearing the gloating note in her voice. Her behaviour was appalling. How could she take back the things she’d said now? She was going to look like such an idiot.

An apology was starting to form in her mind when she heard him chuckling softly. She glared at him.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘You know you’re in the wrong. This
offence is the best defence strategy
isn’t working.’

She sat rigidly mute, hating it that he’d reduced her righteous anger to little more than a tantrum. Never mind that she’d started to see her position as weak. That he had recognised the flaw was unbearable.

‘You can’t have this thing all ways, Liz.’

She wasn’t ready to be jollied out of her mood. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You want me to be involved with the baby, you want me to bare my soul about my past. But you can’t even bring yourself to tell me about the prenatal classes. How does that work? It doesn’t sound fair to me.’

‘I didn’t want you to fuss more than you already are about the birth,’ she said, trying to retrieve the ground she’d lost. ‘And besides, I didn’t think you would want to come.’

‘How do you know if you don’t give me the chance?’

He was right. He was right. But…
‘But the bottom line is that you don’t want children so why would you want to come to the class?’

He shook his head slightly as he pulled into their driveway. ‘Low blow, Liz. I’m here, aren’t I? The fact is I’m going to be a father. What I want or don’t want is irrelevant now.’

‘But it’s not irrelevant to me.’ The last thing she wanted to hear was this philosophical acceptance of his position. ‘I want my baby to have an involved father. Not some distant man who wafts in and out of the house.’

He switched off the ignition and the silence settled around them. Turning towards her, he laid his arm along the back of the seat. ‘I’ll be as involved as you’ll let me be, Liz.’

‘Oh, that’s right. Put it all back onto me,’ she cried. ‘If you’re so interested, how come you haven’t even asked whether we’re having a boy or a girl?’

‘Probably because I’m a man and the finer points of this sort of thing elude me.’ He sighed, rubbing his forehead as though trying to ease tension there. ‘So, what is it?’

‘What?’

‘The baby. Is it a boy or a girl?’

‘Yes.’ She released her seat belt and gathered up her bag, clutching it in front of her as she glared at him. ‘Yes. It
is
a boy or a girl.’

His narrowed eyes examined her face as though seeking a clue to her meaning. ‘Liz, sweetheart, you’re not making sense.’

‘I’m pregnant, Jack.’ She let herself out of the car and turned back to look at him. ‘I don’t have to make sense.’

The satisfaction of slamming the car door sustained her all the way onto the veranda where she realised she didn’t have a house key. By the time she thought of the one in the potbelly, Jack had joined her. She maintained a dignified silence while he unlocked the door and opened it for her.

‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’

‘I—I’m going to lie down.’

‘Good idea.’

In the bedroom, she subsided onto the edge of the bed and

let her bag slip to the floor. She felt lonely and guilty and miserable. Weak tears seeped out as she lay down, curling around her now quiet belly. Not even the baby wanted to communicate with her.

If she kept pushing Jack, their marriage would have no chance. He’d leave and her baby would be deprived of a fulltime father. Is that what she wanted? She’d psyched herself into going it alone while he’d been away. But it was different now, a little voice whispered. She’d started to hope things might work out. With hope came the possibility of being let down. If she kept behaving like she had today, that disappointment was a certainty.

She woke with a start to the raucous notes of a kookaburra’s laugh. A quick glance at the clock told her she’d only slept for about half an hour, but she felt refreshed.

Jack.
The memory of their argument flooded back, a faithful replay of every irrational moment driving her out of her relaxed state. She needed to talk to him, apologise and hopefully explain her position. Which might be tricky since she didn’t understand it herself. But the important thing was the apology.

She splashed water on her face and tidied her hair, dragging it back into the band. She studied herself in the mirror. The nap had wiped away most traces of her tears, but her eyes still had puffy circles beneath them.

Did Jack really mean he’d come to the classes or had he just said that to get Sarah off his back? No, that wasn’t fair. He wasn’t in the habit of saying things for expedience.

Oh, God.
If he came to the class, how was she going to cope? He’d have to touch her. As things were, she was aware of him, his body,
all the time.
Sleeping on her own while he’d been away was a completely different proposition to sleeping alone when he was in the house…just down the hallway. Did he toss and turn at night, rumple the sheets?

She brought her thoughts back to the class. Would it be the catalyst that ripped away the fragile peace that they’d established these last few weeks?

She grimaced at her reflection. Perhaps she’d find out firsthand if spontaneous combustion really happened. Putting off the moment wasn’t going to make it any easier.

It took a few minutes before she realised he wasn’t around. In the kitchen, she found a short note. Blast. He’d gone back to the station. Her apology was practically burning on her lips—the least he could do was be around so she could deliver it. She touched the strong, flowing script, her mind churning.

Did this mean he was going to start using the station as a means of escaping difficulties between them again? She didn’t want them to drift back to that. And she was the one in the wrong over this so she was the one who needed to make the first move.

Before she could change her mind, she scooped her keys off the bench and went to get her bag.

Jack threw the last of the empty bottles into the recycling bin and wheeled it out to the kerb for the next day’s council collection.

He walked slowly back to the four-wheel drive, pulled a twig out of the grill, kicked the front tyre. Perhaps he should check the tyre pressures while he was here…or perhaps he should just stop putting off the inevitable. He had to go home some time.

But he didn’t want to while things were so tense with Liz. Why hadn’t she told him about the prenatal classes? Her secretiveness confused him, hurt him more than he’d have believed possible. On one hand she demanded he be involved, on the other she seemed to be blocking him out. He couldn’t understand what was going on. What more could he do? He was here, wasn’t he?

Jiggling the keys in his pocket, he wandered along to the back tyre to stare at it moodily.

He was trying, wasn’t he? Hadn’t he bared his soul about his past? Some of the important things anyway. Why couldn’t Liz appreciate that it wasn’t easy for him? A bit of trust would be nice. He thought whipping up his aggrieved feelings might help him suppress the inconvenient memory of the things he hadn’t told her. It was too much to expect him to have blurted out everything at once. It wasn’t that he
wouldn’t
tell her about Emma and Kylie, it was just that he hadn’t…
yet
.

As he reached for the vehicle’s door handle, a yell from the house across the road brought him up short. A moment later came a clattering bang. Danny? Jack began to run, his heart in his mouth. He knew his friend had gone home to clean out the roof guttering.

He was halfway across the bitumen when Liz’s car turned into the road. Without breaking stride, he signalled to her, hoping she’d realise something was amiss.

He met Sarah running back along the side path towards the fire station.

‘Jack! Thank God you’re still here. Danny…’ She gulped. ‘Oh, God! The ladder. I can’t move it. He’s—he’s—’

‘Sarah!’ He held her by the shoulders, speaking sharply. ‘I’ll help Danny. Liz is just pulling up in the car. Go out and tell her to bring her bag in. Okay?’

She focussed on him after a moment then nodded.

‘Go on now. I’ll look after Danny.’ He left at a run, dreading what he would find. It was almost comic relief to find his friend conscious and swearing a blue streak.

‘Jack. Can you get this bloody thing off me?’ A metal ladder pinned him to the collapsed remains of a plastic table.

‘Hold still, mate.’ Jack lifted the heavy appliance aside. ‘Don’t try to move. Liz is on her way.’

‘I’m fine. Fine,’ he gasped. ‘Winded. That’s all. Give us a hand up, will you?’

‘Better to get you checked over.’ Jack put out a restraining hand. ‘Liz will be here in a sec.’

And then she was dropping to her knees on the other side of Danny.

‘Hey, Danny. Jack’s right. We need you to keep still while we check you over.’ Her lips curved in a reassuring smile, her voice having just the right note of caring and command to have the lanky fireman’s grumbles tailing off. ‘Sarah tells me you fell off the ladder.’

‘Yeah. She’d just told me to move the bloody thing, too.’ He grimaced. ‘Suppose she’ll be saying she told me so.’

‘Guaranteed, hotshot,’ Sarah’s voice piped up, the jaunty words betrayed by the wobble of fear in her voice. ‘As soon as you’re back on your feet.’

‘Have you got any pain?’

‘More of an all-over bruised feeling. Like I’ve fallen off a ladder and had the damned thing land on me,’ he joked.

‘Did you hit your head?’

‘Yeah. But I don’t think that’ll cause me any problems.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t you have to have a brain for that? Seriously, I don’t think I’ve hurt myself at all, Liz. I’m bloody lucky.’

‘Looks like it. But since I’m here I may as well give you the once-over.’

‘Gimme a break.’

‘Good practice for me.’ She smiled, obviously not about to be deflected as she reached for his wrist.

Jack grinned inwardly. Danny might as well lie back and let himself be cared for—his feeble protests weren’t going to sway Liz once she’d made up her mind.

‘I want you to tell me if you have any pain where I touch you.’

Danny produced a strained chuckle. ‘Should you be doing this while my wife’s watching?’

‘You’re safe. I’m a professional, tough guy,’ Liz said, grinning.

Jack watched her long clever fingers work her patient over thoroughly from top to toe. After attaching a cervical collar, she organised him and Sarah to help turn Danny so she could check his back.

‘This is embarrassing,’ grumbled Danny.

‘Never mind. Embarrassment never killed anyone,’ Liz said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Blood pressure, and then we’ll think about letting you up.’

‘Sarah, love. I’m sorry for being such an idiot.’

‘You make sure you listen to me in future,’ Danny’s wife scolded.

‘I promise I—’ Danny stopped on a groan.

‘Danny. What’s happening?’

‘Stabbing pain. Chest.’

‘Just started?’ Liz reached for his wrist, felt the rapid pulse, noted the short, gasping breaths. ‘Pain anywhere else, Danny?’

‘Right. Arm.’

‘Oh, God. Liz?’ gasped Sarah. ‘Is he having a heart attack?’

‘No, it’s his lung. Sarah, sweetie, have you called the ambulance? Could you go and do that for me now?’ Liz said, keeping her voice level, reassuring. ‘Jack, can you get me a chest kit from the car? In the boot, left-hand side, clearly marked.’

A slight bluish tinge was already starting to form around Danny’s lips.

Using the scissors from her bag, she snipped up the seam of his T-shirt then grabbed her stethoscope. She closed her eyes and listened intently. Breath sounds were markedly decreased on the right side. A quick tap on his ribs gave the resonance she was expecting.

‘Danny, your lung has collapsed. I need to put a tube in to help it reinflate.’ She prepared a large-gauge needle and syringe in case she had to resort to emergency measures. He hadn’t deteriorated to a tension pneumothorax, but she wanted to be prepared to act quickly if it did. Much better if she could take the extra minutes to insert a chest tube, though.

‘Whatever. You need. To do,’ he gasped.

‘Okay, I’m giving you a local anaesthetic. You’ll feel a sting.’ She injected him over the lower rib then swabbed the area liberally with iodine solution.

Jack knelt beside her the kit in his hands. ‘What can I do?’

She opened a pack of green sterile drapes.

‘I’ll need one tube and a haemostat. That’s the blunt-nosed clamp with scissor handles. I’ll need that first.’ She snapped on a pair of surgical gloves and positioned the drapes over Danny’s ribs. ‘See at the top there’s the two layers? Can you hold it and peel open the covering when I tell you?’

‘Okay.’ In her peripheral vision she could see him getting the packages ready.

‘Can you feel this, Danny?’ She touched the scalpel to his skin.