Miracle Times Two

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARE the babies still alive? Have they gone to Josh’s unit?’

Even babies that premature were often born alive and a few of them actually pulled through, albeit with a legacy of permanent disabilities, but it was an outside chance that they would have survived anything other than a Caesarean birth.

‘One is.’ Daniel grimaced, silently, the brilliant colour of his dancing blue eyes strangely flat. ‘I’ve admitted Sheelagh into the isolation room overnight. I told her it was in case of complications, but they both know it’s just a matter of time before …’

She nodded her understanding even as she thought that they really should think of a better name for the little suite at the furthest end of the unit. Apparently, that little area had been one of the arrangements Daniel had instigated within the first few days of his appointment—a place where mothers who had lost their babies could stay for monitoring and treatment without fear that their devastation would be made worse by the sights and sounds of pregnant women or healthy newborn babies all around them.

‘Did it happen because of the accident?’ Jenny demanded, something about the tension surrounding him like an electrical field warning her that there was worse news to come.

‘My guess is that one of the babies died in utero and that triggered a spontaneous abortion of both foetuses.’ He sank heavily into the chair and came to rest with his hands tightly linked together on the array of happy photos still spread over the inevitable pile of papers in front of him. He gazed blankly at them for several endless seconds while she fought the urge to go to him and throw her arms around him, to cradle his head against her and ask if there was anything she could do.

‘The person they ran down was Aliyah’s husband,’ he announced rawly, and his devastated expression rocked her back on her heels.

‘Dear Lord,’ she gasped, sinking heavily onto the edge of the nearest chair when her legs refused to support her. ‘Is he …?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the word, but she didn’t need to for him to know what she was asking.

‘He’s in theatre. Depressed skull fracture, punctured lung, broken leg … you name it, he’s got it,’ he listed grimly and she felt her eyes widen with each additional injury on the list.

‘But he’s still alive?’ she pleaded anxiously.

‘For the moment,’ he agreed and it only took the tone of his voice to know that the prognosis wasn’t good.

Her heart sank like a stone. ‘What are you going to tell Aliyah?’ The image in her head of how tenderly the injured man had been supporting his wife less than an hour ago was so clear that it was almost painful.

‘How on earth was he injured so badly?’ she demanded on a sudden surge of anger for the destruction of such a perfect couple made even more tragic by the fact they were finally expecting the babies they both wanted so badly.

‘Did he forget where he was and step out into the traffic, or …?’

‘Apparently, the Griffiths’ car went out of control and mounted the pavement at the entrance to the hospital. He was slammed against one of the pillars and trapped.’

Jenny winced as she imagined a human head coming into contact with that impressive construction of unforgiving Cornish granite.

‘And I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to say to Aliyah,’ he said finally, his voice as rough as gravel. ‘She’s still shaky after that scare with the baby and we’re waiting for the antibiotics to do their thing. I don’t know whether I should hold off telling her in the hopes that he comes out of surgery with some sort of positive prognosis, or whether I should go to her straight away in case she needs to prepare herself to say her final farewell while he’s still alive.’

‘Or at least given a semblance of life by various machinery,’ she muttered, feeling sickened by the awful possibility.

How would she feel if she were in the same position?

Would she rather know, immediately, that the man she loved had been terribly injured and was not expected to live, and have to agonise for hours imagining what was going on in theatre? Or would she prefer to receive the news after every effort had been made to repair the damage?

‘If she weren’t pregnant …’ Daniel muttered and she knew he was weighing up exactly the same options and trying to balance their patient’s right to know against the increased risk to her pregnancy such a shock might cause.

A sudden unearthly scream from further along the corridor sent all the hairs up on the back of Jenny’s neck.

‘What on earth …?’ She whirled and took off out of Daniel’s office at a fast clip, almost colliding with a young nurse catapulting out of Aliyah Farouk’s room.

‘Nooo!’ The unearthly scream sounded again, then was replaced by a wail that degenerated into inconsolable weeping.

‘What’s going on here?’ Daniel demanded, glaring fiercely at the shocked-looking nurse.

‘I don’t know, s-sir!’ The poor girl’s teeth were almost chattering. ‘Sh-she was trying to phone her husband’s work to leave a message and they said he hadn’t arrived. S-so she said she was going to try his mobile phone and … and …’

Jenny winced as she put two and two together. It didn’t take much to imagine the scene in a busy A and E, especially as her husband’s clothing would have been summarily cut off his body to enable swift access to his injuries. Keeping track of his mobile phone would have been a low priority, everything being stuffed into the same bag for later retrieval.

It was all too easy to imagine the junior member of staff detailed to take charge of yet another patient’s belongings to think it was a good idea to tell a seriously injured patient’s wife that she needed to come to the hospital as soon as possible.

‘Okay, Joanne. Go and get yourself a cup of tea and don’t come back until you’ve stopped shaking. Let someone know where you’re going,’ Jenny said.

‘Th-thank you,’ she stammered, but Jenny was already following Daniel into the room, shutting the door firmly against any intrusion.

She was just in time to see him reach out to the keening woman and gasped in disbelief when Aliyah turned on him like a rabid dog, her eyes wild and her fingers stiffly curved as though ready to rip him to shreds.

‘No, Aliyah, no,’ Daniel said, his deep voice almost crooning as, far from backing away, he stepped straight into the danger zone and wrapped a consoling arm around her shoulders. ‘Gently. Gently,’ he said. ‘This is not good for the babies. Think about those precious babies.’ His words were almost hypnotic in their gentle rise and fall, but it took several racking moments before Aliyah’s devastation would allow her to hear what he was saying.

Suddenly, she flung herself into Daniel’s arms and he had to ease himself onto the side of the bed to support her weight as she sobbed, clearly broken-hearted.

‘Why?’ she wailed at intervals, but there was obviously no answer for the randomness of chance. If her husband had decided not to go back to his office, or if he had decided to leave even a couple of minutes earlier, this would not have happened.

It was only when she finally drew back from Daniel’s comforting hold and looked up at him from tear-swollen eyes she demanded, ‘Why did he have to die before he could even see our sons?’ that Jenny understood the enormity of her devastation.

For a moment, she wondered whether the information was true. Then she put her rational head on and recognised that the person who had answered the phone in A and E was unlikely to have more up-to-date news than Daniel.

Still, she reached for the phone and pressed the relevant numbers.

‘Theatres,’ said a crisply efficient voice when the call was answered.

‘This is Jenny Sinclair calling on behalf of Daniel Carterton,’ she announced. ‘Can you give me an update on Mr Farouk’s surgery? His wife’s a patient in our unit.’

‘Oh, no!’ the voice exclaimed, instantly sympathetic, then, ‘Just give me a minute to check,’ but Jenny wasn’t worried about a moment or two’s delay. It might give Aliyah time to comprehend the fact that her husband hadn’t died at the scene of the accident, as she seemed to believe.

‘Surgery’s still ongoing,’ the voice reported in her ear while she watched Daniel try to calm his patient enough to listen to what he needed to explain. ‘There are three of them working on him at the moment—a thoracic surgeon, an orthopod and a neurosurgeon. They said they’ve managed to stop the bleeding but there’s still a long way to go before they’ll know anything definite. Do you want someone to phone with updates?’

‘Please,’ Jenny confirmed. ‘Updates would be good,’ and she put the phone down.

‘He’s still alive?’ Aliyah breathed with tremulous disbelief, her thick dark lashes clumped by tears. ‘Please, tell me he’s still alive.’

‘So far,’ Jenny cautioned, stepping close enough to take the hand the young woman held out to her. She squeezed it reassuringly between both of hers as she paraphrased the information she’d just been given. ‘So far, they’ve managed to stop him bleeding, but that’s only the first step.’

‘What else do they have to do? When will I be able to see him?’ She flipped back the covers and started to slide her feet over the side of the bed. ‘Please, can I go to him? I need to be with him.’

Daniel had to step in with a doctor’s authority before they could persuade their patient that there was absolutely no point in trailing through the hospital only to have to sit in a surgical waiting room.

‘We’ll probably receive news, here, before you would, there,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘Jenny has arranged for someone in the surgical department to phone through updates as soon as there is anything to tell us.’

‘You promise?’ Her dark eyes flicked frantically from one to the other. ‘You will tell me as soon as you hear anything?’

‘I’ll promise if you’ll promise, too,’ Daniel said firmly, then pointed to the figures on the monitor panel. ‘You must lie back and relax and concentrate on bringing your pulse and blood pressure down, for your babies’ sakes. Do you think your husband would forgive himself if worrying about him damaged your sons?’