Earthquake Baby

Ten minutes later Laura was relaxed, enjoying the playful banter in the staffroom. She had almost forgotten about the sudden turn of events that had sent her relatively stable patient to Theatre. Almost forgotten about the highly stressful period they had all just endured. Not a bed to spare. One patient left and there was barely enough time to clean the bed area before another took their place.

Marie entered the room carrying a steaming mug, chatting amicably with a man following close behind. It was difficult to see him properly. His head was blocked from her view but Laura got the impression of height and bulk. She had chosen her seat carefully. Crammed in beside the bookcase, it hid her to a certain extent. From where the guest speaker’s chair was positioned it would be difficult to see all of her unless she leant forward.

Marie quickly hushed the group and introduced her guest.

‘Everyone, I’d like you to meet Dr John Riley. He’s St Jude’s new Director of Psychiatry.’

Everyone nodded and smiled and murmured their interest.

‘Actually, John’s a bit formal.’ His cheerful voice resonated around the room. ‘Most people call me Jack.’

Laura’s heart stopped. For one dreadful moment she thought she was having a cardiac arrest. That voice. It couldn’t be him. Could it? Marie sat down and afforded Laura a full view of his face. Oh, no! It was him! She looked again, and her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

Same olive skin. Same dark hair clipped close to his head. Same brown eyes framed by incredibly long lashes. Dark, soft, compassionate. She watched, fascinated despite herself, as he dug his teeth into his bottom lip and smiled at what somebody was saying.

Same sexy, full lips. The same lips she had kissed softly for the last time ten years ago. Kissed as she had got out of his bed and walked out of his life. He was a psychiatrist now? What had happened to surgery?

‘Well, I thought to start off, you might like to introduce yourselves and maybe tell me a little something about your lives.’

Laura watched, her thought processes frozen as people relaxed under his friendly, interested gaze. Somebody cracked a joke and Jack laughed. It was a comforting noise, gently blanketing the room.

Laura knew how that felt. It made you feel safe. Like being cocooned in a blanket on a cold and rainy night. He had made her feel like that. Safe. Reassured.

There were only two more people to go before those eyes would be focussing on her. Laura’s mind was in a total dither. She wanted to run but felt incapable of breathing, let alone anything involving major muscle groups.

She had changed a little, sure, in ten years. A different hairstyle, a few kilos lighter. But it was futile to think that he would not remember her. She wasn’t flattering herself. They had shared a momentous, life-changing experience. For a brief period, ten years ago, he had been her lifeline. A superficial change in physical appearance could not obliterate that.

All he had to do was glance out the corner of his eye and he would see her, but he was much too professional for that. His gaze and attention was one hundred per cent fixed on the person who was talking. They had his complete and undivided attention. She tried to sink further from view.

‘Ah…one in every crowd,’ he joked. ‘Something to hide?’ Jack shifted in his chair to get a better view of the staff member beside the bookcase.

He recognised her immediately. Felt his eyes widen as shock and disbelief engulfed his body.

‘Laura?’ The question rasped from his throat.

The laughter in the room subsided as speculation and curiosity took hold.

‘You two know each other?’ Marie asked.

Jack did not answer. He was speechless. It was her…really her. After ten years of wondering…wishing. Here she was. In front of him.

A little different maybe, considering the last time he had seen her she’d been naked and sated beside him. He remembered his dissatisfaction on waking to find that she had left some time in the night. It felt like yesterday.

There were so many things he wanted to ask, to know. His mind crowded with questions, each more urgent than the previous one. How she was and what had she been doing and why the hell had she left him like that? He had wanted to hold her some more, talk some more, make love some more.

When Marie had talked about a Laura, it hadn’t occurred to him that it would be her. His Laura. He had given up reacting to the name years before.

He watched as her eyes widened and he read the plea expressed in their blue depths. Please, don’t reveal me.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘We go back a bit.’

He was rewarded with a look of such gratitude he forgave himself the little white lie. Good grief, he thought. They don’t know. These people, her colleagues, don’t know who she is or what she’s been through. How had she managed that?

‘Well…’ He cleared his throat. ‘We must catch up…later.’

‘Mmm.’ Laura nodded.

She listened but did not hear any of the group debrief session. Her thoughts whizzed chaotically around her head at a million miles an hour. It was him. Jack. It was really him!

The same Jack who had occupied too many waking and nearly all her sleeping hours for a decade. What was she going to do? She couldn’t think. The beginnings of a headache crawled across her temples.

Somebody laughed loudly, jarring across Laura’s taut nerves. She had to admire Jack’s skill. He had a knack at drawing people out. The stresses of the last few weeks had affected everyone. It was his job to be their pressure valve, allowing the steam to escape. Ease the tension.

Patients and situations were openly discussed, putting them into perspective. Unlike her, the people she worked with were much more open to this form of communication. They felt it helped and Laura knew, in reality, that these sessions were invaluable. But circumstances had given her a few coping strategies of her own.

‘What about you, Laura?’

‘Huh?’ she asked belatedly, becoming aware of people looking expectantly at her.

‘Marie was saying that you were looking after Mr Reid when he tried to clock out today.’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you feel about that?’

Still shrouded in the mental fog of disbelief, she groped around for a generic answer he couldn’t analyse too much.

‘Concerned.’

‘Is that all?’

For God’s sake, she wanted to yell, stop talking to me. Leave me be. I need to get my head around this. ‘Worried for his family.’ She shrugged.

‘You don’t seem very concerned or worried.’ Jack observed. Brown eyes watched her carefully from below long lashes.

‘Oh?’ That’s because all I can think about now is you!

Silence filled the space between them. Laura just wanted to get away. She didn’t want to indulge in a philosophical debate. She wanted to be gone.

Jack finally spoke. ‘He was a long-term patient. He looked like he’d turned the corner. Surely his setback was a shock?’

‘This is an intensive care unit. People are critically ill. Sometimes they get worse before they get better.’ Now his persistence was really irking her.

‘Sometimes they don’t get better.’

‘Sometimes.’

Jack read her body language loud and clear. Arms crossed, legs crossed, back erect. Subject closed. She didn’t want to talk about it. He wondered how often she did that. Laura had been through a major trauma ten years ago. The emotional baggage from that, mixed with a high-stress work environment, was not a good combination. She was a prime candidate for burnout.