Marion Lennox - To the Doctor: A Daughter

Donna’s confusion grew. ‘What’s going on?’

What was going on? Nate didn’t have a clue. He was so at sea that he felt like he was drowning. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Let me past.’ Gemma’s voice was implacable.

‘You can’t leave.’

‘I can. I must. I need to work tomorrow. I’ve taken every one of my sick days and more over the last few weeks, and if I’m not back tomorrow I risk being sacked.’

‘You work?’

‘Amazing but true.’

‘And who looks after Cady while you work?’

‘There’s no joy down that road,’ she snapped, seeing where his thoughts were headed. ‘Cady goes to day care at the hospital and I can’t afford to keep two children in care.’

‘You’re a nurse?’

‘No, Dr Ethan.’ Her patience had pretty much come to an end. ‘I’m a doctor. Amazing as it sounds. Just like my sister. Only I’m so unlike my sister that you wouldn’t believe it. In fact, I’ve never had an illegitimate child in my life. Now, if you don’t mind…’

‘Gemma, I feel funny.’ The child’s voice from beside her was neither plaintive or high-pitched. He was simply stating a fact, and Gemma closed her eyes in a gesture of sheer weariness.

‘I know, sweetheart. So do I. I need to find somewhere for us to have dinner.’ She turned back to Nate. ‘I’ve been waiting all afternoon to see you and I can wait no longer. You have a baby to see to. I have Cady. So can we leave it, please?’

He stared down at the card that she’d given him. There it was in black and white. Dr Gemma Campbell. Anaesthetist. Sydney Central Hospital.

She really was a doctor.

And this was no nightmare. This was cold, hard fact.

‘I can find you at Sydney Central?’

‘Yes. As I said-only if you want the kids to be in contact. It’s up to you. I’ll tell Cady about Mia as he grows up, but if you don’t want her to know…or if you decide on adoption…’

‘Nate, honey, what the hell is going on?’

‘It seems I have a baby,’ Nate said in a voice that held not the slightest hint of humour. His tone said that he’d been trapped. There was anger behind the words and both women heard it.

And surprisingly Gemma’s face softened into very real sympathy.

‘I’m sorry, Nate,’ she told him. ‘I understand you’ve been used. But…so have I. And it does boil down to the fact that you’re Mia’s father. Good luck with her, and I hope you learn to love her-as I love Cady.’

And she smiled and walked around him. Out into the car park. Out of his life. For ever?

DONNA wasn’t the least bit interested in babies.

‘She has to be joking,’ she said flatly as Gemma disappeared into the night. ‘She can’t just dump you with the kid.’

‘No.’

But it seemed she had. Nate stared at the closed door, trying to figure out a reason why he should stride after her and stop her going. Could he ring the police? Could he have them haul her back and accept her responsibility?

But her conversation played itself back in his mind. Over and over. This baby wasn’t Gemma’s responsibility. She was Nate’s.

One stupid act…

He should never have slept with Fiona, he thought wildly. Was he as crazy as Fiona had been? One stupid act…

‘Nate, honey…’

‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to go to the Jazzfest,’ he told her, and her lovely face fell.

‘But we must. We’ve had these tickets for ages and all our friends will be there.’

‘Donna, leave it.’

She paused and stared at him. Then her eyes fell on the baby.

Mia was just waking, and her tiny eyelids fluttered open. With her eyes open the resemblance to Nate was almost uncanny.

‘She really is your baby,’ Donna whispered, stunned.

And Nate looked down.

Green eyes met green eyes. Her gaze was as intent and direct as his. Man and baby, meeting for the first time in both their lives.

Dear God… His gut wrenched as it had never been wrenched in his life before. She was just…beautiful. Perfect. Slowly he reached out a finger and traced the baby-soft skin of her cheek. Still her eyes held his, as if she knew that here was a man whose future was inexplicably locked to hers.

‘You can’t keep her.’ Donna’s voice sounded as if it were light years away-from a past life-and Nate had to wrench himself back to reality. To now. To here and to what counted for commonsense.

‘I don’t know.’

‘The mother…’

‘Is a past girlfriend. I didn’t know she was pregnant. And now she’s dead.’

‘Oh, Nate, I’m sorry,’ Donna said-with the easy sympathy of someone this didn’t affect in the least. She glanced at her watch. ‘Look, why don’t we pop her over into children’s ward? That way we can still make it to the Jazzfest in time for dinner.’

He thought that through. It had distinct appeal. What he needed desperately here was space. ‘I suppose I could…’

‘Of course you could. The nurses there are trained to take care of babies.’ Donna’s tone said that such things were unfathomable. Taking care of babies was something to be handled by experts. Like bomb detonation. ‘And we don’t want her to spoil our evening.’

‘Donna, I-’

‘Look, you’re surely not suggesting we stay home and stare at a baby all night?’

He caught himself at that. It did seem ridiculous. And the hospital was quiet. There were places available in kids’ ward.

He’d shelve the problem until tomorrow, he told himself. He’d give himself time to think.

‘Maybe it’s a good idea.’

‘Of course it’s a good idea.’

But as Nate lifted the tiny pink bundle into his arms-as he smelled the newborn milkiness of her and as he felt her nuzzle contentedly into his shoulder-he thought…

Stay at home and stare at a baby all night?

Suddenly it didn’t seem such a crazy idea at all.

‘My legs feel funny.’

Gemma bit her lip. She really had stretched Cady’s patience to the limit. He was four years old, he was exhausted and he was very, very hungry.

She’d stretched him to the limit time and time again in the past few weeks, she thought bitterly. That was half the reason she was demanding that Nate take responsibility for Mia. Fiona had left a pile of bills a mile high. Gemma had needed to drop everything to be with her during the birth. And then afterwards-the funeral arrangements-everything had fallen to her. And all this time Cady had struggled uncomplainingly by her side.

She lifted him high into her arms and hugged him hard.

‘It’s over now, sweetheart. We’re back to being just you and me.’

‘I liked the baby.’

‘I know. And she’s your sister. When you get a bit bigger you’ll be able to spend some time with her. I hope. But for now she’s better off with her daddy. And I’m better off with you.’

‘He was nice. I’d like a daddy like that.’

Yeah, right. As if. Gemma hugged harder as she carried the little boy into the roadhouse. The place was down at heel and looked distinctly seedy but its upside was that it also looked cheap. She could feed Cady enough to get them on the road back to Sydney.

He’d like a daddy like that?

She’d like one, too, she thought. She couldn’t remember her own father. For the last few years her mother had leaned on her, and the responsibilities for Fiona had all been hers.

And Alan was still there-a nightmare in her background.

Sometimes the responsibilities were far, far too much.

‘Let’s just concentrate on food,’ she told Cady. ‘One step at a time.’

‘Why can’t he be our daddy?’

Because he’d never look sideways at the likes of me, she thought bitterly. What man would? A woman encumbered with debt and child and responsibility up to her ears. And Alan…

Damn. To her horror she felt tears stinging the back of her eyes and she blinked them back with a fierceness that surprised her.

She must be more exhausted than she’d thought.

‘We’ll just get food and then we’ll go,’ she told him, and set him down at the first table she came to.

And he swayed.

‘Cady…’ Her hands came onto his shoulders to steady him. What was wrong? ‘Are you OK?’

‘N-no,’ he whispered, and she had to stoop to hear him. ‘Gemma, the room’s doing funny things. My eyes are doing funny things. Make them stop.’

‘Sure, we can keep her overnight.’ Jane, the cheerful night charge nurse accepted Mia with easy equanimity. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘As far as I know, nothing.’

‘She’s been abandoned,’ Donna chirped in from behind. She’d accompanied Nate across the road to the hospital and stood waiting-still bearing his dinner suit. ‘And we need to go to the Jazzfest.’

‘Of course you do. But…did you say abandoned?’ And then Jane lifted away the blanket covering the baby’s head and her breath sucked in with astonishment. Her eyes flew from the baby’s head to Nate’s and then back again.

Gemma was right. He’d never be able to disown this baby, Nate thought grimly. And the news would be from one end of the valley to the other by the morning. Dr Ethan’s baby, abandoned in Terama.

‘Just look after her for me for the night,’ he told Jane wearily. ‘I need to sort out a few things-in the morning.’

‘I’d imagine you do.’

His eyes flashed anger. ‘There’s no need to jump to conclusions.’

‘No?’ Jane was in her mid-forties. Nate was thirty-two so Jane was certainly not old enough to be his mother-but she sure acted like it.

‘No!’

‘Whatever you say, Dr Ethan.’ She hugged the baby close. ‘Oh, aren’t you just delicious? Looking after you will be pure pleasure.’ She waved Nate and Donna away. ‘Off you go, and enjoy yourselves. And then come back to one gorgeous baby.’

How the hell was he supposed to enjoy himself after that?

Nate somehow managed to respond to his friends and he tried to eat his dinner but only half his mind was on what he was doing. Or less. Maybe less than ten per cent of his mind. The rest was back in the children’s ward with a baby called Mia.